The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #478: On the Conquering of Fear in Gymnastics

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #478: On the Conquering of Fear in Gymnastics

https://archive.org/download/podcast-478/Podcast%20478.mp3

The past few months, I’ve been happy to host an adult open gym at a local gymnastics school. Adult bodies are different from those of kids, and kids programming is mostly what gymnastics facilities tend to cater to. Gymnastics for adults often ends up looking and being different than it does for kids. We are older, our bodies don’t move in the same ways as they used to, and we may feel rusty or uncoordinated. But if the desire is there, it’s like anything else – the first step is the hardest. So needless to say, I’ve been very proud of the folks who have shown up to train!

I started gymnastics as a sophomore in high school, mostly because a friend asked me to sign a petition to help save the boys’ gymnastics team from being cut. I signed and eventually decided I’d make good on the signature when the petition worked. I ended up doing it the next three years and have been doing it every since (though not all the events). One thing that always puzzled me, though, is why there were so few opportunities for folks, especially men, outside of a high school or college, to practice. And while I have been fortunate to have been able to find places over the years that have allowed adults some windows to practice, those gyms have generally been few and far between. (The situation has not improved … my high school’s gymnastics team was eventually cut, and even at a college level, gymnastics, especially men’s gymnastics can be tough to find – see this article about Ohio State).

My high school gymnastics coach used to say that a lot of gymnastics is mental. I think he said that partly to motivate us to do our homework, but at this point, I understand another meaning … because you are doing things that are unnatural and deliberately putting your body at risk, you are constantly battling your own fear and sense of self preservation … which you feel more as an adult with more developed frontal lobes.

So I think for anyone who falls a lot or has the potential of falling or getting thrown – martial artists, wrestlers, football players, rugby players, breakers, stuntpeople, acrobatic skiers and skaters, the list goes on and on, some time spent in a gym to not only learn how to fall and develop airsense but also combat your own fears by deliberately doing things that disorient and scare you in a controlled and safe way are critical. Obviously, I’m biased having done this since I was a teenager, but I will say that despite the intervening years and changes brought on by aging, my views have changed little. Although as humans, we naturally want to move 180 degrees away from things that frighten us, we don’t grow unless we push ourselves outside out comfort zone. You can obviously take that to the extreme, but if done at a pace you can control and in a manner that allows you do get better at skills in a stepwise fashion, there is a real sense of ownership over your body that you start to attain, which leads to confidence.

And that’s why I wanted to include a bit of it in The Thirteenth Hour when Logan and his fellow Imperial Rangers are going through their initial training. At the time, I had only in a few settings experienced the melding of martial arts and acrobatics. I had not done things like capoeira or kung fu yet, and of the styles I had done (tae kwon do, tang soo do, a bit of hapkido), the main crossover happened around learning breakfalls and rolls, and that was about it. The style of “martial arts tricking” had yet to reach its heyday – that would happen in the late 90s and 2000s. But you could see the possibilities there – kung fu films for decades had such acrobatics, and shows like WMAC Masters and the increasingly realistic 3D graphics for video games introduced it to the masses who has missed Sunday Morning Kung Fu theater. But even putting all that aside, I could see for myself that gymnastics training helped my flexibility, stamina, agility, and coordination. Wouldn’t it be a useful training tool for anyone looking to become a more well rounded fighter? If it were good for me in the real world, I reasoned, why wouldn’t it also be good for my characters?

That’s how we ended up in the tall, airy room that’d been built to train the Army’s special soldiers. The large room with mirrored walls was carpeted with thick, vaguely carpet–like mats. On those mats we were taught how to transfer the momentum of a fall to a roll without getting hurt, how to stand on our hands, and how to spring from our hands to our feet and back again. We were also taught how to flip in the air and how to run up a wall, flip backwards, and land on our feet. In the process, we were introduced to a new language, one born of bodies in motion.
So, it was awkward at first, but exhilarating in a way, and looking back, a lot of it had to do with conquering fear, so in that sense, it really was essential to our training. After several months of trying, I was able to fling myself over backwards and kind of land on all fours with all the grace of a drunken ape. And then one day, I succeeded in landing without putting my hands down on the floor. My instructors then showed me all the things you could do once you could land a backflip.
“Now that you can do a regular backflip, there’s no need to stop there. First make sure you can throw the regular ones easily before going for more advanced variations, like kicking your legs out in midair, letting one trail, keeping your body open, or twisting. You can tumble into one with another technique or simply run into one, then turn and flip, or run and do the backflip as a gainer to go forwards. If you build up to these and eventually just go for them, you’ll get it. Welcome to the club, Ranger.” He gave me a rare smile, did three backflips in a row, finishing the last in a layout position and landing almost completely erect before giving me a salute and moving on to another Ranger in need of help.

The passage above was directly taken from those experiences. And in a later part of the book, when the main character, Logan, is swept head over heels off his feet during a sparring session, instead of landing on his head, he is able to catch himself on his hands and deliver a kick to his opponent in the process.

Thanks for listening!

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Don’t forget that the original hunter action figure from A Shadow in the Moonlight is available on Etsy!

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Check out the growing line of Thirteenth Hour toys and other products on the Thirteenth Hour Studio Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio). There are a number of custom figures from retro films being sold for charity that available there as well.

Check out this collaboration with past show guest Jeff Finley on handpan:

Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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ynth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.

Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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