President's Physical Fitness Test Failure, Success as a Man

[oak]

(In this post I criticize only the physical aspects of the children and adults who demeaned me physically. To others, including those children who left me alone, and anyone kind enough to read this rant, I wish physical happiness. I do not judge anyone physically, except those who started it with me. I do judge them. If this post offends your sensibilities about physical fitness and body image, please accept my apologies. At the risk of offending others, I offer my honesty.)


In 1983, at age 7, I remember crying in the gym equipment room because I couldn't skillfully kick a soccer ball. The other children laughed at me.

Around that same time I scored in the bottom percentiles of the President's Physical Fitness test. Today I know it has a questionable original sample (ie not representative), but I didn't understand about representative samples until graduate school. All I heard was: Not Enough.

And, what elementary school gym story is complete without the following... yep...the classic "getting picked last in front of everyone".

Despite their best efforts to demean me, reduce me, marginalize me, they failed.

So utterly failed.

I'd feel sorry for them, but they tried to destroy me.

I had a loving homelife and friends who cherished me. Still, the elementary school fitness complex saw me as a misfit doll.

Fast forward to 2013, ironically 30 years later.

I am fit. I enjoy good health. I can walk for miles if I choose, and enjoy nature.

The fine specimens of Presidential Fitness? Uhhhhhh....... the powers that be picked the wrong horses.

Many of the pride of my grade school are dead, drug addled, or living dead.

Now I could lose my health, or life, in the next thirty seconds. I could.

And I have no problem with the many students and gym teachers who left me the hell alone. I wish them well.

But the people who f***ed with me can go f*** themselves.

They chose to emotionally murder a happy kid. Not only did they fail, they should have waited until 37, rather than 7, to see what time would prove us to be.

Rather than try to extinguish the light they saw in the child me, they should come talk to the current me, and see if they are still better than me physically.

(Bitter rant follows, as if I have not been bitter enough)

I wish, dearly wish, the gym teachers and promoters of the President's Physical Fitness test would line up their cherished chosen ones against me.

Let's do it: let's pick people one by one. If it was good enough in 1983, it is good enough now.

They publicly took a stand then, so have enough courage to do it now.

But uh-oh. Like I said, many of my bullies are not in such fine shape anymore.

I do not blame the children who abused me. (Although I do not consider them morally innocent or commendable.)

I do fully blame, condemn professionally even, the teachers who allowed it, and participated it.

They were wrong, they were stupid, and my life is a living breathing confrontation to their wrongness.

They lose.

[Cheldoll]

But the people who f***ed with me can go f*** themselves.

This. A thousand times, this.

Great post, I really enjoyed it. I don't think anyone can fault you about physical judgments -- this was just about potential no one saw in you and your triumph despite the wounds inflicted on you by the people who wrote you off.

[oak]

Thanks Chell. I really appreciate your kindness. And screw all those people!

I grade you the top 1 percentile of coolness! You have a good heart.

[shanarchy]

Oak, that was awesome.

I don't work in what I studied, because I feel I'd be a hypocrite.
I don't talk about what I know, because I am not practicing it.
I am afraid of hurting someone by mindlessly teaching what's supposed to be done.
I have quit jobs at my area of expertise because I think and feel I am not good enough to help others.

I am a certified Physical Education Teacher.
I have a master's in Health Promotion.
I am a certified Personal Trainer.
I am studying for a post-grad degree.

I have all this knowledge that I don't put into practice.
Why I don't practice it is the reason why I'm here.

I admire you.
I apologize on behalf of the teacher in my profession.

[oak]

Shanarchy, hello and thank you for your post. It brought me a tear of joy, and of happiness.

I accept your apology on behalf of the physical education community. You demonstrate the moral courage my teachers lacked.

You'll be happy to hear that this morning, before I read your fine post, I hiked for several miles, enjoying nature. While the President's Committee on Physical Fitness found me lacking, I grade myself as... Enough.

If I may be so bold, I suggest your career ups and downs are all the more reason you (yes, you!) are very important to the physical fitness:

Ten years I was in graduate school and volunteered for safe zone training for LGBT allies.

At the end of the presentation, the speaker said this:

"If you are heterosexual, you can accomplish more than I ever can because they will never listen to me, a gay man. I have dedicated the last ten years of my professional life to protecting LGBT students, and you can do more: they will listen to you."

