kitties kitties kitties: I like having goals

Thursday, December 17, 2020

I like having goals

My niece (who's named after me) is into fitness. She loves weight lifting and is pretty good at it. She's also working on mastering her hand stand; she kicks up to the wall just fine but wants to get to the point where nothing supports her.

I saw the photo of her taking a foot off the wall and posted that I wondered if I could still do a hand stand. Years ago, when I was a little girl, I fell in love with gymnastics as I watched the 1968 Olympics. We had a dinky black & white TV with awful resolution but I didn't care. I was mesmerized watching those girls fly around doing their floor routines, the uneven bars, all of it.

I pestered my folks to let me take gymnastics and they found a place that met at my elementary school on Saturday mornings. So I walked there every Saturday morning and did my darndest to turn into a gymnast. But let's be honest. I am a stick, I was born a stick and I will no doubt die a stick so while I learned to do handstands, cartwheels and round-offs, I was too inflexible to master a basic back bend.

That didn't stop me from avidly watching the 1972 Olympics when I and probably every other 12 year old in the US was captivated by Olga Korbut. I kept dabbling in gymnastics but I knew in my heart that will power doesn't equal talent and so I moved on to other things. I ended up falling in love with running, thanks to the Army, and have tried other sports as well (roller blading is fun, I'm not very good at it; I'm not a good softball player either but I sure tried, and so on). When I lived in Germany (thanks to the Army), I was the assistant coach to the girls gymnastics team from my Army post and loved working with them as they mastered their routines.

Anyway, fast forward to this week and my rash statement about wondering if I could still do a hand stand (which I did master). My niece seized on that and said I should try and so I did.

I have some work to do, although I'm closer than I thought I would be. But I think I can master it again, and I'm going to give it a try. My core is strong enough, and so are my arms but my right hammie did not like the kick up at all.