My sister and I were driving by our old elementary school after visiting our parents house this weekend. We had been discussing my upcoming team building ropes course. It's one of those things where you have to do the obstacle course of ropes way up in the air. We decided that this must be very much like the monkey bars in school growing up, so we stopped at good ole James Bowie Elementary and decided to see if we could still do any of the old tricks. This is going to end well, don't you think...
Let me first say that the monkey bars are a lot smaller now. I remember them being gigantic. I'd jump from one section to the next section 10 feet away. Or so it seemed. Now that I'm taller, that distance appears to have only been 5 ft. But that's huge when your 10 years old.
Next, I decided to see if I was still brave enough to do a lemon drop. If elementary school gymnastics is not your forte, a lemon drop is where you hang upside down from a bar and swing off it and land on you feet. I remember learning to do that and thinking I was a rockstar once I mastered that. Especially from the really high bar (which today was closer to 7 ft then the 15 ft I remember).
Today, it was quite different. No rockstar here. First of all, I weigh more now and hanging upside down really, really hurts the back of my knees. If I could get over the pain from hanging, I'm not sure that I would be brave enough today to attempt a lemon drop. I understand gravity now.
Then there were the rings where you swing from ring to ring to ring. I remember that going from ring to ring was never good enough. I had to skip rings. Again, my adult weight may have been a detriment here (not to mention that I've just gotten back in the gym for a month after a very long break). Hanging from one arm on the ring while attempting to reach the next ring feels slightly like having my arm ripped off.
The whole experience was quite depressing and has a way of making you feel really old. On a positive note, it was a really good workout. I think that I may try again next weekend.