Gymnastics is Life, Danger Shop, Period 3

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Hello, I'm Parker, I really hope you meant to be here." She frowned a second and then said sternly, "If the moose sent you here against your will, you are free to leave. You don't have to humor the authorities. But I think you guys would get something out of this anyway."

Parker had sent out an email the night before, to meet in the Danger Shop today. And with Hardison's help, it was now a multi-layered playground of mats, rings, jungle gyms, hanging chains, and bouncy balls. The ceiling was open, with platforms staggering upward to a diving board onto a huge trampoline. Plus a smooshy ball-pit you could swing into on a rope.

All enhanced by being at half-gravity! Parker had been gleefully thrilled the day before to realize the potential in this for her class.

"Gymnastics is useful! It's good for your body, if you do it right, and don't break your face falling off a balance beam. It's good for your mind and your focus, if you don't pull a muscle in your butt. And it's good to impress people by putting your ankles behind your ears, like this." See?

"We'll get into more of that as the class goes on. And we're lucky! The Olympics are this year, so if they schedule stuff right, we might get a field trip to Rio to watch some of the events in August." Parker put her leg back down. "Today we're gonna start simple, with stretching. And some yoga poses. And me just generally figuring out how much help you're gonna need not to hurt yourself." She paused and added, "We'll use the rest of this equipment over the next few weeks, but if you want to explore it and ask for help today, I'm good with explaining."

"Oh! And if you don't know people, introduce yourself. Or don't. Or make up a name you want to be called, I have a few of those." She did a back-bend, then came up on her hands. "There's popcorn for everyone who at least tries. Sorry for last week, my boyfriend was a bear and we got distracted."

[ooc: comments going up!]

Comments

Sign In

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Stretchily.

Re: Sign In

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe Kaan

Re: Sign In

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo Noyamano

Introduce yourself, or lie.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Just remember, Parker will take you seriously and call you Charlie Clown-pants for the rest of the class if that's what you pick.

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo offered Parker a quick grin. "For anyone who doesn't know me already, I'm Ringo Noyamano," she said, turning to the rest of the class. "And I usually don't do this sort of thing barefooted."

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker grinned back at her. "Good to see you again." She cocked her head. "You know, this is one of the things that could really help with your Air Trek, or at least should give you some new ideas."

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[kenselvren.livejournal.com]

"Jalian," she said. "Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren. I'm glad to be in a class that seems useful."

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Cool," Parker said, looking pleased. "Jalian. See, most people don't think that. But there's a lot more you can do with this beyond going pro or becoming a coach."

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[notamascot]

"I am Kaylin Neya and I believe this class will help me with my fighting and that sort of thing."

A useful class. With a teacher she admired. It could only be a good thing.

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Hi again, Kaylin." Parker beamed at another student she recognized. "It really will. I once took out a guy by doing a handstand and kicking him in the face. They never see that coming."

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[notcancelled.livejournal.com]

"I'm Mayday Parker. That's my real name," Mayday said. "Well, my real name is 'May,' but everyone's called me 'Mayday' since I was a baby."

Re: Introduce yourself, or lie.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Mayday. I like it." Parker grinned. "What are you into, Mayday? You signed up for this class, right?"

Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker started on the mats, making everyone sit on the floor, and then saying, "You can wear whatever you want, but this'll be easier if you're already wearing loose or stretchy clothes. Don't push the stretches past where it feels okay. Take it slow..."

Parker went through the stretches (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhVphYcXsag) slowly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5hBSzJGhkQ).

"All right, show me what you've got. Somersault, backbend, headstand, whatever you already know."

Re: Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe should have planned his wardrobe better, because he was wearing a maxi skirt and platform wedges. He reluctantly took off the shoes and eyed the mat skeptically, wondering how in the hell he was going to manage to do somersaults and handstands in this skirt. (Look, he didn't care about flashing the class, but he was guessing the teacher would.)

Re: Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Problem?" Parker asked, wondering what was going on. That was a really cute skirt, Roscoe.

Re: Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo actually did quite a bit of stretching for AirTrek stuff, so that was pretty easy. From there, she went slowly through a couple of moves. Cartwheels and somersaults were a bit tricky. With ATs, you were generally going too fast for landing on your hands to be a good idea, so Ringo had to rely a ton on her natural balance and athleticism to pull them off.

Re: Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Okay, why does that look a little weird to me?" Parker said, more thinking out loud than asking.

Re: Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[kenselvren.livejournal.com]

Jalian did the stretches without an issue, then went into the opening movements of kartari that she still used to limber up before real practice.

If it looked a bit like a form of martial arts dedicated to knife-fighting, good guess!

Re: Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[notamascot]

Kaylin was able to do the stretches easily and then worked her way through a set of exercises designed for hand to hand combat.

Re: Stretch! Bend! Fall!

[notcancelled.livejournal.com]

Mayday had some experience with gymnastics from back before basketball became her entire athletic ocus, and she kept up with the stretching to help her agility on the court. So both the stretches and some of the routines were pretty simple for her. Especially since she came dressed for a gymnastics class.

Free Time

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Or in other words, recess. Feel free to explore the equipment and figure out what you want to learn most.

Re: Free Time

[kenselvren.livejournal.com]

This whole place looked like so much fun! such a good workout! Jalian was absolutely going to see how much of it she could do and how quickly.

Talk to Parker

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

About gymnastics, life, what her boyfriend was doing as a bear last week (not much).

Re: Talk to Parker

[kenselvren.livejournal.com]

"Your boyfriend was a bear?" Jalian asked.

That...seemed odd.

OOC

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Apologies to everyone for missing last week's class! I have been job-hunting and it has eaten my brain. No excuses. But the line about the boyfriend being a bear is Bella's.

If anyone wants to be TA, feel free to approach Parker about that.