Heels over Head

Have you ever thought of the phrase “head over heels?”

As in, “He was head over heels in love,” or “She fell head over heels for those shoes”? If you think about it, we are all head over heels most of the time; it is our head’s natural position. It is being heels over head that is exceptional.

This week, my best friend is visiting; her last name is the same as a popular NYC grocery chain, so I shall steal a page from Liz Gilbert’s book and call her Groceries. This is Groceries’ first trip to Connecticut, and on her first day, I treated her to a tour of the local haunts; shopping in Westport, lunch at , shell-hunting on . We had a lovely day. However, it was only later that evening, at a gymnastics class in the , that she went heels over head.

GCA (or ) offers an adult tumbling class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from 7 to 8 p.m. Assured that the class welcomes participants of all experience levels, I proposed to Groceries that we go. Her response was positive; in addition to the fact that she’ll try anything once, a member of her running club in Houston had recently told her she’d started taking such a class and was enjoying it. Groceries was in.

Now, in case you’re thinking that she and I are super-fit, petite former Olympians … we are not. I was a cheerleader in high school, but in a pom-pons-and-ponytails, rather than ESPN-All-Star-from-Texas, sort of way. Groceries has no tumbling experience other than attempting cartwheels in the front yard as a child. Today, both of us take pilates and stay on top of our cardio, but my point is that, while a couch potato may want to try a few private lessons first, anyone with decent level of fitness could do the class.

In our grand tradition, we arrived a little late, after introductions and stretching had already begun. Coach PJ, a rather sweet cannonball of a man, welcomed us onto the mat, a spring-loaded, cushioned thing that helped matters immensely. We started off with a series of increasingly advanced tumbling passes, but I don’t meant to imply that they were advanced to begin with; we did quite a few front rolls, and I was familiar with one move because my two-year-old practices it in her class. She does it better than me. I made it to round-off (essentially a cartwheel where you land with your feet together), and Groceries maxed out at cartwheel (although she later added, “In round-offs you just land differently, right? So maybe I technically did a round-off.”)

Our classmates were all friendly people with good attitudes and varying levels of ability (Groceries: “Everyone’s nice ‘til you accidentally kick ‘em in the face and break their nose.”) There were more women than men, but not by much. It was inspiring to see a small woman with amazing calf muscles do a round-off two-back-handspring pass, and heartening to commiserate with those who, like us, had crooked cartwheels and shaky handstands. The over-riding feeling was that one had accomplished enough by being there and trying. I like those sorts of classes.

From the mat, we split into two groups, the flips and the flops, as it were. Coach PJ took the less gymnastically-abled over to the tumbling track, a long trampoline intended to make the act of going heels over head a little easier. Here Groceries and I sustained the bumps and bruises that will cause most of the soreness Coach PJ warned us about: she banged her chin as she fell out of a diving forward roll, and I opened out of a failed attempt at a front flip too early, landing on my rear. Both resulted in laughter rather than tears, however, and a sense of pride; it’s nice to be reminded that we don’t break too easily. “Oh this crick in my neck? Aw, it’s nothing. Just from doing front flips in tumbling class; no big deal.” Not once did either of us come close to actually landing on our feet, but it didn’t matter.

The class mixed cardio and strength training effectively, and our energies started to fail us; after completing one noticeably slow pass, Groceries noted, “That didn’t kill nearly as much time as I’d hoped it would.” We headed back to the mat for a old-school work-out of jumping jacks, push-ups and squats, threw around some high-fives with our fellow gymnasts, and we were done. 2012, here we come; see you in London.

Coach PJ says that one hour of gymnastics can burn from 800 to 1200 calories, and while Groceries and I think that that number may apply more to the power tumblers than the front-rollers, we definitely felt we’d had a strong work out. The trick is to know your limits and love them: be happy with doing your best cartwheel even if others are attempting back flips. No matter what, heels over head is still an exceptional place to be.

Gymnastics and Cheerleading of Connecticut (GCA)’s adult tumbling class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 7:00 – 8:00pm, is $335.00 for 21 weeks, or 5 payments of $76.00/month. Call if you’d like to try a trial class. The season starts August 29th and lasts until January 28th, 2012.