Lived Experiences of Physical Education Instructors in Facilitating Distance Learning Education

The global emergency of Covid-19 triggered an unprecedented shift in education that brought new challenges to students and educators alike. In particular, physical education instructors face a unique set of challenges as the most subscribed pedagogical strategies revolve on on-site setting. This study explored the lived experiences of physical education instructors in distance learning education in one of the missionary universities in Baguio City, Philippines. Employing a phenomenological design, data were gathered using semi-structured interviews to explore the struggles and successes in the experiences of physical education instructors who taught combative sports in a distance learning education setting during the academic years covering 2020 through 2022. Processing the interviews revealed themes about the specific struggles experienced by physical education instructors in relation to distance learning education. On the other hand, it revealed that these struggles gave rise to successes borne out of the need to address the identified struggles. Understanding both struggles and successes of physical education instructors is necessary as these could be critical in the successful online implementation of physical education programs, particularly in fitness-combative sports. It is recommended that a study be conducted on the coping mechanisms of fitness-combative sports instructors in dealing with the struggles in online teaching; furthermore, there is a need to examine how documented successes can be fostered to improve distance learning education.


Introduction
Including and especially in the delivery of education. More than 1.725 billion children worldwide were affected by the mandatory suspension of physical classes brought about by the outbreak of COVID [1]. UNESCO (2020) and WHO (2020), as cited by World Bank (2020), recommended adopting a flexible system of education teaching modalities that allow adaptability in using various human and non-human resources, including time, place, and people, while not depending too much on technology [2]. One such form of flexible DLE promotes non-face-to-face pedagogical approaches appropriate in a setup that separates both the teacher and the student physically [3]. DLE has been around for a considerable amount of time, as evidenced by rich literature, including the works of Jaschik et al. (2014), Gurcan and Cagiltay (2020), da Silva et al. (2021). However, DLE was mostly adopted in the context of industrial countries and fewer in the third world nations [4] not until the COVID outbreak in 2019 (UN, 2020) that caused almost all schools in most countries, including the Philippines (CHED Order 04 s.2020, and DepED Order 032 s.2020) to shift to DLE to slow the spread of COVID-19 and lessen the pandemic's negative effects on education [5].
As teachers as lead implementers of DLE, it is of utmost importance to find out teachers' lived experiences in today's mode of learning and how these lived experiences may affect their performance. By lived experience, we specifically refer to human activities and experiences that are immediate, situated, performed/experienced daily, and are encountered without thinking about or paying attention to them [6]. These include teachers' struggles and successes in the attainment of pedagogical goals.
Struggles may include the challenges in the transition from face-to-face to online, adjustments in the delivery of instructions, teaching strategies [7], and other online issues and concerns [8]. In addition, struggles in teaching involve conflicts between the teachers' personal beliefs and the reality of teaching [9], where it is found that while the demand for DLE is increasing, a number of educators are still skeptical about it [10]. In addition, many teachers are hesitant with the new normal of teaching mainly because the demands and expectations are higher than in traditional courses [11]. For instance, report that teachers in Turkey do not trust DLE [12], as evidenced by their declared dismay or lack of motivation to teach when they are required to teach using online modalities. Such factors may be due to the absence of face-to-face interaction, lack of opportunity to experiment with online technology, and not enough time to develop an online course [13][14].
Successes in DLE, on the other hand, include positive online experiences. For example, DLE provides collaborative learning and unquestionably abundant discussions [15]. This then offers a flexible mode of learning that enables learners to adapt according to their own learning style at their most convenient time [16]. Moreover, DLE can be beneficial to those teachers who want to develop their professional qualifications without quitting their jobs [17].
With such a polarized view towards DLE, it is interesting to know if such views are shared by Physical Education (PE) teachers. As a psychomotorbased or skill-based course with the main goal of physical fitness [18], challenges in teaching PE could be more arduous than the challenges faced in nonskill-based courses. Thus, it is crucial to study and understand better PE teachers' struggles and successes in DLE-PE. Studying the lived experience of the teachers is not only something that is experienced, but it's being experienced, which gives it a special impression and lasting importance [19], can be helpful in determining better strategies for successful DLE delivery.
Considering early reports on the effects of the pandemic, which suggest that young people have fewer opportunities for physical activity and socialemotional skill building while experiencing more significant levels of stress and mental health problems [20], PE is a critical way of increasing physical activity in schools, associated with reduced depression, stress, and anxiety [21]. In particular, one discipline taught in PE that involves great physical activity is Combative Sports (CS). CS is not simply an invaluable fitness activity [22]; but also a form of intellectual or mental exercise that can help improve one's personality [23]. In this paper, we refer to CS as a course is Fitness-Combative Sports (FIT-CS). FIT-CS focuses on three different martial arts: arnis, taekwondo, and karate. FIT-CS promotes physical fitness and wellness and focuses on the fitness dimension of sports while providing rudiments of self-defense. As the FIT-CS course must continue to be delivered through DLE, it is expected for PE teachers to adjust and adapt to the new modality of learning during the time of the pandemic.
At the onset of the DLE in PE, the teachers were expected to develop appropriate strategies for delivering CS in their PE classes, and this forced them to the trial and error scheme, which involved the haphazard use of using of different approaches [24]. Unpreparedness and not knowing exactly what strategies to use in a short preparation period will definitely confuse any teacher. PE teachers indicated they felt unprepared and desired assistance in learning about best practices for delivering remote instruction Int. J. Phys. Educ. Fit. Sports, 11(4) (2022), 12-23 | 14 [25]. In addition to unpreparedness and lack of training or assistance, the lack of knowledge about the techniques and possibilities that DLE promotes, the education professionals themselves create resistance in this formation model [26].
The different martial arts (MA) taught in CS show a positive influence as CS is an essential facet in PE because of motor development, health, and fitness, and it helps in the development of personality [22][23].
In time for the issues on mental health being experienced by many students this time of the pandemic, it has become a more necessary motivation for teachers to adapt to the new educational system of teaching and modify traditional classroom strategies to meet the DLE requirements in teaching CS.
A study on DLE in the Philippines was conducted at the tertiary level by Arinto (2016), but the respondents were not PE teachers. While there abound studies in different countries related to CS, these studies focus on facilities, and equipment [27], gender participation [28], and are in the high school setting. Thus, there is a gap in research about lived experiences in FIT-CS in DLE at the level of university studies.
This is precisely what this work attempts to fill. More precisely, the researchers ask the question: What are the struggles and successes of PE instructors in facilitating FIT-CS using DLE? As FIT-CS must continue to be delivered through DLE, it is expected that PE teachers adjust and adapt to the new modality of learning in this time of the pandemic. This study can help PE instructors to find ways to overcome the struggles and keep furthering the successes they gained from FIT-CS in DLE-PE classes. Furthermore, it is crucial to understand and explore such struggles and successes to help the school administration come up with policies and guidelines to improve online teaching.

