Move Your Body

What do you want? A medal? (of course I do!)

Some things I've discovered I can still do aged 40 thank to the encouragement of my children:

• Ride a bike 'no-handed' (but only for 3 seconds on the flat)
• Do a cartwheel (painful, but possible)
• Flip myself over using a pair of gym rings
• Get across the monkey bars on a children's climbing frame (without touching the floor - I did not cheat!)
• Run 10k (again - painful, but possible)

There are some activities that I avoid doing, partly because I don't want to injure myself, and partly because I often can't be arsed (swimming especially - too much chlorine and other people's body hair floating about for my liking).  This is fair enough if you're on your own (cartwheeling around the garden could be viewed as a little regressive, and hanging out on a children's climbing frame could be viewed as alarming) but when our children are asking us to do something active with them I think we should be obliged to at least give it a try.  How can we reasonably expect our children to be active if we avoid activity?  Or expect our children to "give things a try" if we won't try what they suggest?

With that in mind, I decided that when my son suggested I "go down the skate ramp on a scooter mummy" that I should give it a try.  Here's what happened:

I stood poised at the top of the ramp thinking "I can do this, I do Pilates so of course I'll have good core strength and balance." before making the twin errors of:

Not for grown ups!

1. Balancing the middle of the scooter on the lip of the ramp
2. Forgetting that I am 40 and that the scooter is set up for a six year old child

I maintained an upright position for all of two seconds before the scooter slipped left, leaving me to skid right - on my front, with my palms outstretched.  Tarmac and palms are not a good combination and I managed the magic trick that is tearing the skin on your knee but not tearing your jeans - how does that happen?

It led me to the conclusion that I do want to continue to challenge myself, but perhaps it's better done when the equipment is set up for adults.  So I've signed up to do a silly assault course in October - I'm hoping it doesn't involve a skate ramp.....

Soundtrack: Move Your Body by Xpansions