I wonder where this little girl went . . .

[MaryGilbeaux]

I was watching little girls turn cartwheels. At that age, I was turning cartwheels without using my hands - you just had to believe you could do it. I believed it and so I could do it.
I don't know when this stopped.
When did I become timid? I wish I was intrepid

There was a programme on BBC2 the other night with the lovely twin doctors about fear and disgust and how we aren't born with them, but learn from experience and from others, and it's all to do with survival

Fear at least is an inbuilt phenomena, you don't need to learn it

I could never cartwheel. I was not very physical. My family always told me that I had a terrible sense of balance and I was never taught to ride a bike.

As I've got older I've become braver - I went white water rafting in a river with grade 4/5 rapids using just balance to stay in the boat when it started occuring to me that family folk lore was maybe not the best judge of my balance.

So at 45 I learnt to ride a bike.

Nothing wrong with my bloody balance.

I used to swing on what we called 'the apparatus' on the sports field at junior school. I doubt that I could do it now without doing myself a mischief.

Children have totally different proportions to adults - their limbs are closer to all being the same length, which is useful for cartwheeling.

I was a fearless little girl too - I climbed trees, I jumped out of trees into lakes, I did gymnastics, all the rest of it.

Now I'm scared of heights, and speed, the M25, flying - the list is endless and ridiculous. I can't pinpoint a time when I changed - I suppose when you become a parent you feel you have more to lose?

I think when we are younger, sine mike me have that no fear, carefree curious attitude to life.. I also used to do gymnastics and watch my dd’s do it now.. I have refrained from cartwheeling so far as I know I would end in a heap.. it’s tge growing up trap.. we air on caution and know we are not imortal.. unlike when we were children.

So we are on page 4 of this thread and nobody managed yet to ask the question of how exactly you do cartwheels without using your hands.

When I was at primary school my best friend lived on a farm and had several horses. I never had any formal lessons, but we used to bomb around all over the place on her horses. It never occurred to me I might fall off, or hurt myself.

My DD now rides and I can't bear to watch sometimes.

Part of it for me is that I get dizzy really easily now. As a child I could spin round with no ill effects - now, just whirling DC around the living room briefly is enough to make my head spin.

I used to be able to do standing flips on the trampoline. I tried it last year, fractured my t5 I believe ! The dr didn't like my belief that I just didn't believe hard enough

It's puberty. That's why the Eastern Europeans and Chinese cheat at gymnastics by using 11 year olds - puberty makes men stronger but it makes girls wider. Objectively worse at gymnastics.

Reading all of your achievements inspired me to try a forward roll - than I remembered that I am an Old Trout, and my bones are just slivers of chalk held together with bits of gristle, and I came to my senses and had another cup of tea and more biscuits instead.

Thank Christ I dodged that particular bullet.

They also give (or used to) puberty-suppressing drugs Pisa - I think it came out one time that Olga Korbut had been awash with puberty-suppressing hormones when she competed in the Whatever-year-it-was-Olympics - I know was in the UK 'cos we had Russians in Sunderland

Off the back of this thread, I just did a handstand up the wall to see if I still could, and I think I've fixed my prolapse grin

Thats great but I hope you don't now feel as if you have something stuck in your throat

I used to do gymnastics as a child, started trampolining at 37 and I loooooooove it. I can do various twisting somersaults now. Takes me ages to learn anything new, I have to wear tena and go to the loo every twenty minutes, but it is flipping awesome to have learnt this when I thought I was past it!
Plus I do adult lessons and I'm usually not even the oldest there. Plus it is amazing cardio. Highly highly recommend it.

So we are on page 4 of this thread and nobody managed yet to ask the question of how exactly you do cartwheels without using your hands.

Its often called a side aerial, and this explains how (as long as you're 10, and really skinny and bendy!):

I was never a particularly physical child.

I took up roller derby a couple of years ago and am now the most 'gung ho' I have ever been in my life.

I am 47 and have never knowingly tried to lick my toes before tonight.
I managed to lick both big and little toes on each foot, but it wasn't very pleasant, as I have tights on with fluff sticking to them.

Still, it's heartening to know that I can.

Find a ju-jitsu class. They will teach you standing break falls.

v. confused - I thought the Op was using the whole cartwheel thing as a metaphor for a chance in life.

So did everyone else think she really actually wants to return to cartwheeling or the splits or take up rock climbing etc.?

Shall I get me coat?

I used to play football until it was too dark to see; was good at gymnastics (and very small) but hated it; used to happily cycle hands free (until I hit a curb and knocked out a front tooth). Sat on the bottom of a swimming pool with my eyes open... until they were stoner red. I also attempted treehouse builds, with distinctly dangerous, but fun results. I guess we get older, we become self conscious, awkward, and the cartwheel becomes a thing of the past.... sad that.

I think it's about your attitude towards fear.

I broke my arm ice skating with friends aged 11. My mother went mad, wouldn't let me go out with them again. A couple of years later I had an utterly horrific skiing accident that put me in hospital for a very, very long time. I became scared of everything because I was shielded from everything.

Mid-twenties, life is very different. I've deliberately put myself in a lot of dangerous situations and no longer find myself scared or fearful of a lot of things. So, I decide to get back on the ice. Most people's biggest fear of ice skating is just falling over simply because it's going to hurt. I didn't care any more, I told myself I didn't have the time or energy to waste on the fear of it. The fear, in this case was going to get in the way of achieving what I wanted. If you hurt yourself, it's going to heal. You get a bruise, it will go away. So I started playing an on-ice sport. I get knocked about, hit, beaten, hurt, smashed, bruised, abused all the time. I fall over, I get pushed over, people deliberately set out to hurt me and not once have I experienced fear in the process.

It's led to a massive change overall in life. I'm more confident, I find myself able to take on situations I couldn't before. My interviewing technique is far better. In the handful of threatening situations I've found myself in, I've been able to "square up" to people instead of backing down if I'd been scared.

The only thing now that stops me doing some of the childish things I used to do is pain. I feel mentally younger for it, I wish I felt physically younger too!

My mum was showing my DSs cartwheels back in the summer

My wrists dislocate at anything now so I can’t even try. I can still suck my toes, shoulder both legs and do the splits though.

I think the lesson there is maybe that you lose the fear as you age? Or maybe my mums never went away?!

I could cartwheel one handed, never managed none though