First Gymnastics Class Ever

My best friend growing up was Danielle. She was an absolutely amazing gymnast. At 11 years old she had six pack abs, could do everything, and if I recall correctly, placed 7th all around at nationals.

I always felt the need to upstage her whenever she showed off for the class, on the playground, at sleep overs etc. Since growing up watching Danielle's awesomeness, I have always wanted to take and excel at gymnastics. Now that I have grown up (and can try anything I want) I enrolled for gymnastics.

Let's go back to January.  A teacher from my work asked me to assist her in after school tumbling, in which the classes had become so popular she needed extra spotters.  In the beginning, she sometimes would ask me to demonstrate, "near arm cartwheel, pivot, rebound, roundoff, rebound, straddle forward roll". I would stand there "uhhh, can you repeat that" haha.

They don't ask me too often to demonstrate anymore :) but I can spot kids, demonstrate things singularly and such...So when Giselle's gymnastics academy was desperate for a dance and gymnastics teacher, I thought what the heck.  I didn't know anything about the apparatuses, but have the tumbling part down... And on the first day I banged up my chin trying to demonstrate on the uneven bar, YUP first time on one of those.

I went on Thursday for my first class and this is how it went.

Everything was pretty easy up until the teacher, BJ, asked me to do a round off on my left side. This was something I have never attempted. I can do cartwheels to the left, but never thought to do a round off. I fell over and I actually was really annoyed that body would not let me land on feet correctly.

My least favorite thing was uneven bars. I tried to channel my inner Gabby Douglas, but kept hitting the bars on my bones and the pain was pretty crippling so I'd let off right away.

Favorite: Hands down vault. All we had to do was run, jump off the spring board, and land on the platform in a crouched position. Pretty fun.

Then we did back handspirngs. They felt much better then when I tried them after class on Monday. It's going to definitely be a few months before I can go for it myself though.

When I returned home I felt that overall I am probably not suited for gymnastics. I would much rather do Kung Fu instead. But I know it will make me a better Korra if I can do a plethora of tricks. So I'll stick with it.  It's a free class for me too, so I guess it's worth it.