Heartache and backache.

I love to do my own commentary when I watch gymnastics on television. It's not that Tim Daggett and Elfie Schlaegel are not doing a good job, I just enjoy my fresh bluntness topped with fine profanity where applicable. Okay, so I am technically not qualified to do commentary at the olympic level, but I know good gymnastics when I see it. However, I am saying this as I lay in bed dealing with some problems with my lower back. Forget gymnastics, I could barely ambulate around my house today. Pretty. Darn. Sad.

When I was 10 years old I had already become self taught in the year or so prior in moves like back handsprings and back tuck somersaults. I joined Hilo Gymnastics Club and trained with some old guy as my coach... I can't even remember his name, or wait, I don't think I ever knew it. A few years later I switched to Pacific Gymnastics until I was 16 or so, and then "retired" at the Pantheon School of Gymnastics with some of my friends in the "adult class." I went to college and got fat in my first year sans formal gymnastics, but, joined the now-extinct University of Hawai‘i at Hilo Vulcan Cheerleading squad in 2001. I tumbled and stunted for three years, becoming coach/captain in my senior year. I also coached gymnastics students for a year back at the Pantheon School of Gymnastics and officially ended participation in any form of the sport at the age of 24.

Fast forward to the age of 30.975. The aftermath of years of flipping, twisting, crashing, stretching, splitting, spraining, straining, and hand-standing have caught up with me. I remember the first time my lower back gave out two years ago as I was doing sit-ups on an incline at the fitness center. I crawled to the aerobics room and lay there in pain and shock. Over the last two years I have had numerous recurrences (like this weekend) where I am rendered almost unable to walk or sit without major effort and chance of major pain if I make a wrong move. Almost makes me feel pathetic as I criticize the bent knees in that guy's Stalders on high bar or that girl's lack of a full 180 degree split in her balance beam mount. I. Cannot. Do. A. Cartwheel. Anymore.

I miss the sport. Heck, I miss just being able to touch my toes! But what I really miss is my physical health. I know that gymnastics will always be a passion of mine, but I have come to terms with the passage of time and have claimed my spot as a spectator. I do hope to work on being healthy and fit and flexible again, despite the physical problems that I have incurred. I guess I took my fitness for granted all those years at the peak of my physical capabilities. I refuse to declare that "I am just getting old." Tell that to 1991 floor exercise world champion, Oksana Chusovitina, who participated in 5 olympic games and ended her career as the 2008 olympic champion on vault in Beijing at the age of 33!

So enough laying in bed and anti-inflammatories. The least that I can do for myself is regain my physical health through gradual exercises and therapy (sorry, Shaun T., no more Insanity for a while!) and get away from these backaches once and for all! Off to drill my chiropractor for more tips in fixing my body.

BTW, congratulations to the 2012 olympic men and women's U.S. gymnastics teams! Te trials are through and I think we have some great athletes going to London. They are not immune to my snooty commentary, however! :) Check 'em out here: http://www.nbcolympics.com/team-usa/athletes/sport=gymnastics/index.html