When I was in the first year at middle school, in Miss Hale’s class, my parents returned from a parents’ evening looking disappointed. My nine-year-old self picked up on this. It wasn’t my schoolwork: that was OK. It was that the teacher had revealed that in PE I was the only one in the class who couldn’t do a forward roll.
This was true. It wasn’t that I was physically incapable – I was in the school football team and, without wishing to boast, probably the ninth-quickest runner. I just had this mental block. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The idea of the world momentarily going upside down was too much for me. The prospect of such disorientation was unbearable. If only Miss Hale had taken me to one side and said: “Look, you’re overthinking this – and, believe you me, if you let it, overthinking will blight your life.” But she didn’t, because teachers didn’t talk like that then (and probably don’t do so now, either).
I’d squat down on a mat like everyone else. I’d put my arms straight out in front of me like everyone else. And then everybody else would roll forward and over, while I slumped forward in a heap. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The shame of it.
My parents weren’t having it. Never mind my well-above-average academic performance: this wasn’t good enough. A space was cleared on the lounge floor. I assumed the starting position I knew so well, but now with a parent gripping both sides of me. When I toppled forward, I was firmly manhandled all the way over. It took only another hundred or so repeats of this before I managed to do it on my own. Miss Hale was very pleased with me.
I’d not thought about this for nearly 50 years until, unable to sleep one night this week, I read an article about gymnasts getting what they call the twisties. This took me back to my own pathetic version of this condition. And there I lay in the small hours, worrying I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do a forward roll in the morning.
Eventually, I got out of bed, took a deep breath and, quite naked, executed a perfect forward roll. Turns out it’s like riding a bike: once you’ve done it, you never forget. The dog observed all this without interest before, like me, going back to sleep.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
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