Okay, I said I would return to tell you all about my junior high experiences. First of all it would have been someplace around 1983/4-ish. I was in 7th grade gym. We had all heard horror stories of the lady gym teacher. We had 2 gym teachers in the junior high, a guy and a woman. Both were very very strict. The woman's last name was, and I am going to say this and I don't mean to offend anyone but was very German/Hitler sounding. Her daughter was also in my grade and in my gym class and I often wondered if maybe that was part of the reason she was so hard on us as a class, but after all of the horror stories I doubt it, lol.
We had to wear uniforms that year. When we got to 8th grade they did away with that but when I was in 7th we had to. They were 100 percent polyester. They zipped all the way down. They were one piece but looked like they could be 2 pieces. The top had thin vertical green stripes and the bottom section a matching solid green. The zipper didn't lay flat either but sort of buckled from being worn so much over the years. The zipper toggle wasn't the normal thin toggle but had that classic 70's style ring, large ring might I add on it. They were so freaking ugly. Also very uncomfortable.
We had to take showers after each class. And at that point in our lives most of us had already started our periods, well I would say about 50 percent of us anyway, then by 8th an additional 25 percent had I would say. According to Hitlers rules we were only allowed 2 excuses per year for getting out of a shower. Most of us had a period every month so that meant that there were many months that we had to shower while we were on our period. We had a large locker room with rows of lockers and benches. The floor was not cement but almost like a stone of some sort. It got very very slippery when wet. The shower was a room that was about 14 by 14 if I had to guess. There were against the back wall 8 shower heads. Sometimes there was a large white curtain and sometimes not. After class we all had to strip naked and go shower. What we did was we just walked from the right to the left through the shower not stopping. On the far left of the curtain was the gym cadet who stood there and handed out the towels. These towels were all white and were only a little bigger than a hand towel. We tried not to get our hair wet. The showers were pointless because we didn't use soap and it only took us a few seconds to get from one end of the shower heads to the other. Needless to say, white towels and we had to shower even on our periods. Nasty. And back then most of us who were on our periods did not use tampons because, and I can laugh at this now, but back then in my town we were sort of taught that only the bad girls our age used tampons. Tampons were really for married women only, lol. So you can imagine the mess. I was very lucky because I never had regular periods so I never had that issue of a bloody towel. I did however have the embarrassment of slipping on the wet stone naked. That was enough embarrassment for me lol. It hurt. I ended up with a deep internal bruise on my right hip that hurt like mad for 4 or 5 months.
When we got in trouble, didn't shower fast enough, or if we were on the losing team or whatever he or she wanted to give us to do, if we lost or did something wrong we were made to run laps. The basement gym where the lady Hitler taught was one of those gyms that had the running track around the top of it and the gym was sank in. The guy teacher had the regular gym with the auditorium in it. This auditorium had a balcony that we could cut across to go to classes on the other side of the building. The main level though was deep and sloped, and that slope was pretty steep. Most days as a warm up we had to run 5 laps. If we lost a contest or we were bad we would have to run more than that. It was so hard. When we were with Hitler we would have to run laps on the track above the gym.
When we were in 8th grade and was going through our Hitler rotation we were doing gymnastics. So for like 3 weeks we had to do things at different stations. Most everyone loved that rotation. I hated it. INstead of running we would do a lot of stretches. One of our warm-ups we did was where we roll up on our backs and elbows rather and do this bicycle thing. Well I am not sure why but I can't do that. Skinny fat or chubby I can't. I think it has something to do with my body proportions. I have short arms and a normal sized torso. So when I try to prop myself up like that in order for my elbows to be on the ground and my hands supporting my body they only reach to my mid ribcage where as most people can put their hands on their hips. Which is where they need to be to properly support your body. Needless to say Hitler would yell and yell and yell at me because I couldn't do that. However my hips are "double jointed" so to speak so when we did the stretch where you sit on the floor and put your feet together and push down on your knees, well my knees lay flat on the floor already, so that stretching does nothing for me. This angered Hitler even more. The final knot in Hitler's chain was when I refused to get up on the standard balance beam. When I was younger I was in a good gymnastic program that competed frequently and most of us were pretty good. I was okay and would place, but never first, never last. I was up on the beam doing my routine and did a back flip. I knew as soon as I pushed off that I wasn't square and didn't push hard enough to get me around on a full rotation. I came down on the beam scraping my face and landed on my shoulder. I was too afraid to get back up after that and ended up dropping out of gymnastics forever. Hitler was trying to make me get back up on the beam and I refused. Back then no one talked about PTSD. She kept shouting things like "if you fall off a horse you need to get back on" and what not. Because I refused I had to run laps every gym class until our gymnastic rotation segment was over. I will say this, when track season came around I was already conditioned, lol. That was the only time I ever went against a teacher. Needless to say the only time I ever got in trouble in school.
The bathroom stalls down in the gym locker room also didn't have doors on them. That was also very embarrassing especially on your period. That time in most teens lives are not good. Our bodies are changing all the time. We bleed, we sweat, we leak, and have erections that are so new for us no matter what sex we are.
And those are just a few of my tails, but true, from my gym classes in junior high school. Hope you find something here that you can use.
Mashie