I first started gymnastics when I was nine years old. Typical story...lots of energy, needed an outlet, local gym, etc., etc. Growing up, I competed all-around...floor, rings, vault, parallel bars, high bar and pommel horse. My pommel horse and high bar was a joke, parallel bars and rings were okay, and vault was good. My strength, however, was definitely the floor, learning backflips and tumbling. I loved it. Sure there was a lot of technique, body mechanics and muscle memory involved, but mostly....Dan run and jump! It just made sense to me. Plus, I always thought it was the coolest part of gymnastics...doing flips. Growing up as a gymnast, it's easy to take some crap, but the minute you bust out a backflip....that's cool. As I got older and stopped competing, my skills on the other events fell away, but my tumbling...that stayed with me.
Tumbling is a skill that not a lot of people can do, and I've taken advantage of that. I've done backflips to get a job at a bar while I was in college. I made money flipping on a trampoline for an advertisement for a paper company. When I was teaching, I'd bust out a flip to make sure my students were paying attention. When I started working for the Celtics this year, my "thing" was that I was the one who did the flips. Tumbling was just as fun now as it was when I was first learning how to do it. It let me show off a little, it set me apart...it made me special.
I used to jokingly say that I'd continue tumbling as long as my body would let me. Unfortunately, my body has sent me a message, loud and clear that it's time to stop, and I need to listen. My flipping days are officially over. Sure, after I tore a bunch of ligaments in my knee, I said I was officially done tumbling then. But...after reconstructive surgery, I started healing and eventually got back to it and tumbled better than before. But...that was also eleven years ago. I'm pushing thirty now. While I would love to be able to throw a flip and tumble like I used to, it's now too much of a risk. The impact this injury, surgery and recovery is having on my life is too great. It's time for me to be done.
Knowing that I'll never do a back flip again is weird. It has been part of my life for so long. I don't remember learning how to do it, or the times I crashed attempting new skills...I just remember being able to tumble. Dan run and jump.
Now, part of me is pissed off that an injury is forcing my "retirement". I would much rather end on my own terms, stop when I feel it's time. In reality though, I don't think that day would have ever come. I don't see myself ever just choosing to give up on something that has been a part of me for so long. In a way I guess I needed the injury to end it for me...something to pull the plug.
I guess now it's time to move on. Time to find something else to set me apart, something else that makes me special. The beginning of a new era.
In health and with respect...
D
