Playground Revisited

In grade school, gym class wasn't really a class as much as it was mandated and scheduled exercise time. Invariably, in order to keep all the kids interested and at bay, we would learn team sports such as dodgeball, baseball, or basketball. In my class there were two kids who were the epitome of the athletic overachievers that matured way faster than the other kids. One was Mike L. and the other was Robby S. Because having both of them on the same dodgeball team would amount to gym class homicide for the opposite team, the gym teacher would split them up, call them team captains, and then let them pick the remainder of their teams in alternating fashion. He could have just done 1's and 2's but that would have taken away the humiliation for the kids like myself who day after day, year after year, got picked last. And I was pretty good at dodgeball. Sometimes, bartering would occur with Mike L. stating that he would give Robby S. both me and Craig C. in exchange for Danny B. Em, guys, I'm in the room. I would really like to think that I've gotten over this but truly, I haven't. There has always been a small Sybil persona that represents the playground reject. And he manifests himself in many different ways in my adult life.

Fast forward 25 years. I joined a new gym called the Monkeybar Gym, a "natural gym" that uses no weight machines. Instead, one relies on their own weight and resistance to build muscle and tone. The founder's philosophy is such that kids on the playground are able to maintain health and fitness purely by running around and playing on monkeybars, so why can't adults. The gym provides daily classes that incorporate playground type activities in a much more controlled and disciplined way and a number of my friends have seen significant results. So we do intricate hour long jump rope sessions, climb ropes, do sit ups and chin ups, thirty minute shuttle runs and crab walks. I don't remember being this sore or tired on the playground.

Here's the kicker. At my first class, I was also introduced to one of the gym's other philosophies - the buddy sytem. At every class, one must pair up with another member of the class who they will work with that day to spot and help each other. When the instructor announced that it was time to pair up, I froze. For a moment I became again the scrawny kid leaning against the fence waiting to see who would be stuck with me on their team. That person would be resentful and feel as though the class would be a wash. But the days of Mike L. and Robby S. are long gone. I'm not 70 pounds wet anymore. I don't have to wait to get picked, I can pick for myself. And that's exactly what I did. I asked the first guy that I saw to be my partner and we ended up having a great workout. There was a healthy competitive spirit between us and nobody was the underdog. I'm taking back my earlier playground memories and replacing them with new ones.