Methodology
This study is grounded on a phenomenological design that focuses on understanding the teacherparticipants' meaning about their lived experiences in teaching FIT-CS courses through DLE and how these experiences are described by them [29]. Phenomenology explores people's worlds and then understands their world from their perspectives [30]. This enables one to determine if there are patterns in their experiences. Determining such patterns can help understand what it means by the phenomenon/phenomena being explored as lived by the participants.

Inclusion Exclusion
They have taught any of the three areas of CS in the university (Arnis, Taekwondo, or Karate), either combat/ sparring (Labanan, Kyorugi, Kumite) or non-combat/ form (Poomsae, Anyo, Kata) They have taught areas other than the three identified areas of CS such as judo, wrestling, etc.
They have had extensive training and/or experience in CS. They have been any of the following: athlete, active practitioner, certified coach/judge, or a practicing member of any martial arts such as arnis, taekwondo, or karate club or group.
They have facilitated in other areas or disciple of PE such as dance, team sports, allied sports, etc.
They have been teaching FIT-CS online since the start of DLE in 2020 to 2022.
Their experiences in teaching FIT-CS in onlinebased learning (OBL).
They have taught FIT-CS in face-to-face classes before 2020.
Their experiences teaching FIT-CS in the correspondence-based learning (CBL) modality.

