My earliest memory of gym class trauma dates back to third grade recess. I was the weird kid that other kids teased all the time, and the game of dodge ball, when I was in the circle having the ball thrown at me, felt like a personal attack by a gang. But the worst insult came when one of the third grade teachers who was conducting the "class" that day, screamed at me and called me a "weakling" because I couldn't throw the ball worth a damn.
It went on from there; with the infamous President's Council of Physical Fitness tests that elementary school kids were required to pass. I couldn't do pull-ups. I hated jumping jacks. And as for rope-climbing, well, the lack of arm strength that caused Mabel Young to call me a weakling in the third grade was not about to allow me to climb a rope to the high ceiling of an elementary school gym. But of course that was no excuse, and so there I was, like Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, hovering three feet off the ground, being laughed at by other kids and screamed at by the teacher, unable to go further.
This is how children learn not to be active.
Later on, I did find things that I enjoyed. Because I had discovered baseball on Father's Day 1964, the day Jim Bunning no-hit the Mets, my father and I often went out to Shea Stadium to watch ball games, and one year I went out for girls' softball. I was no good at it, and I played right field where no one would hit anything to me, but at least I went out for something. I also enjoyed ice skating, or at least I did, until I went to a skating party when I was around eight years old and I was shlepped around the rink by the birthday girl's older sisters, who would say things to each other like "Maybe if she wasn't so fat she could skate by herself."
The irony of all this is that if I look back now at photographs of myself from those years, I wasn't all that fat? I always had a belly, and I was by no means skinny, but I wouldn't look at the kid I was and say "That's a fat kid."
But I learned. I learned that sports were not for me, athletics were not for me, fitness was not for me. I was terrified of heights, and they forced me to do uneven parallel bar exercises. I was afraid of being hit by a ball and they put me in the center of a dodge ball ring. It really wasn't until I got to college and could pick and choose my physical education classes -- things like racquetball and tennis and archery -- that I began to think of these things in terms of having fun instead of being competitive. But old lessons die hard, and I've carried this aversion into adulthood. It wasn't until walking and cycling and yoga became regarded as legitimate avenues to fitness that I started to enjoy moving and stretching on its own merits.
So it was with much applause that I greeted this story in today's New York Times that New York City schools are introducing double-dutch, the complex jump-rope game played by inner city kids, into the physical fitness curriculum:
Stephanie was practicing double dutch, an urban street staple that dates back centuries and, come next spring, will become the newest of 35 varsity sports played in New York City schools. As part of an effort to increase the number of students — particularly girls — participating in competitive athletics, the city will create coed double-dutch teams at 10 high schools, many in predominantly black neighborhoods like Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Harlem where the ropes have long swung on asphalt playgrounds.
Double dutch follows cricket, which was added last year and is now played by more than 400 students at 14 schools, including the elite Stuyvesant High School.
School officials said they were also considering cycling, badminton and netball for varsity sports.
Nearly 33,000 students, about 10 percent of the high school population, play on varsity or junior varsity teams, compared with more than a third in many suburban districts.
“As an urban district, we need to be creative in an urban kind of way, and double dutch does that for us,” said Eric Goldstein, who oversees the Public Schools Athletic League, the governing body for the city’s interscholastic sports. “If you see people doing it, it looks hard and it is hard.”
Kyra D. Gaunt, who wrote “The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop” (N.Y.U. Press, 2006), said that recognizing double dutch as a sport not only taps into something that many children are passionate about, but also gives a nod to the influence of black culture. “They’re helping to regenerate a tradition in the black community and legitimize it in the eyes of a lot of parents,” she said.
Dr. Gaunt, an associate professor of anthropology and black music studies at Baruch College, said that she avoided double dutch as a child because she was so bad at it but that she relearned it while writing her book. She said the appeal of double dutch was that anyone could do it, and that once mastered, it lent itself to individual expression through fancy footwork and dance routines.
Imagine that: a sport that anyone can learn to do, a sport that fits into the life kids lead every day, a sport that does not discriminate against the overweight (as the photo accompanying the story clearly demonstrates); a sport that doesn't necessarily require strength or speed, but that has room for kids who only have speed, or who are quick with their feet; a sport where kids with differing strengths and talents can all participate.
It sure beats rope-climbing, squat-thrusts and jumping jacks.
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