Flunking Trampoline

You're probably asking, "How on earth does anybody flunk trampoline in school gym? It never would have occurred to me beforehand. After all, it was just bouncing around, fun stuff. Right? I mean, I already knew I flunked the rope climbing part of gym, having too little arm strength to haul myself up to even the second knot in the rope. Chin-ups I maybe managed 1, push-ups perhaps 5 on a very good day. But trampoline? How do you flunk having fun?

So... ever watch the Olympics trampoline event?  Back when I grew up, there was no such thing. Not in the small town where we didn't even get TV until I was twelve, and then only one channel, NBC, and only within 3 miles of the water tower. Had there been such a thing on TV, we might have watched it, but, really, trampoline? We would have wondered, with snickers and elbow jabs,  did they have Olympic pogo sticks too? How about jumping rope? Maybe kites?

I watched a few minutes of the men's finals this morning,  jaw dropping, full of envy and shame. After all, I was the object lesson to the rest of the class back in the day, a lesson on why we needed spotters around the trampoline, paying attention, not just chatting with each other while the unpopular chubby kid did her thing. Seeing the expertise on TV reminded me of my worst 5 minutes in gym class ever.

Possibly our teacher's worst 5 also, judging from her reaction. Umm, OK, her second worst.

There I was, just getting the bouncing part down without falling over. The teacher of course wanted more, like a sitting bounce and back to your feet. Whee! Big accomplishment. Who'd uh thunk it? Next came the call for a drop to the stomach, followed again by being back on your feet. Buoyed up by my previous success, off I launched... forward. A little too forward, and overachieving on past horizontal as I reached the edge of the trampoline, where head down was the inevitable result of my inertia. Down, between the springs that weren't being properly spotted. Whoever might have seen me coming decided to dodge out of the way rather than risk contact, so my feet began flying up and over my head until they couldn't be dodged by my classmates. 

Thank goodness. And no, not in a mean way as if I were happy to kick them as I crashed, but as in thank goodness they finally stopped me, want to or not. I was fine, just mortified, red from my scalp to way past what the gym outfits covered.

I was first in line for my thorough dressing down. How dare I try such a foolish move? Was I showing off? I could have broken my neck. Been paralyzed. Died even. (Apparently our teacher had seen such a result before.) It was pointless to try to reason with her that I had no control over my body, very little sense of position or movement or place, at least back then, something I've tried to correct. But I knew from long experience when to shut up in my own defense, as it so seldom resulted in anything but more trouble for myself.

Then it was my classmates' turn for dressing down. If I thought I was getting it, that was nothing to what they were hearing. She gave it to them up, down and sideways. By not doing their job they could have killed me! They totally neglected their duties to keeping me - or any classmate - safe. Nothing in what the teacher said to them endeared me any more to them than my own already miserable place in the pecking order. I was still the clunky kid who got them in trouble, judging by their reactions to me  for the much-too-long future.

While I tried to rack my brain for what the teacher had said about how we all were to accomplish what she asked of us, either on or around the trampoline, and came up empty, I knew it also wasn't my place to rise to their defense any more than to rise to my own. Antagonizing a teacher had never proved beneficial to my future either. I just accepted that I had again failed gym, both physically, and now socially. I had actually managed to flunk trampoline.