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John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad - Confession time.
I was in the handicapped gym class in early grade school.
They pulled us out of normal class thirty minutes before gym to give us one on one instruction on whatever activity the rest of the kids would be doing that day.
It was mostly an anti-bullying measure.
Teach us the activity so we didn’t completely embarrass ourselves.
It was me & two kids with Down syndrome.
It was embarrassing.
The worst part came when the regular class arrived early. They had to stand outside & wait for our instruction to end. Then we would file out & they would harass us as we walked past.
I had great strength and stamina but zero coordination.
(Years later we found out I’m in the top 0.1% for depth perception. My brain was getting overwhelmed by extra information.)
So the Presidential Fitness Test was a big deal. The top kids got their picture taken and hung on the wall outside the gym.
I thought I had a real shot. It was strength and conditioning. Not hand eye coordination.
One mile run.
Pull ups, sit ups, push ups.
Flexibility.
Shuttle run.
Obama killed the test because, he said, kids were getting bullied.
Like most things Obama said, the truth ran the other direction. This was my chance to STOP getting bullied.
Problem was, I was a chubby kid but I put my heart and soul into it & got gold.
But in my mind, gold wasn’t enough. Gold got your name on a list.
Some schools added a bonus event for the elite tier:
Standing broad jump.
50 yard dash.
Rope climb.
Softball throw.
My school picked rope climb.
If you got gold and could climb all the way to the ceiling, your picture went on the wall.
You had a few weeks to do it. The real athletic kids nailed it the first day. By week two, almost nobody else had reached the top.
It was the last day. I was determined.
I could get up the knotted rope. The smooth rope was the problem. My hands kept landing in awkward spots, my grip kept slipping, my brain kept misreading the distance.
So on that last day, I closed my eyes and started climbing.
I felt like I was going to die. This was the 80s. The gym was two stories tall. There were no safety ropes, no mats worth a damn. If you slipped, you could die.
Finally my hand reached the top. I was so excited I opened my eyes. I almost fell.
I could not catch my breath for the life of me. The mix of excitement and exhaustion made yelling impossible.
So I hung there, trying to get someone’s attention. No luck. I was dying and nobody noticed me up there.
I tried the Jedi mind trick. No luck.
Then class ended & everyone started walking out.
One kid pivoted, turned back into the gym to hold the door, and looked up.
He yelled, “Look at John!”
Everyone ran back in & cheered.
Then the gym teacher told me to come down. I refused. I couldn’t talk. I was breathing too hard.
I worked one hand free and made the shutter click sound with my mouth.
They figured out I wanted my picture taken.
This was before digital. You needed a camera, a flash, and film. All of it had to be loaded.
The gym teacher had assumed nobody would make the climb that day, so she had put everything away.
She begged me to come down and get my picture taken on the ground. I refused.
She threatened to call the fire department. I refused.
Remember, I was chubby. I had extra weight to hold up there & I never fully mastered the leg lock technique.
It was one of the most painful ten minutes of my young life while she got the camera ready.
The entire class never stopped cheering.
I got my picture taken.
I still had to go to the handicapped gym class. But a few times after that, when the kids waited outside & tried to bully me, I just pointed to my smiling face on the wall.
So yes, the Presidential Fitness Test matters. More than most people realize.
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