Trampolines! By Shannon Nordstrom

           One of the best theatrical performances in London is at the YMCA right down the street from our study center. All you have to do is watch the trampoline club practicing their sport, in particular the coach. Imagine sky-high gymnastics and amazing athletic skills. The set up isn’t anything too flashy, but the show is too impressive to be shrugged off.

            When the coach Dan performs his tricks on the trampoline everyone has to stop and watch. Not just the trampoline club members but people all over the gym. I notice that everyone is watching him, employees that are supposed to be leading an aerobics class, men in the weight room, who stop lifting and look through the glass at him, and girls jogging on the treadmill. They are all in awe wishing they could do half the tricks Dan is performing.

            Explaining what is so awesome about trampoline tricks is actually a bit tricky though. Firstly, Dan can get so much height off the trampoline that, that in it is impressive. Then he suddenly flips upside down into a diving position straight towards the trampoline and plummets downwards as though he has just hallucinated a pool below him, but suddenly at the last moment he tucks under to land on his back, but don’t think that is the end of his trick! From his back he launches back into the air and does a front flip, graceful as a swan, into a front stomach landing, then shoots straight up tucks his legs in and spins in a full rotation, like some sort of skateboard move, then opens up again to land on his stomach.

            Let’s stop here for a second and talk about the stomach landing. You are probably thinking that landing on your stomach on a trampoline sounds easy and sloppy, and you’re right if you are talking about literally just jumping on your face, I’m not though. There is an art to it, that once perfected, is beautiful and will give you the ability to fall from a reasonably tall height onto your stomach (on a trampoline) and then be able to get enough height in the return bounce that you can continue a combination of other trampoline tricks, and the best part is it makes the tricks so much more amazing to watch when they don’t all land on feet. The way Dan tucks and twisted at the last minute in such a smooth fashion makes all of his tricks look like graceful, daring, stunts, and you can’t look away.

            I love this experience of London. It’s an acrobatic, trampoline show that I get to be involved in and view from a position in which I am actually touching and sharing the trampoline that the performer is using. I get to shout out tricks that I want him to perform for me, and he helps me to improve my skills. Just two giant trampolines on the gym floor are not at all flashy, and can’t compare to Cirque du Soleil, but to me personally it is still great theatrics in London.