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June 09, 2006

Gymnastics Again

I still can't believe what I did the night before last, although I do have a constant entire-body soreness that is reminding me every time I sit, stand, or attempt to climb or descend stairs. I took a gymnastics class at Chelsea Piers (yes, this was inspired by Stick It).

Quite a lot has changed about in my physique in 15 years. And this class -- this was no class for adults wanting a nice and easy intro to the sport. Here's the description. Note the non-intimidating references to "all levels," "basic," and "beginner" -- it's all complete bullshit. I mean, there were beginners there, and they got special attention, but the class reminded me a great deal of a regular practice from my serious gymnastics days. The coaches were similar, too (they do not tolerate laziness! 10 push-ups, now!). In a way, this is good, because it's the real thing -- you absolutely get your money's worth. Still, I had fantasies about waltzing into a gym after 15 years with a big nostalgic grin on my face, ready to exchange reminiscences with coaches or dazzle a class of adults struggling to do a cartwheel. Instead, no one really cared -- we just went ahead with exercises. It occurred to me during the class that there must be thousands of ex-gymnasts missing the sport (a search for gymnastics videos on YouTube confirmed this later).

We started out with running around the floor, which was followed by a standard combination of warm-up and strength and flexibility exercises. What amazed me was how fast it accelerated, and how much the class could do. The warm-up morphed into handstands, then half-turn handstands, then handstands on alternating hands, etc. The pace was great, and I was slightly amazed and glad that these (younger-than-me, cocky-but-good-at-their-jobs) coaches were actually letting us do all this stuff. I mean, what if someone broke an ankle? But then again, we're adults, so we should know what our limits are, maybe? I couldn't believe I didn't have to sign a waiver and be interviewed at the door -- I half expected the office staff to review my state of health and refuse me entrance to the gym altogether.

I started to feel the extent to which I have let things slide about a minute into the opening run/warm-up. By the time we were done with handstands, my wrists felt as if they'd been run through a meat grinder. I wondered if the intense joint pain was anything like arthritis, or if perhaps I had arthritis. I wondered if I would be able to do anything else after the handstand activity that involved inverting my body completely. I was dreading the cartwheels. But the funny thing is, as each new form of pain announced itself throughout the two hour class (which felt like a six hour one), I was able to work through it by simply continuing to do whatever the coaches told me to.

The handstands were followed by handstand-rolls, then cartwheels, then one-handed cartwheels, then no-handed cartwheels (couldn't quite manage that -- I'd start out, then frantically throw out a hand as my head rushed toward the carpet), and then combinations.

One side effect of being an adult while tumbling is nausea. This makes sense. Normally, when flipped upside down and sideways and around quickly, one's stomach tends to react negatively, no? I didn't really expect this. What I expected instead was to rupture some tendon or groin muscle while doing a round-off or back-handspring, but, miraculously, that didn't happen. Instead, I felt that my wrists and ankles couldn't quite handle the impact, and my stomach couldn't handle something that had seemed so natural years ago. I was grateful that I hadn't snacked ahead of the class, and I had to limit water intake just to make it through to the end.

The simple floor exercises were followed by tumbling sequences with big squishy mats, then front flips (trampoline optional) into the "pit" (big injury-preventing hole in the floor filled with foam pieces). Then came the serious stuff -- the tumbling without life-saving mats. A few of my classmates (I should mention that a good deal of the class was made up of men, which I did not expect, but maybe it's easier to do all this stuff without boobs) went ahead with round-off backhandsprings. Gamely, I went along and tried to do one. Bad idea. The first thing I discovered, which I oddly did not discover in other activities, was that one cannot wear glasses during tumbling, as they will end up 15 feet away. The second thing is that I can't quite manage a back-handspring myself at my current age of 28. My arms can't do to do what they're supposed to, and my legs can't either, for that matter. In my mind, I've got it down perfectly, but on the floor I did the round-off fine, launched myself backwards, landed on my hands, and then promptly fell into a heap on the floor after them. The coach looked mildly concerned and said, "Better have a spot next time." When I got back to the line, a classmate (who I couldn't identify after that, because I did the rest of the class blind), said "I LOVE you! You have absolutely no fear!" which made me feel good, though the right assessment would be that I'm just really, really stupid and completely out of touch with my physical capabilities.

A good half hour was spent on tumbling. I kept doing round-off back-handsprings (with a spot), and taking breaks in between to regain some semblance of a normal heartbeat and level of nausea. My face was probably purple (this is what happens when I work out strenuously -- highly embarrassing), so I'm glad there were no mirrors. I desperately wanted to put my head on the cold concrete walls, but I thought that would have looked strange. Basically, I was in way over my limit, but I'm competitive and stupid and I really wanted to stick it out.

I was truly grateful when it was over. I haven't been able to walk any faster than a 90-year old since. I have gained some insight into the lives of people with impaired mobility (people move so fast! Toilet seats are WAY too low! There are at least 80 stairs in my commute!). I have avoided all kinds of bending-over in the past 48 hours, and I have to pause between steps. It's beyond pathetic. I feel great about having done it, though, even though my body is pretty messed up.

This person can do the round-off back-handspring with a tuck at the end and she's been out of the gym for 10 years -- it completely puts me to shame, but maybe if I can work up the courage to go back for another class I can work up to that (or maybe not).

Posted by csageday at June 9, 2006 12:57 AM

Comments

Posted by: maria at June 20, 2006 01:27 PM

Posted by: Cindy at June 20, 2006 01:58 PM

Posted by: Mom at June 23, 2006 05:55 PM

Posted by: Tracy at September 27, 2006 06:02 PM

Posted by: Cindy at September 28, 2006 10:14 AM

Posted by: Tracy at October 3, 2006 06:54 PM

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