A few years ago, we had some neighbors move in behind our home. They were a nice family. They had two older boys who both were in high school. One unique thing about this family is that both the boys were very active in gymnastics at their school. In fact, quite often we could watch them practice many of their gymnastic excercises right from our backyard. How did we do that you may ask? Well, surprisingly (at least to me) many gymnastic skills can be honed and developed by practicing on a trampoline.
The trampoline you may be used to might be the in home exercise type. Many folks have one of these mini trampoline rebounders in their homes from a few years ago when rebounding was all the craze for losing weight. I personally never had one of these little trampolines, but I did get a chance to try out the neighbors trampoline several times.
What I found most interesting was that even though it was only a 10 ft trampoline, I literally could bounce all over the place and not fall off. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m hopelessly uncoordinated and if “anyone” was going to launch themselves into the bushes or fence…it would have been me. Quite frankly, that is what most scared me about getting on it. Fortunately the boys next door helped me feel safe and sure of myself and they even showed me a few simple tricks.
One trick that I learned quite easily was the forward flip. As I was bouncing up, I simply tucked my head below my waist line and let my forward momentum from the “up” bounce carry my legs over. In effect its quite simple once you get the hang of it. Most of the time I landed on my back, but a few times I actually completed a full 360 degree flip and landed on my feet ready for another bounce. I was giggling like a school girl. It was quite embarrassing really. Especially since I’m a bit older than a school girl. Lol.
Trampolines are quite fun as I discovered, but I must admit that if I had a young child I would probably make sure to get an enclosure put on any trampoline that I purchased. Enclosures for trampolines are covere with netting and padding to make sure that there is no possible way you can fall off the equipment. The extra padding also makes it nice so you don’t have to worry about scraping or scratching your legs or arms on any of the springs.
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