Why I quit netball

In Year 5 and 6 at Cinnamon Brow primary school I was on the school first team for netball. I didn’t stick in one position; I think my main two were centre and goal defence. We played locally against nearby schools, and in Year 6 won a local competition against three other schools, called the Police Cup – I have a photo of the team with the police officer who presented them to us – PC Lockie (he later married one of the school teachers). We played Longbarn, Padgate and one other school – it might have been St Bridgets. In the same year we also beat the local might of St Margarets. They had always been known as the best school in our part of Warrington, and were to be feared. But we won 6-5 I think, in a friendly.

I always felt I was quite good at netball. I knew I wasn’t one of the best on my team, but we had played together a long time and had a good vibe. Then I went to high school, and from 30 girls in a year it went to 70, and it became much harder to get into the netball squad, because of course more girls wanted to play and the competition was higher. I lost interest a little. I remember the netball training being quite difficult there, in terms of the girls being a bit vicious, a bit rough. I also don’t think many of my friends at the high school were into netball. I tried other things, mainly athletics. I represented the school in 100m and discus, at Victoria Park. I came last, but I didn’t care at the time.

In the last term of Year 8 I moved to a girls’ school in the south. From 70 girls in a year, there were suddenly 150. And a lot of them played netball. One time sticks in my mind now. I went to lunch time practice. I was new; I spoke differently; I didn’t know many of the girls. I was put into a position – probably on the wing (to me, one of the lowest status positions). The girl I had to mark had ginger hair. She looked, to me, remarkably similar to another girl with ginger hair. In the rush of the game, I marked the other girl by mistake. She just looked at me and said, “why are you marking me?”. It felt quite mocking. I was mortified. Inside I was thinking “because you look like her!” but I didn’t say anything. I lost all confidence to get involved, for fear of making mistakes again. The competitiveness in the school extended into sport. The teacher, I feel, never gave me a chance to get some confidence, get to know the squad. She didn’t give me a look in at all, despite knowing I was the new girl. My friends and I came to call her “dragon lady” throughout our time at the school: too bad she was head of year, Latin teacher, PE teacher, German teacher…

Again few of my friends at this school were sporty. It was more like something to tolerate and bear until the end of the lesson. By Year 10 I was hanging out almost exclusively with a few indie, folky, quiet girls. I guess we mocked the ethos of the school, while pursuing our own academics. We were quite musical, and spent most of our time doing that. Sport wasn’t important. I never played netball again; I don’t even remember playing it in PE lessons in Year 10 and 11.

At university I considered joining the netball club: the mixed one, not the women's one - because I heard that the mixed one was more for fun, they didn't play in competitions so much, and so the standard wasn't as high. However, I couldn't play because they played at the same time as the bowling club, and that was my sport - I was good at it, enjoyed it, and got a place in the team, so I didn't want to give that up for another sport. I think also secretly I was relieved because I had come to think that my ability in netball would be rubbish - partly from the experiences at the girls' school, and partly because by then it had been years since I had played.

But, for the last nine year during my university life I have always wanted to find out about a low level, fun netball league I could and where it wouldn't matter how good I was. Problem is, I'm now at Loughborough University - even the staff have sporty careers, years of playing, keeping fit. I feel like I would not fit in at all - would not even get a look in, and if I didn get to play, would look stupid.

Lately I've heard about the intra-mural sport here, and it doesn't allow anyone who plays on the netball team to join in - so it's s slightly lower level, but still all the women who play other sports and are fit and at least 7 years younger than my sendentary body will be competing. So I'm reluctant to do that too.

If I really have to analyse it down to a single point, I think I am scared to try because the instant rejection I received at the girls' school made me think that I can't possibly be a potential netballer, and that playing a team sport is so totally about performance, confidence and success. This has also been one of the reasons why I stayed away from the staff football club all of last year - I'm going tonight for the first time. That's another post...

