October 06, 2004
Filler 27
Jesus Christ, I have to write something here. Apart from anything else, I can't even check WalkyTalky for comments at work at the moment -- the last thing I want is anyone there seeing my ugly mug plastered all over my VDU. Well, perhaps not the very last, but what kind of grotesque narcissist does that make me look like?Oh.
Tuesday night is bouncing night, and tonight was the first session with Warrick officially retired as our trampoline coach. (He's still hanging around the beds as a civilian for a few weeks, while the wheels of officialdom slowly grind. Who knows whether he'll be able to continue bouncing once he's relocated to the OC? Rumour has it that US sports facilities find it virtually impossible to get insurance for trampolining and dare not do it uninsured, but this may be a myth.) His role has been ceded to Tom, who is a bit of a nutter, but a lot better than I gave him credit for on the basis of some earlier (non-coaching) visits. So far, so good.
My back somersaults are still ropey -- they have an irksome tendency to travel backwards rather a lot -- but they now feel like something I can do, however inexpertly, rather than something I simply can't. I remember this stage from the front somies, and it's a relief. Relaxing, almost. It's where it becomes something to practice and work on, rather than just throw myself into in a panicked blur, hoping to survive.
There's a whole perceptual structure around spatial awareness that we aren't generally connected to. It comes to some people easily and naturally; for others it will always be an impenetrable mystery. Like most of us, I find myself somewhere in between.
Some such "motor skills" fit me reasonably well; others I have acquired thanks to many years of practice, usually because they're fun. (It's like riding a bike.) Many I will never have at all, and probably not even know I lack them. When it comes to flinging my body through the air, though, and trying to maintain some notion of where I am, that's something I can only hope to gain by slow, painstaking accretion. The more times the world spins around you, the more you gain a perspective on its spinning. This is good.
It's always salutary to be reminded of how much we take for granted -- and of how much that is totally alien to our experience we might take for granted under slightly different circumstances. We live such specialized lives, most of us, and pushing against the limits of those, catching a whiff of other specializations, is quite a thrill.
Even when it takes more than three years to start feeling comfortable with a crappy back somersault.
