Learning the Ropes
Working out at Club Shed in 2011. I don’t look happy.
These days, at nearly 50 years old, I am told that the immediate physical impression I make is that of a fit, athletic and confident man. However, my self-impression is still intertwined with my teenage years when I was barely 140 pounds and not remotely fit.
I remember the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge taking place in gym class when I was in high school. (Now, in high school, 140 was just a dream: I was probably 115 and 5’1”.) The test we took was pull-ups, pushups and sit-ups. There may have been some cardio stuff, too, but those are the exercises I remember, mainly because I could barely hang on the bar let alone to a pull-up; was maybe able to squeeze out one push-up; but weirdly could do sit-ups indefinitely. I remember sitting off to the side with the other non-athletic boys while the athletes continued to add reps and work toward their certificates. I didn’t really care at that point. I just assumed I wasn’t made for that kind of thing, I was more brain than brawn and that was that.
It wasn’t that I was out of shape - I played basketball, ran and walked all around the neighborhood with my friends and rode my bike all over the place. I just wasn’t an “athlete”, and it wasn’t until my senior year that the glimmer that I could change that happened.
Senior year, 1988, we again did some sort of physical assessment in gym class. This time there were the usual pull-ups and pushups and sit-ups, but there was also the rope climb. That they allowed teenage boys to attempt that with just a wrestling mat underneath was, in hindsight, baffling. I didn’t get up very far, but still managed to get a nasty rope burn sliding down a foot or so. All the jocks tried to get to the top, and most of them failed or made it with great effort. And then one of the “non-athletic” nerds took a turn.
Paul Kim was very quiet, and incredibly smart. We nerds had long since stopped trying to top his grades and had settled on three of us usually vying for second place. He never made an impression in gym class, and usually was off to the side with me and the other smart kids making an attempt to play whatever sport we were supposed to be playing. I do remember him being absolutely terrible at basketball, but in a goofy, fun way that actually made it enjoyable to play with him.
Anyway, he stepped up to the rope, took hold, and was up to the top in seconds using only his arms. The whole class was gobsmacked. He came back down just as fast, then went over to the peg board climbing thing and flew up that using just his arms, too. He didn’t make a fuss about it, but everyone realized that not only was this “nerd” the smartest in class, he was also the best athlete.
Turns out he had been training in tae kwon do and had just gotten into amazing shape. I think either his father or uncle ran “Kim’s Karate”, a well-known local school. I realized then that maybe there was a chance for me, but it would still be a few years before I fully embraced my inner athlete and began training in earnest.