Participants and Setting
The participants of the study were PE instructors from a missionary school in Baguio City, Philippines, who taught in the DLE setting within the academic years 2020 to 2022. These participants were selected via purposive sampling based on three criteria: participant PE instructors must (1) have practiced any of the three areas of CS of the university (Arnis, Taekwondo, or Karate), either combat/ sparring (Labanan, Kyorugi, Kumite) or non-combat/ form (Poomsae, Anyo, Kata); (2) have been any of the following: athlete, practitioner, certified coach/judge, or a practicing member of any martial arts club or group; (3) have been teaching online FIT-CS from 2020 to 2022, whether part-time or full-time. Table 1 details the inclusion-exclusion criteria for sampling the participants. Based on these inclusion and exclusion criteria, five (5) PE instructors were identified to undergo the actual interview where data saturation was achieved.

Procedure
The researchers employed semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to explore the different struggles and successes faced by PE instructors in facilitating PE using DLE. The openended questions were guided by the information critical to answer the study's primary research question and were designed to tap into the participant FIT-CS instructors' rich experience in CS via conversations about what their experiences meant to them. As a precise way to uncover the most important ideas during interviews without introducing bias, the interview questions used a priori codes set beforehand and were consistent within categories [31] to exhibit evocative characteristics for the required data [32].
The data gathering began with securing the necessary approval from the Research Innovative Center of the participating school. Selected participants were then invited and sent copies of the informed consent form via email, for which participants were given enough time to read and understand the study's expectations, including their preference on the mode of interview (online or on-site). Based on this, two (2) participant instructors were interviewed online, and three were interviewed on-site. Both on-site and online interviews were recorded.
The interviews were conducted one-on-one, lasting 40 minutes to more than an hour. Prior to the interview, an orientation was given, and rapport was established. During the interview, participants had the prerogative to freely express themselves and/or to decline to answer any questions.

3. Analysis of Data
The audio-recorded interviews were first transcribed, and themes were created from the data. To ensure the validity, truthfulness, and reliability of the data, the transcribed interviews were then verified for consistency with the participants. To set aside any preconceived knowledge or beliefs explaining the phenomena being explored, a phenomenological process of "bracketing," also known as epoche, was employed. This improved qualitative research and explores rigor to validate the data collection and analysis procedure [33]. Also, to mitigate the researchers' interpretive bias relating to the translation of categories into themes, a professional with experience in writing, mentoring, and advising qualitative research was requested to review the anonymized interview data. Moreover, the researcher adopted Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-phase guide framework for analyzing the data.
This framework is very flexible as it is not tied to any specific epistemology or theoretical view and is possibly the most effective approach because it offers a usable and precise framework for analyzing data [34].

Results and Discussions
The struggles that emerged from the study are the following: challenge in using information and communication technology (ICT), apprehension in remote teaching, difficulty creating alternative activities, difficulty in engaging students, and difficulty in adapting oneself to time structure. The successes, on the other hand, are convenience and security in working from home, formation of stronger working relationships, and learning of new teaching online platforms.

