Once, in the middle of playing steal the bacon
in the elementary school gym, across the corner of the vast wood floor, I saw these older girls doing these flips. Feet over head, hair flying, and it was one of THE coolest things I had ever seen. How do they DO that? I want to do that. Steal the bacon was abandoned. Quickly. And I set my sights on those cool girls doing those flips: Hand, Hand. Foot, Foot. Hand, Hand. Foot, Foot. For hours after- days after, everywhere there was enough floor space, I would attempt this feat – hand, hand; foot, foot – until I was successful. Cartwheels! Hurrah! But that was just the beginning. I started to experiment with the cartwheel: tempo, spacing, succession, direction, left-handed, right-handed, one-handed (it would take a few years of gymnastics classes to accomplish the elusive no handed cartwheel; the side aerial!). Other kids started coming around to ask, "How do you DO that?" So, I happily dissected the cartwheel, a sideways walk into and out of a handstand, to teach them. By the end of the school year there was a team of us having cartwheel races, creating cartwheel ballets, cartwheeling in unison down the vast wood floor gym at break-neck speed. |
Authorcorey tazmania |