Day Three: Elementary School (I think)

[bironic]

I took a gymnastics class once when I was little; a short-term Saturday morning sort of thing. I have three flash-memories of it.

One is of arching back, possibly with help, to do a... bridge, I think it was called. Facing up, feet and hands on the ground.

One is of noticing dirt under my toenails. Maybe under tights.

And the last is of changing before or after, and getting my pants stuck on my shoe (which I had left on) as I tried to pull them on or off. I thought of this for years and years anytime people made jokes about not taking your shoes off before your pants.

Comments

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

Gymnastics was one of those classes (like dance and acting) that my parents put me in once and then never again...

I've never been flexible, even at my fittest, so I hated gymnastics at school (I was especially bitter when it pulled my aggregate PE grade down in high school), but when I was little, I do remember learning to do teddy bear headstands and handstands against the wall and doing somersault after somersault down the front lawn. I never mastered cartwheels, though, much less anything more challening!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Whereas I could do cartwheels, but not handstands. Heh. That's a cute name for propping yourself up on the wall.

Flexibility never seemed to come for me with fitness, either. When I was taking dance classes a few years ago, it seemed that my muscles would get tighter instead of more limber with the passing weeks.

[synn.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd had gymnastics as a kid. Maybe then I'd have some flexibility - like mer-duff above, I've never had any, even when 'in shape'. I could do cartwheels and headstands though (I can still do cartwheels, but no headstands because they hurt my head and all the blood rushes to my brain too quickly).

This makes me think of... junior high, we were supposed to do a vault over a bar. it was only about 4 feet off the ground, and there was a mat behind it -- but I've always been a terrible, terrible jumper, and we were supposed to go over it back-first, which requires flexibility. I knew i couldn't do it, and said that, multiple times, but the teacher insisted I try, which of course led to me knocking down the bar, and feeling like a fat fool.

Just like diving, which I have never been able to do. I understand, in theory, how you're supposed to turn your body in the air, but I just can't make it happen. My aunt didn't believe me and tried to teach me once... I slammed into the water chest-first and had difficulty breathing for a few minutes.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Just like diving, which I have never been able to do.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't dive! I can't even do a simple dive from the edge of the pool. (Well, actually, I can, but it would be more of a belly flop than a dive.)

High-school gymnastics were also not my strong point.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Eesh, did they make you do gymnastics as late as high school? I imagine it quickly goes from "potentially fun" to "horribly embarrassing" at that point.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. It was awful. (But at least I was at an all-girls high school, so I was only being embarrassed in front of my own gender.) The PE teacher always played the soundtrack of Staying Alive while we attempted to do gymnastics, which I thought was rather ironic.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Aie. Way to go, gym teachers (and meddling relatives), for making you do something without actually showing you how.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

It's funny the flash memories that one has of childhood things. Come to think of it, I think most of my very early memories are flash memories.

I never did gym classes, but I know that I went to dancing classes (tap and that kind of thing) when I was little (say, 5 or 6). I can't remember anything about them except for one thing (and I'm not sure I actually remember it or just have been told about it so often that I think I remember): sitting down backstage before the first performance and absolutely refusing to go onstage. The show went on without me, apparently. Obviously, my dislike for being onstage or on view was an early and enduring part of my personality.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ha! Good for you, not caving to the demands of the performance-happy. I wish I'd had that kind of spunk when it came time for our mandatory piano recitals.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I didn't mind doing piano recitals. Probably because they were so low key, being held in the living room of my piano teacher rather than on a stage.

[bell]

When it comes to gymnastics, mostly I remember being in a 4th grade gym class and being expected to do a back roll across a gymnastics pommel (...type thing), and then, still rolling, fall off elegantly on to the ground. With no instructions beyond "do it."

I did not fall elegantly off the wooden horse. And it really fucking hurt when I landed weird on my back.

That incident was fairly symbolic of my experiences at that school. I didn't like it there much. (*bitter*)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Oh, ugh. Join synn and me for a round of not-applause for phys ed teachers who make you do things without guidance first, as if they're supposed to come naturally.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Gymnastics was something the cool girls did, and not something I picked up early enough (or so I remember feeling at about 8 years of age). Oddly, I never connected gymnastics in my mind with doing cartwheels, which it seemed to me were just one of those things any proper girl (again, not me) could do. By eighth grade (i.e., the end of elementary school) all the boys --or all the cooler boys, mostly the black ones-- could do back-flips, which I again didn't connect with gymnastics but with dance. I'm envious to this day of both skills. Lately I've been thinking about gymnastics classes again, because it's not really too late, is it?

I do bridges all the time, though, as part of my stretches to get out the kinks in my back. Dunno if it's healthy, but it feels good.