Struggles of FIT-CS Instructors
A struggle is experiencing difficulty and making a very great effort in order to do something. In this study, the struggles that the participants experienced are the challenge in using technology, apprehension in remote teaching, difficulty creating alternative activities, difficulty in engaging students, and difficulty adapting oneself to time structure. Challenge in using ICT. Technology plays an essential role in DLE by bringing a revolution in this sudden change of learning mode by significantly adapting new technologies and eliminating traditional face-to-face to non-face-to-face communication between teachers and students. The knowledge of the use of ICT in teaching is paramount as technology is one of the key channels in education today, as described as the next wave in technology-based learning [35]. The lack of ICT skills is a great challenge that affects the performance of the FIT-CS instructors. This is basically because the participants are not well knowledgeable in using ICT in their teaching. They have been used in the traditional or face-to-face mode of teaching. Before DLE, the participants have been using or integrating simple ICT tools such as PowerPoint presentations, but the ICT in DLE is much more complex since it involves a number of learning applications or software that are not familiar to the participants. The participants of this study declared that using ICT was the most apparent and immediate struggle they went through from the onset of DLE. This is the reason why the participants consider this lack of ICT skills a struggle.
The internet has transformed education by creating a new philosophy of learning. It has opened doors to new educational resources, knowledge, and opportunities for PE instructors to conduct and prepare their FIT-CS classes online. However, most PE instructors shared their negative experiences on the internet issues that impede the full achievement of these advancements. Adding to the lack of ICT skills is the unstable internet connection in their FIT-CS classes since, in the statements of the participants, it is implicit that troubles in the internet connection are a barrier to successful teaching. An unstable internet connection has been a usual occurrence in the country, and online classes have been greatly sacrificed. This was also revealed in the study of Aguinaldo (2021), PE teachers in high school have the same concern about internet connection in the country. Despite the fact that technological advancement is rushing to bring in a revolution in the field of DLE, technological problems and slow internet are the leading factors that hamper the success of DLE in the country. In fact, the Philippines was ranked 72 out of 181 countries in terms of internet speed last November 2021, according to Ookla Speedtest Global Index (2021). Thus, the teachers' efforts and preparedness become fruitless.
With these, it is expected that teachers are provided more opportunities to be trained in ICT and to have better access to the internet or, if possible, to have a better internet connection so that the facilitation of lessons would be more effective or maximized. The frustration of FIT-CS teachers, especially with regard to the unstable internet connection, needs attention. This is well-understood because no matter how well-prepared the teachers are in their lessons for their online classes, if the internet is unstable, teaching would not be as effective. If technology skill is poor, if internet connection is poor, online courses will never achieve their full potential unless this ICT struggle is addressed.
Apprehension in remote teaching. Teachers' outlook resonates positively or negatively with a particular belief, idea, and practice [36]. There was a manifestation of apprehension in the participants teaching FIT-CS in DLE. Apprehension is the combination of the participants' doubt, uncertainty, and hesitation. They admitted that they were hesitant and uncertain about this remote teaching. This is due to the fact that the shift was sudden. It is a fact that when something new is being introduced, most people would not immediately accept it or agree to it. The shift elicited more reactive feedback from the PE teachers, specifically the FIT-CS teachers, as FIT-CS is skill-based. Thus, the apprehension is understandable as they could not picture how combative sports be taught online. Just the thought of how to do it and what strategy to employ created in them the feeling of uneasiness.
The reason for the apprehension of the participants is fundamentally that the challenges in teaching PE, specifically FIT-CS online, could be more arduous than the challenges faced in non-skill-based courses. PE is a psychomotor-based or skill-based course as it is related to movement skills; evidently, most of the participants find online teaching of CS a struggle. One reason that is plainly expressed by the participants is the restricted or limited opportunity for the teachers to demonstrate to the students the skills the latter need to learn. Accordingly, their effectiveness in teaching online is hardly achieved. The statements of the participants support the study by Cynarski (2016), which reveals that PE teachers in the Czech Republic do not feel sufficiently prepared to teach CS, much more if this is done online.
Since the rapid development of DLE, it is vital to identify this behavior in PE instructors as this outlook is As teachers, the participants are aware that it is not befitting to stay intact with the traditional mode of teaching since today's world is far different from what they were in the last decades of their teaching careers. Therefore, it might be good to say that the acceptance or the imbibing of the new times, new modes, and new adjustments has been realized by the participants; however, it might take longer for them to accept this fact, but if given a choice, they still prefer to teach the course in the traditional setting. This is manifested in their statements, such as "I have somehow adjusted a little, but I still prefer if I could teach FIT-CS face-to-face."

Difficulty in creating alternative activities.
Since FIT-CS is a psycho-motor-based course, the creation or development of alternative activities is another challenge the participants have dealt with, as it is not easy for the FIT-CS instructors to come up with immediate, appropriate, and creative tasks that are suitable to the different concerns of their students in DLE.
Indeed, it is difficult to create an alternative activity because there are many things to consider, such as the appropriateness of the activity and the assurance that the activity can achieve the needed skills to be developed by the students in DLE. In addition to this, the teacher can be confronted with the following questions: Is there an assurance that the concern of the student, such as his or her health condition, is addressed? Is there a manifestation of inclusiveness in the activity prepared? Do the students have enough space to perform the activity? Thus, the development of alternative activities is challenging. It definitely takes time because it involves a lot of considerations.
Generally, PE courses are greatly influenced by space, both online and face-to-face learning. Flexible learning space facilitated the use of various student engagement techniques while also inspiring instructors and students with an array of pedagogical choices [37]. Part of this expected development of alternative activities in DLE is the assurance that the CS skills are properly executed in the confines of students' homes. This is a struggle more especially for the teacher, as it is challenging to modify an activity for some students who cannot find a better space to execute the combative tasks. For instance, in demonstrating the different Martial Arts (MA) skills, there is a need for a space wide enough for the execution of the punches and kicks.

