It has been great being BYU students together with Meghann. We have been able to do some very interesting things together, and one of those was taking gymnastics class together.
I know that most of you are thinking that the last time you saw a 6'1" guy and a 5'10" girl do gymnastics was...never. My class was right after the cheerleaders practiced in the gym, and the tallest of the girls was about 5'2". So we aren't built like gymnasts, but we decided to defy genetics and give it a shot. We both like to climb and jump off of stuff, and we thought that was a solid foundation to build on.
In gymnastics you have to learn to do a lot of things that seem difficult and dangerous. I always thought that you would learn them step by step from a trained professional and that you would be somehow protected from injury. The reality (at least at BYU) is the instructor showing you what a skill is and then turning you loose to try it. You just go for it and hope for the best. In this system, there is an area that becomes your best friend. It's called the foam pit.
You can jump into the foam pit from any height under the roof of the gym and land at any angle and you won't (usually) get hurt. It is a pit about 6 feet deep with foam blocks. That is where you practice until you are ready to try it on the floor. Learning new skills was usually a leap of faith, where if you hesitate, you usually end up on your head, and if you just go for it you end up...on your head most of the time but sometimes you make it and it is great!
On the apparatus, like rings, high bar, etc., you don’t get the luxury of the foam pit, but we still learned them. It was great. There was an assistant trainer named Don who was over 80 years old but could still come in and do some high bar routines. He loved the fact that Meghann and I were both taking the class and reminded me almost every class to be sure to write in our journals about it. Nowdays the journal entry needs to be complimented with the blog post. So we have posted some videos to prove that we did more than somersaults. What do you think?
Patrick Back Tuck - I was super excited about this one because I never thought I would be able to pull a backflip. Even on the trampoline I was always scared of them. I worked my way up to it on the trampoline and then one day just went for it (with a little help from my spotter/wife)
Meghann doing handsprings - I used to be able to do this when I was about 9 years old. I'm proud to have lived up to that girl.
Meghann on Trampoline - the last jump into the pit is a throw back to my diving days.
Patrick on High Bar - You have to be really careful as a guy on this event. You can do some serious damage.
Patrick on Trampoline
