2/19/2011 - seat drops, back drops, and how to do a front tuck. . .

About halfway into our hour at House of Air, a recently opened trampoline park set in Crissy Field across from the Golden Gate Bridge, I somehow managed to pull or strain my left butt muscle.  Just the left one.  The right one sat back and watched the whole thing go down, wiped its brow and thought, 'Better him than me!'

But even with the slight injury, I couldn't sit it out for the night; I had been trying to get here for months but just could never coordinate it with Sam (i.e., convince him) or any of our friends.  So, not wanting to squander the time I had left, I continued to play as I had for the previous half hour, reacquainting myself with those rusty gymnastics skills I learned in college.  After a couple of sprawling back tucks that landed me on my face, I remembered how to spot the ground, how to feel comfortable with the millisecond of discombobulation as I curl into a fetal position in mid-air.  The only way I can describe it is to say that it felt like freedom from my body.

I loved watching Sam and Gordon bouncing in a corner, Kevin trying to do a front tuck, convinced it was easier than doing a back one (I disagree).  Because the room consisted of 25 conjoined trampolines arranged in a matrix, there was no fear of falling off of one.  Everyone jumped from one to the other.  When I pulled the aforementioned butt muscle, I stood in the corner for a minute or two to shake it off.  I surveyed the room, and it was an amazing sight to see my friends and other patrons popping up and down in the sea of trampolines.

When our hour was up and I stepped out of the matrix for the first time since I stepped on, I felt so heavy, like my wings were clipped.  I took a little jump, one that would have launched me three feet in the air just five minutes ago, but I barely left the ground, and it hurt when I landed.  Gravity was cruel.

Afterwards, as we all sat in a diner eating greasy comfort food, Kevin said that the whole experience reminded him of college, how he would go out with friends, tire themselves out, and then find somewhere to eat afterwards.  I completely agreed that the whole evening felt collegiate, but for different reasons altogether.

While I was bouncing around the House of Air, I felt like I could have actually been back in college, as the last time I did any form of acrobatics was then.  Some of my best memories were of the gymnastics club, fulfilling a goal of learning how to do a back handspring, something I've longed to do since I was five and saw my first wu xia movie.  Last night, when I was mid-air, upside down and wondering if I would land back on my feet, I could have been 19 again, back doing gymnastics, back in that summer where I worked at a circus school in Sacramento and played on the equipment during any free moment I had.  I remember a girl named Kailene whose mother worked as an instructor there.  She and I would play on the trampolines all afternoon, and it was she who taught me how to do seat drops, back drops, and how to do a front tuck without flying off the trampoline and onto the ground.

If you've read any other posts here, you can probably deduce that I spend a lot of time in my head, remembering and eulogizing the memories I have from a time long gone, both good and bad.  Last night, it was all good, and I left the place feeling rejuvenated and younger than I had felt, quite possibly, when I was actually in college.

Of course, my body is a few years older now, so the feeling of youth faded quickly.  The soreness and aches set in almost as soon as I came home and laid down on the couch.  My brain felt like it had been violently jostled in my skull, and even when I was still, with my head reclined and eyes closed, I still felt like the room was spinning, that I was bouncing, being hurtled through the air with minimal effort.  And then there was the waking up this morning, which added a whole new dimension to suffering, an entire catalog of aches, from the shins on my legs to the base of my neck.

I wouldn't think twice before going back and doing it all over again.