Difficulty in engaging students.
It has always been a challenge on the part of teachers to engage students in class fully, either online or face-toface. Getting the students engaged in any class activity has been a struggle for the participants in teaching FIT-CS in DLE. Student engagement refers to the participation of students in the classroom. Student engagement allows the teacher to gauge the extent of the student's interest in the activities. Research shows that when students are genuinely engaged, they persevere regardless of any circumstances. However, engaging the students online is not as successful as it used to be in face-to-face instruction. The participants seldom saw their students show interest and value in their course. It has been difficult to motivate their students to participate in the activities such as discussions during synchronous meetings and execute combative activities properly.
One barrier to engagement is the absence of a physical teacher. FIT-CS is skill-based; the skills need to be physically modeled or demonstrated by the teacher for the students to feel and understand the message, meaning, and impact of every punch and kick the students need to execute appropriately. Watching the demonstrations through videos is helpful, but it is not as effective when a physical teacher demonstrates the skills in actuality. Thus, this deemed need for physical presence is one thing that is making student engagement genuinely challenging.
As DLE involves unfamiliar requirements, specifically the fact that there is no physical presence of teachers to guide them in the execution of the FIT-CS skills or competencies. These competencies are needed to hone students' total development of wellbeing, especially today when mental health is a major consequence of the pandemic. These are supposed to be the motivations the teachers can rely on in getting the students engaged or in keeping the students' interest going. Therefore, it is indispensable to identify clearly the expectations of the students in this new mode of learning to help the teachers in helping the students develop an interest in engaging in FIT-CS class. Difficulty in adapting oneself to time structure. Adapting to the shortened time structure in DLE was difficult for the participants. As adapting is the ability of the participants to adjust to the new mode of instruction, they are expected to be flexible. The participants were flexible and ready to embrace any new concepts/information, including experiences. However, when the shift in the mode of instruction was sudden, they were confronted with the question of how to adapt because they did not have a clear idea of how they could facilitate the course given the short allotment of time structure. The situation became worse when they had to prepare the learning modules and materials in DLE, which had been too timeconsuming. Another is the giving of immediate feedback for the tasks of students.
Preparing the materials definitely took much time to get the desired output. The participants were aware that the materials they had to develop should be of quality; thus, the time they had to invest in the preparations was enormous. In addition, due to the applicable nature of the course, the preparation required more demonstrative activities and materials than theoretical courses. On the other hand, to motivate and monitor their students, the participants have been trying their best to give immediate feedback to encourage their students to give their improved or best performance. However, they could not give immediate feedback due to the limited time, which resulted in the quality of instruction being sacrificed. These were huge adjustments the participants had to make to meet the requirements of the sudden shift in DLE.
The participants observed how the issues in time structure had affected the successful facilitation of the course; time structure has limited the accomplishment of desired learning outcomes. It is, thus, paramount for teachers to modify their time management. Time management is a significant display of successfully adapting oneself to the new structure of time DLE requires.
In conclusion, exploring and identifying the FIT-CS instructor's struggles is an excellent start to knowing the kind of mediation or appropriate solution, policy, professional development, support, and guidance necessary to address these different struggles.

