Cohousing-L Mailing List: One more on Trampolines

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

Flying up through the air is different from falling from a tree and other 
active sports.

We had a trampoline and an innstructor in our gym class eons ago when the sport 
was relatively new. What I learned then was that when you are flying through 
the air, the body goes where your eyes go. There was a mark on the trampoline 
in the center of one end that our eyes were supposed to be glued to. Look off 
to the side quickly and you go to the side, whether that was what you intended 
to do or not. The teacher stood there with her hands on that spot watching our 
eyes as we jumped.

Men have a center of balance in their shoulders, women in their hips. Thus 
instructions for each are different—you think different things in order to move 
this way or that.

We were expected to jump 4-5 feet in the air and do things like turn around, do 
the splits, touch our toes, etc. I stopped at somersaults. 

Most people just jump a foot or two so things like this may not have such an 
effect, but if kids are doing more they should have instructions and a spotter. 
Things may have changed since the 50’s but I suspect similar instructions have 
been developed to guide the same phenomenon.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org