Parallel Bars - Everyday Matters Challenge #71

Parallel Bars
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

When I was young, my dad would have my sister and I video tape the Olympic Games broadcasts so he could watch them when he got home from work (he works Twilights, 3pm to 11pm). His favorite sport was skiing. He'd gone to Winter Park, Colorado with Mom for a vacation and taken lessons. That Christmas, we all got skis! When he took us to Colorado over summer vacation one year, he bought me a pair of boots in Aspen. We skied in the pasture. About 3/4 of a mile up the highway from our house we leased a pasture where we kept our horses and there were some small hills on it. We learned to fall and get up and to do snowplows and to turn and to side-step up the hill. For a young kid (I was about 8ish) this was all grand fun!

So we taped the Olympics. And watched skiing and figure skating (which I took lessons for). Then we taped Summer Games, too. I wanted to watch the equestrian events, but they weren't shown as much as the gymnastics. But there were Nadia and Olga, the waifs who flew! And Bela Karoli, all blustery, squeezing those 10s out of his girls.

I took ballet/tap/jazz/acrobatics class when I was 11 or 13, but by then, I wasn't very flexible and wasn't interested in working hard enough to get that way. In Jr High, I took the summer gymnastics class in the school district, it was fun, but I didn't get beyond doing good round-offs and cartwheels. I did watch my friends excel and wished I'd done more work.

My kids are in gymnastics now. They are young and still made of rubber and full of energy and have great teachers that make it really fun for them. They go to a great school that they could go far in if they want it. I won't push, but if they want, I'll encourage. It's great exercise for their little bodies, they learn so much from it and take it into everything else. And they won't ruin their feet, like ballet will.

I sit in the loft with the parents, and watch and fly with them!