Heel. Toe. Exposed.

Mom and Dad always let Nathan and I participate in whatever extracirricular activities we'd like. I started taking piano lessons at a fairly young age, and my parents even bought me a piano to have at home to practice and play. Every summer was spent at the ballpark going back and forth between softball and baseball games of mine, my brother, and my cousins. One Saturday, Nathan and I were playing in my bedroom. I often liked to dress him up in my Sunday church dresses and splash my (pretend) make up on his face until he had transformed into my little sister. I had a hunch he wasn't really into it, but he had no choice. Luckily, he was a pretty good sport. His misery was interrupted by my mom calling me into the livng room. She was watching a gymnastics competition on TV. She told me to watch them and explained that my cousin Stacy (my ultimate bff) was taking gymnastics and had for a long time. (Seriously, I'm pretty sure that girl started doing flips and handstands in the placenta. She could also climb a sycamore tree faster than any squirrel). The gym where Stacy took gymnastics was taking students for a beginner class. While Stacy wouldn't be in my class, she'd still be there for her workouts while my class met. I thought "Sure, sounds like fun. I have no idea why being so bendy would be beneficial to my life, but hey, this could come in handy if ever I'm in a situation where I needed to escape ninja style. And sure, those girls that can flip always had boyfriends for some reason." So, I told Mom to sign me up! I was pretty excited when the day came that I would start my first gymnastics class. Stacy had been telling me all week how awesome it was going to be. There was even a trampoline at our gym, and I had been dying to get one at home. Maybe I could talk my parents into getting me one since I'd clearly need to practice my ninja flips as much as possible. While getting ready for class, I realized that I didn't have any gymnast clothes. I couldn't show up in shorts and a tshirt when the rest of my beginner classmates would be in leotards. They'd think I wasn't serious about the sport. I'd be a mockery. Mom informed me that there was no way I was getting a leotard before the first class. Who knew if I'd even like it. Borrowing one from Stacy was out of the question (not only for sanitary reasons) because I already stood a head taller than her. Mom told me I could wear the unitard I usually wore with my Levi's for the first class. Granted, it was creamy white and waffle print and had cap sleeves, and it fastened with four snaps at the crotch. As I put it on without my Levi's, I took a long look in the mirror and decided this would have to do. I could jazz up the plain look with a neon scrunchie or two. Always accessorize! So, Mom dropped me off at class. After a brief intro from Ms. Donna, my instructor (who, by the way, was the same height as me), we began our stretches. My class consisted of a mix of boys and girls, and most the other kids went to different schools than me, so I was excited to meet them all. All during our stretches and learning the terms of the equipment, I'd glance over at the uneven bars and see Stacy swinging from one to the other with grace and ease. I thought this had to be pretty easy. The very first thing we learned to do was the balance beam. Ms. Donna had us practice the balance beam by walking on one that was flat on the floor first. Once we had mastered the floor beam, she moved us up to the big beam. I was getting a little bored. All we were doing was essentially learning to take a sobriety "walk-a-straight-line" test. When was I going to learn to flip backwards off the end of this thing like Stacy does? Ms Donna helped me up on the big beam and told me to walk from one end to the other with my arms outstretched. "Yawwwnn...," I thought as I heel toe'ed the mundane assignment. Halfway through the beam, with my entire class sitting below, looking up at me, I heard a small "clink, clink". "Hm. Keep going. Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe.", I said in my head. Clink. Clink. Then, the class started giggling and snickering. Ms. Donna pulled me from the beam and ushered me to the restroom. That's when I noticed the snaps of my unitard had come undone, exposing me and all my glory to the gym. See, it's one of the situations I needed to learn to flip. I needed to ninja flip my escape pronto. Luckily, Ms Donna grabbed my purple Umbro shorts for me and suggested I invest in a gymnastics leotard. (Ya' think?!) Class didn't last much longer after that, and Stacy came to check on me and help me pick out a couple leotards. We knew after that display of embarassment, my mom was sure to give in and buy a couple. I had just given my class their first full frontal view. I didn't last much longer in gymnastics. All the amazing things Stacy could do never came too easily to me. I couldn't even do a cartwheel to move into the next level of classes. Sitting at the piano was more my kind of sport. At least with the piano, there was far less of a chance I'd debut as a girl gone wild.