Writer Stephanie Kuehnert Overcame Gym Class PTSD and So Can You!

As the child of two nurses, I was an active, healthy kid outside of school. I took swimming classes since before my first birthday and the pool was my favorite place to be all summer long. I was always enrolled in either dance or gymnastics. My primary forms of transportation were biking or rollerblading (well, as a child of the ’80s, I started with roller skates.) I even played baseball and basketball with my brother and boy cousins.  All of these activities were for fun. No one cared how well I did. It was never a competition.

Gym class, however, was a different experience. There the boys taunted, “oh my God, you suck!” at any missed swing, throw, or catch. I was always among the last to be picked and the first to be blamed for any losses.

But the worst thing about gym class wasn’t the bullying or the sexism or even that universal childhood trauma known as dodge ball. It was that goddamn yearly Presidential Physical Fitness Test (now known as the President’s Challenge.

A Writer Reconnects with a Childhood Passion as a Window to the Perfect Workout

As a kid I liked to sit. Sitting meant converting my living room into an apartment complex for the spandex-clad Barbies I’d fought to own. It meant watching a VHS Tape of Professor Harold Hill wooing Marian the librarian and recording the songs on my clunky tape recorder, then giving the tape to friends.

It meant reading about Hobbits or Babysitters or Anastasia Krupnik, challenging myself to beat my record, to read faster than I had before. I have no idea whether other kids on my block went out to play after dinner; I’d tug at the front window curtains, anxious to keep the night where it belonged.