My Ph.D

I am a year into my Ph.D. The words I'd use to explain what I'm studying change day to day! Today, the key words are embodied subjectivities and empowering physicalities. I'm based in the Sport Pedagogy and Physical Education group in the Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences department at Loughborough University, UK. Although my research intends to further the steps taken towards equity and inclusion in physical education in UK secondary schools, in order to offer opportunities and participation for all young people, my interests focus on those things I mentioned in the last post, and seeking empowerment, being yourself. This is especially valid for young people, who are constantly developing their identities to fit who they are, want to be, or should be. I would hope that physical education - just that, education about the physical – is able to provide young people with empowering ways to use their bodies and feel good about them.

Should this involve physical activity? This is where I struggle. In my life physical activity has never played much of a part, certainly not something that contributes to my identity. All the thoughts I have about needing to exercise, shift a bit of flab now I’m two years from 30, I ignore them because they stem from media and consumerism that have a vested interest in making us feel bad about our bodies. I do play a competitive sport – Tenpin Bowling – that’s not particularly physical and doesn’t require a great body shape and fitness in order to succeed. But I haven’t failed in life because I stopped going to the gym or haven’t played a sweaty team game since my last disappointing netball games age 15 (why they were disappointing is another post).

I think it is not my place to say that young people should exercise – they get enough messages like that from their schools and government, who are monitoring the apparently declining health of the nation without having some university researcher come and make them feel bad too. Yet in my department, I am surrounded by researchers who have a history as a PE teacher – they all take for granted that exercise and sport are great and we must find ways to increase participation. Of course, this isn’t straightforward and the department tries to ensure equity and inclusion are central to pedagogical and curriculum developments. The basic premise is that current PE structures based on competitive sport are a left over from traditional school systems designed with middle/upper class boys – gentlemen in the making – in mind. Disciplining the body in order to prepare the mind for learning is also central to school ethos. The widely held belief now is that there is a crisis in PE, as young people dislike it, drop out, and are not lifelong active. Girls, reportedly, are the worst for participating, so Something Must Be Done.

But my memories of PE and sport colour my opinions on this. Health? Great – but don’t pressure young people into activity if it means nothing to them. But I do think that when young people do physical activity whether in or out of school, it should be in activities they want to do, in clothing they want to wear, with people, at times and in locations that are comfortable to them. This makes my Ph.D have an existential crisis. The things I want to learn from schools when I start data collection, and the things I want to think about improving, are unclear. Where I think I stand is that physical activity can have a place among other aspects of facilitating a happy and empowering attitude to the body. Healthy thoughts about the body, not straightforwardly healthy bodies through exercise. There is excellent feminist activist work by Dr. Kim Oliver who works with young women to critique and deconstruct the ideas they learn from media and cultural images about ideal bodies and controlling one’s own body. I’m currently looking towards incorporating some of the ideas she has on the place of activist work in PE.

Welcome to Bodies Out Of Place

Welcome to my new blog, Bodies Out Of Place.

The reason for this blog is mainly for exploring my thoughts around bodies and identities, leaning towards examining issues in physical activity and sport. But I'm also interested in the problems and joys of bodies and their experiences in a contradictory gendered and racialised society. I've called this blog Bodies Out Of Place because often spaces/geographies/environments are off-limits to certain bodies. Bodies that don't fit the norm are supposed to be hidden, or disciplined, pummelled into a different shape. Bodies that are fat, unsexy, queer, ugly, disabled, not white, not heterosexual, not middle class are "bad", hidden, and must be improved. Where are the places that all bodies can be safe, strong, celebrated?

This will also be a place for me to thrash out ideas for my research, talk about life as a Ph.D student, and tell stories about my memories of school sport and PE and my current experiences as an (inactive) adult. I believe that telling our own stories/narratives is crucial to a research process that seeks to find personal, lived, experiences and understand the multiple ways in which we all make sense of the discourses and practices structuring our worlds. It might become a research diary for the remaining two years of my Ph.D.

h/t to my friend at the Corporealities blog who posted the Huffington Post article on why academics should blog - it led to this!