Successes of FIT-CS Instructors
Another main objective of the study is to explore the successes of PE instructors in facilitating DLE.
Successes are PE instructors' favorable experiences and realizations in overcoming specific barriers facilitating meaningful CS experiences in DLE. In this study, the successes that the participants experienced are the convenience and security of working from home, formation of stronger working relationships, and learning of new teaching online platforms.
Convenience and security in working from home. One benefit of teaching online is the convenience of teaching from any location of the teachers' choice instead of being restricted by the four walls of the classroom or by geographical boundaries. This convenience includes the security the participants benefited from DLE or working from home. Working from home is now becoming common globally since the pandemic. In education, it is called remote teaching or DLE. Security in this paper refers to the participants' less spending on transportation, meals, and clothing.
In this COVID outbreak, many people lost their jobs, including teaching jobs at quite a number of schools worldwide. Fortunately, the participants did not lose their job, but they also experienced economic problems. Thus, DLE saved them from the necessity of expending on transportation/gas, food, clothing, and other allowances they would normally spend when teaching on-site. The curtailed expenses the teachers benefit from working from home can have a better effect on their performance in teaching. Thus, it was realized in one study that a person's life satisfaction is influenced by his or her socio-economic status [38]. In this paper, the less expenses the PE teachers incurred from online classes are satisfying enough as their socio-economic state is not as worse than other jobs affected by the pandemic. Economic status is influential in the effectiveness of doing a job successfully.
The convenience and security the participants have been experiencing in online teaching as to location are concerned significant factors that contributed to the success of online teaching. This is basically explained by the fact that the teachers are in the comfort of their homes. If they are convenient in their place or home, they become more creative and strategic in their online teaching. Security, on the other hand, is the idea that makes one feel protected or guarded against any harm. Any form of security is beneficial in all aspects. Economic security, for instance, can be a driving force for humans to be more emotionally and mentally stable; they can be more creative and more focused on their work. Thus, the economic security the participants enjoy in working from home or teaching online is greatly helpful in making their teaching better or more effective.
The participants' recognition of the convenience and security brought about by working from home indicates that teachers can still see the good in circumstances brought about by DLE. During the pandemic, the convenience and security afforded by online education instigated creating or devising of online teaching approaches that PE instructors can choose from, depending on the context and needs of the course. One significant effect of the DLE in online FIT-CS is that PE instructors are not only bound to teach inside the classroom, but they can also be more resourceful and innovative in their teaching techniques or strategies. In addition, the PE instructors are freed from the limitations of time, pace, and place of delivering the FIT-CS course. Consequently, the students can retain information and achieve basic skills in FIT-CS.

Formation
of stronger working relationships. Although the shift to DLE has brought about overwhelming work on revising syllabi and learning modules on the part of the teachers, the strengthened working relationships formed during and after the crafting of the materials are immeasurable. The formation of stronger working relationships is the product of the strong synergy exhibited by the FIT-CS instructors, who shared their expertise in creating learning materials for DLE. The formation of stronger working relationships in teaching FIT-CS resulted in more efficiency and better performance. Strong working relationships are manifested in their teamwork, which was the participants' combined resources to do the task assigned to them by the PE department. They were able to acknowledge each other's efforts in the development of the learning modules. Through collaboration, the participants were able to build stronger synergy among their colleagues in creating a certain goal. The use of the word collaboration emphasized the degree of assistance each teacher offered to one another in the making of the learning materials. This is, in essence, what collaboration, not cooperation, will lead to authentic training in teamwork [39]. Working as a group allowed the participants the opportunity of sharing new insights, new pedagogical approaches and techniques, more creativity, and more building of a favorable work environment. Better working relationships had improved communication between the participants and consequently improved online learning.