While I hope the culture is more welcoming of LGBT voices today, I said that to say this:

The fat kid, the slow kid, the awkward kid, the klutzy kid, the effiminate kid, the stuttering kid, the kid with glasses, the one who can't kick the ball...

They need you, Shanarchy.

You.

You can work from the inside. The physical fitness people will never listen to me, but they'll listen to you.

When that fat/slow/awkward kid is mocked, you'll be there. When the golden boys and mean girls laugh at the kid's honest if failing efforts, you'll be the one to confront them.

That physically inelegant student will grow up, and remember that someone stuck up for them.

You'll be the hero, the champion, that I didn't have. That kid can't stick up for herself or himself. Yet.

All they need is an example. You can be that champion.

[oak]

Bump, after almost ten years.

(Edit to add: I was mocked and bullied as a child for doing so poorly on the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.)

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-presidents-physical-fitness-test/id1535408667?i=1000495386842

(I list this fine episode of this excellent podcast to demonstrate that the haters lost.)

I've rewritten this three times, and each was long and bitter.

Just posting here is all I can handle.

I turned things around.

They said I was in the bottom three percentile, that 97% of my age-cohort was more fit than me.

They had many proud, categorical words. Strange, they have very little to say now.

I'm taking this narrative back. I'll post this week about how I subverted their abuse, and turned it into happy action. But for now, I state what happened.

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello Oak!

Witnessing your turnaround! You get full credit for your turnaround here, forget the haters.

Looking forward to reading your upcoming posts this week! All the best, take care.

[oak]

Thanks, Manuel Moe!

I do indeed forget the haters, which is easy to do when surrounded by more successful people, like I was on Saturday.

A happy update, friends

Though the strength competition I participated in on Saturday is a small sport, I am happy to report that they made me feel welcome. They were eager to demonstrate the methods, advising training plans, and encouraged me to come back next year.

And these are competitors at the highest level: several of them were top-5 in the world right before the pandemic.

I'll stick with winners. It is easier to win, as the great Earl Nightengale says.

[manuel_moe_g]

A happy update, friends
[...]
I'll stick with winners. It is easier to win, as the great Earl Nightengale says.

This update makes me happy!

[Mental Fairy]

Hi Oak

This has been a powerful chapter in our forum.

Something clicked suddenly reading through this.

A young girl aged 16 came to my clinic on Monday with her mum. Terribly thin, beautiful eyelashes and sad tired eyes hidden behind these glued on beauties.

Her school recently told her off for not participating in gym class, they wouldn’t accept her comments of pains and discomfort. Her friends distanced themselves from her as she became in the two hard basket to understand. Her mum made the appointment weeks ago and finally the time came to investigate. We scanned her, noted Loss of body fat and skin a distorted colour. We found two very large masses in her abdomen and ran some bloods. Her tumour markers are so high we knew immediately that things were dicey. We married up all the blood work to the scan and awake the CT and MRI today to confirm it’s not also in the chest.

I sat with her and we talked outside the room. She mentioned to me that the school assumed she was depressed, on drugs, or had learning disorder. In fact her grades are good and her mind is low due to the pain and her iron levels are so low we had to give her iron transfusion then and there.

What hurt more than anything to her was her friends and social media. People commented on her completion, her lack of energy and her inability to fit in. Her friends put the eyelashes on her to brighten up her face. My heart broke.

Who in their right mind would think adding a false body of hair or a false body part would make someone look better and automatically have the emotions to match how they look?
It made her feel worse.

She explained that all her friends were detached from themselves and the cool kids really were the ones not following social media and taking part in the coolest trends. However, hanging with them automatically earns you a rejection notice from everyone else who is disconnected from themselves.

This young girl is about to face the fight of her life with a tumour that is far more connected to her than any living person on this earth.

Social media, people encouraging others to be perfect with no smile lines on the face, false body parts and hair, not to mention the sexualised clothing sales and don’t get me started on all this false media. It al represents another type of disease.

This girl feels rejected from her social rings but she is about to become so much more connected to herself because she has to fight for her life.

She will learn so much more about herself than the people whom judge her. She will mature to fast and feel love on levels she will never be able to explain. She will be taught very quickly what matters in life.

Love, compassion, acceptance, courage, persistence and gratitude.

Some people need to grow up and look inwards when they can’t pick someone else to be in their team just because they can’t kick a ball in the perfect way, or if they don’t have enough eyelashes !!!

That’s my rant for the day