Gymnastics

Zoë's second week on the homeschool team was eventful! 

I missed the whole thing because I didn't watch her and instead went off to a quiet corner in the hallway to work. The parents of the younger class tend to sit on the sidelines and watch but the parents of the team...tend to not to. So I figured I'd follow suit.

Besides, I know from my own days of gymnastics and coaching that sometimes it's distracting for the parents to be present during sessions. The kids want the parents to look at them or the parents want the kids to look at them. We had a rule that parents were not to remain in the gym during lessons, though there was an exhibition evening when our parents could attend. 

Sometimes...sometimes...I miss living in a small town! 

My siblings and I did gymnastics through the Alberta Schools Gymnastics Association (ASGA), a non-profit organization founded by our dear coach and friend, Darlene. She wanted to bring gymnastics to more...rural...areas. So she contracted with various schools to use their facilities, all of which were equipped with a Canadian Fold-Away Climber, a set of ladders that could be pushed flat against the wall or pulled out to make an indoor jungle gym of sorts. 

This picture is from Canada.gov's instagram:

We had bars that we could place between the rungs, either as p-bars or uneven bars, so we could practice legit gymnastics. The rings weren't uncommon on these apparatuses, nor were climbing ropes.

Of course, we also had a storeroom full of other equipment we would drag out and set up every week—balance beams, vaults, a long strip of mat for tumbling. 

Sometimes the school would do a trampoline unit so we would have some trampolines set up.

It seems that the popularity of the Canadian Fold-Away Climber has waned in the intervening years (if you would like further reminders of your increasingly old age and irrelevance, you can visit this lovely "Another day closer to the end" site, coded by one of Andrew's professor friends). I'm really not sure why they've faded into non-use because they are full of nostalgia for me—if that climbing wall was pulled out when you hit the gym (QDPE—Quality Daily Physical Education!) you knew it was going to be a good day.

Or at least...I...knew it was going to be a good day. 

I loved climbing things when I was little. Ropes. Ladders. Swing chains. Swing sets. Trees. Lamp posts. 

So any day that I got to climb this thing was a real treat! 

But I guess people started to think they were dangerous or something.

Which I also get because one day during ASGA, a little boy had climbed up the rope to touch the top bar of this climbing wall and...he fell. He broke his arm so badly. It was...horrifying...truly. I've never seen anything like it. 

Our head coach just...handled it...somehow. 

I don't remember. I was put in charge of one of the classes (I was an assistant coach) and I just took them to another area of the gym to play some little games. 

Just thinking about it gives me the shivers. 

It was bad. 

Anyway, today in Zoë's class a girl was trying a move on the uneven bars, lost her grip and went flying off the bars and...broke her arm. 

I didn't hear any of this commotion at all (see: quiet corner in the hallway) so when I went back in to collect Zoë, I got filled in on all the details. She told me what had happened and Coach Emma explained that we'd be staying a few minutes late to make up for the break they had to take while dealing with the other...uh...break.

So, anyway, here's Zoë on the low beam (we'll work on pointing our toes):

And here are some pictures from last week that I can't remember if I ever posted:

And here's sweet Phoebe, walking along a bench at the park, practicing her balance beam skills so that she can be "just like Zoë":

Both Alexander and Phoebe want to take gymnastics now...but I told them to just hold off because they had summer swim team starting in a couple of months.

I honestly don't know how my parents did things for all of us sometimes—summer swim team and gymnastics! It costs so much to put kids into these programs...and there were so many of us...and then there's the getting kids places. 

Which brings us back to the benefits of a small town. My siblings and I were often responsible for getting ourselves to our events. We'd walk to gymnastics—in the freezing cold—and would often (but not always) walk home...in the dark...in the freezing cold. 

And we could because it was such a small town because (a) everything was relatively close and (b) no one cared that we were out walking by ourselves.

And sometimes I just miss that a little bit...