Learning
of new teaching online platforms. DLE has helped the participants learn new online teaching platforms such as Google Classroom, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, which made them more resourceful in facilitating FIT-CS courses online. The learning opportunities given to them to use these new teaching resources for their online classes have also helped to enhance their teaching strategies; thus, the participants saw this particular learning to be very favorable to them. Since the start of the pandemic, working from home, regardless of the kind of work one is engaged in, requires innovations. In this paper, the participants working from home needed the knowledge in using the platforms to assist them in the facilitation of their classes.
Although these basic platforms are the immediate resources needed in online teaching, the opportunity to learn them made the participants very glad as they discovered and realized that there are applications that can make their work easier and more convenient. As a result, they found this as a success attained in online teaching. There is likewise a realization that there are actually a number of applications that the participants could have used in making their teaching more convenient and, in fact, could have been helpful even in their traditional teaching had they been introduced to these platforms before. Thus, they are grateful and indeed glad that DLE has made them become not only aware of these but also taught them how to use them.
Continuous teacher professional development through the learning of the new platforms is a crucial component in the field of education as it allows teachers to gather new methods and strategies to improve their teaching. It assists the teachers in acquiring the required competencies and skills crucial in teaching in the 21st century, even in DLE. PE educators are expected to take every opportunity to improve themselves professionally; thus, these online classes offer them new opportunities and strategies they can use to further their professional growth. Any PE instructors who are really concerned about their student's future and welfare will want to support and upgrade the cycle of their personal and professional growth. When PE instructors strive for professional development, students will likewise benefit or learn more. In sum, the considerable number of successes that have emerged in this study indicate that online teaching did not only test the FIT-CS instructors but also challenged them to do better, to be more creative, resourceful, and technically competitive, as reflected in the following themes: convenience and security in working from home, formation of stronger work relationships, and learning of new teaching online platforms. Although the FIT-CS instructors experienced struggles in online PE, they also realized a number of successes in this mode of teaching, and they consider these successes as their proud or favorable moments.

Conclusion
This study sought to explore the struggles and successes of PE instructors in facilitating FIT-CS using DLE. The findings revealed that the FIT-CS instructors viewed DLE as both a struggle and a success; there were more struggles than successes in teaching FIT-CS online, but these successes came out to be the silver lining of the struggles the participants experienced throughout their online teaching. Among all the struggles, it was the challenge in the use of ICT that emerged to be the most laborious for the participants. In a further analysis of the coded and themed struggles, it was shown that most of the other struggles resulted from a lack of ICT skills. Thus, it can be held that the lack of ICT needs immediate or primary attention since technology is the main instrument used in DLE. Most of the participants have been teaching using the traditional mode for decades; thus, the ICT challenge is a huge ordeal for them. As to the successes, all the themes identified in the participants' responses are a clear manifestation that if PE instructors were given the right tools in teaching, support, and instruction, they could still meet their objectives in DLE. Moreover, the successes show that online teaching of FIT-CS is not as problematic as it seemed.
As all education systems are affected due to unexpected changes in the mode of teaching, unforeseen struggles and successes can be experienced. In the course of analyzing the participants' interviews, some of the struggles were mitigated or surmounted by the teacher-participants with patience, determination, discipline, and selfcontrol. These attitudes the PE teachers displayed in the midst of the challenges of online teaching manifested that in any circumstances, such as the sudden shift to an unfamiliar mode of teaching, teachers can be more flexible and more resourceful; they were able to find more innovative ways to handle the situation. They were aware that they had to do something so that students would not be shortchanged in their education. However, these innovative ways were not possible without collaboration with other stakeholders, who in turn benefited from the joint efforts.

Recommendation
As the study showed that there were struggles and successes experienced by the participants and that the struggles were chiefly brought about by circumstances related to ICT, it is suggested that the education system needs to invest in approaches that address the different struggles and to further strengthen the successes of the PE teachers. The school or the department in charge of education or curriculum development may include creating programs or guidelines that can further help teachers overcome whatever struggle the teachers are experiencing in online classes. These guidelines may include how to effectively facilitate psychomotor activities online in relation to technological aspects and adapting and creating learning materials. Furthermore, to make the study more meaningful, it is recommended to have a study on the coping mechanism done by the FIT-CS instructors in dealing with online teaching struggles. This will not only help in better understanding how PE instructors were able to manage online courses and creatively developed more teaching strategies but also benefit teachers who may be experiencing the same challenges in the future. Moreover, it would be interesting to expand the scope of the study to explore the experiences of FIT-CS instructors in the correspondence-based learning (CBL) modality by including all PE courses of the participating school since this research focused on online FIT-CS courses only. Including all courses in PE in future studies, it can help enrich the study and can help in coming up with precise and inclusive policies for the different PE courses.
To ensure tremendous success for this online learning, the government should develop a proactive and reactive solution to improve the country's internet connection problem since a reliable internet connection is one of the foundations of the new learning mode. As universities upgrade and continue to update their operations and services, the lessons learned and documented during this sudden shift of learning could provide a path for improvement in learning experiences, whether in DLE or face-to-face. The