Uni P.E.

Uni’s P.E. program is pretty intense. No one would argue that running for 25 minutes straight in P.E. or lifting weights is easier than any other school's P.E. program. And I’m sure we’ve all heard the complaints from students about how Uni’s P.E. is...different from what they used to do. School athletes of course get out of P.E., because of course we know that they're getting excercise in. But I also know a lot of people that would want to get out of P.E. for doing some outside of school sport, like swimming, tennis, or dance.

Ever since I came to Uni I knew that there are set guidelines for opting out of P.E. Things such as going to practice, having good grades but the most important part seemed to be being a "fully participating member of IHSA." 

Now I understand the logic to this. On our first day of subbie P.E., the teachers made it clear that petitioning out of P.E. was a reward to the school athletes for representing the school. At that point, I’d accepted that I would have to find some way to not get completely exhausted by P.E. so that I’d still be able to work hard in my ballet class later that day. 

As I got older, this got harder, and I can understand how other athletes that don’t do Uni sports feel. There are two major disadvantages to going to P.E. when you’re already doing another physical activity. One, is that you lose 45 minutes to get work done. Just like the Uni athletes, my ballet takes up about three hours of my after school time on Mondays through Thursdays if I don’t have rehearsal. And 5 or more hours on Fridays and Saturdays. So having basically the same time commitment as the Uni athletes, I don’t get the extra time to get my work done, meaning I have to be super picky with how I spend my time. 

The other disadvantage is the physical toll that P.E. has on my body. Some days I have P.E., and I’m fine the rest of the day. I don’t really feel a difference. But after some workouts, my tendons are super tight, and my muscles are exhausted. The most disappointing thing that I’ve faced is knowing that I'm too tired to push myself hard in ballet, because I ran too hard in P.E.

Don’t get me wrong. A lot of the time I really appreciate the extra physical activity and endurance that fitness gives me. But we’re never given much leeway. Dancers are lucky, because during our tech week, we’re allowed to use the elliptical, but if you have a huge workload that day, too bad. 

Then when I went to California for one semester, I learned something crazy. If you had another physical activity outside of school that exceeded 15 hours a week, and was overlooked by an instructor, then you could petition out of P.E. I was amazed at how accommodating they were to athletes that didn’t participate with the school. And it wasn't just that one place, plenty of other schools allow this. After all, we are still representing the school, just not through a state sanctioned sport.

That being said, even if we were to get out of P.E., I'd probably still go most of the time because I usually enjoy the challenge and benefits. But the mandatory class definitely makes school and ballet a lot tougher to balance some days, especially during our tech weeks where we spend 7 to 8 hours rehearsing each night.

I'm not saying Uni should completely rethink their P.E. ideals but I think if they were more lenient and understood the physical and mental stress the non-Uni athletes have, it could benefit us a lot.