Whenever I teach about different topics, I teach the same thing differently. Different perspectives and explanations work for different people.
For one student, recently I used a gymnastics analogy to aid him with the understanding of “humility”. I was very competitive in gymnastics at one time and therefore am able to come up with many gymnastics analogies. This won’t be the last!
I began gymnastics for the reason that is familiar to many gymnasts. I was hyperactive and made everything about climbing. I vaulted off furniture. I flew and bounced and balanced on edges of objects inside or outside. I made pits with pillows and cushions.
I was young when I started gymnastics but sort of had a cartwheel going. I had forward rolls. I had balance and agility.
I had begun with dance first. The teacher told my mother to get me into gymnastics because that was where I was going to shine. I was built for it. I had the enthusiasm of a gymnast. I was encouraged to continue dance for gymnastics.
I wore my leotards under sweats for my first class. We all stripped down and left a little pile of clothes on the floor. We were walked around the gym, shown how to use chalk, and given safety instructions on all equipment and warned how to not get in the path of another gymnast.
I loved the smell of everything. I loved the excitement in the gym. I wanted to learn but I was scared. Some of these girls were really good. I saw how much I could learn and how much I needed to learn to be able to call myself “good.”
As a beginner, I would mainly focus on floor. We would have some practice on a low beam. Some bar work. No vaulting.
I loved the beam. I did not care for the bars.
I watched one girl in a higher group work especially hard at the bars. I thought she was amazing and told her. She told me that at her age she should be much better if she were ever “going to get anywhere with it.” She looked so rugged to me. I could not believe my ears. She told me that if I wanted to really excel, I had better start working hard now. I thanked her.
There were a few tricks that I was intimidated to complete. I was about 7 when a very strict female gymnastics coach crouched down to my level and yelled into my face. She told me that I was better than what I was doing and I either did what I could do or I didn’t, but I needed to get serious and make up my mind.
Years later, she was my favorite coach. I realized that she was only that strict and mean to those who she knew had potential.
Accomplishments were short-lived. We could not plateau for long. The hugs we received were genuine but the stern face to get back on apparatus was immediate.
The hugs were firm. A moment of security before we were forced to be on our own feet again using only what we had.
While waiting in lines for my turns, I observed each gymnast I could. I watched how they mounted apparatus or ran, I watched the coach’s facial expressions. I listened to what was said. I watched the usual stone-faced reaction of the gymnast, and the nod that said they agreed. I knew what was going on inside their heads. ”I want to do better.” “I really hope I do better.” “I need to do better.”
We had surrender, acceptance, and trust. We knew our coaches knew what they were talking about.
Gymnastics was more like traditional shamanic training then anything else I have experienced. What I learned in gymnastics, I have applied towards life.
I remember doing the same skill repeatedly in a line down the floor over and over and over again. I became frustrated once and said, “I have proven I can do this, can’t we move on now?” I was told that if I became bored, I would become sloppy. That was what they were waiting for. Would I stay tight? (“good formation”)
Whatever we learned on the floor had to be applied to the beam. It had to be perfect. Just perfect. Imperfection meant injury in this sport.
It was awhile before we received music. I was insanely jealous of the higher groups who had earned music. It made their moves, their tricks all the better.
The only part of physical education in school that I really liked was gymnastics. I could never dribble a basketball, walk and shoot. I was a mess. It is an instinct to hit the ground when a baseball is coming my way. I could run. I liked volleyball. I liked conditioning. I liked football a little. Soccer was frightening.
When we did gymnastics as a unit in phys. ed., most groaned. I would hear “it’s a sport for little girls in leotards with sparkles and pig-tails.” I straightened my pig-tails, held my head up, and went to work. I became the teacher’s assistant. I helped spot.
They didn’t know how man-like we could feel …. how the sparkles were to help us feel feminine…. We might look dainty but we didn’t feel that way.
It was a sport that hurt. Tears were not permitted. If we cried, we were screamed at.
It is not a sport that I would consider putting a child of mine in…. as much as I loved it.
What I liked about gymnastics is that we learned early on that this was something that to truly be good at, it had to be worked hard at. I carried that further into my life. Sometimes too far.
The days when I began seemed far away very quickly. My original group had changed drastically. Many had quit.
I was team.
A friend I had been close to for years would sometimes come to watch. She told me in school one day that her mother had asked her if she wanted to begin gymnastics. She had said no because she explained that I would be competitive to her. I said, “I wouldn’t be competitive with you, because there is no competition.”
I was in a place to be able to say that….
I was doing things at that time that as a beginner I could not imagine doing. I did them without thinking much. Because I had done them repeatedly…. over and over and over again….
I watched new gymnasts of all ages come in. Some thought they were competitive material before their first chalk. They didn’t make it. Maybe they left and told people that gymnastics was too easy for them…. Only their ego was important.
It was the ones who came in scared but wanting who made it. It was the ones who had humility who succeeded. While they pictured in their minds themselves with trophies in their arms, they could barely look at an advanced gymnast in the eyes. They knew they had a long ways to go and because they knew this, they might just make it.