After a pretty intense warm up, we started our low-impact class on rails. There were a few different stations that we could rotate through. One of them was monkey jumping onto a rail about waist high and then chest high (that was the height on me, anyways). The next was jumping down onto a rail from higher up on a block. There was a jiggly bar that no one used as much because it looks like it's going to fall over any minute. The last station was jumping to the rail from your max distance (or just about). I started with the monkey jumps to get myself comfortable, then moved on to the station with the drop onto the rail. When I realized that landing on a rail wasn’t nearly as scary as I had anticipated and my feet were perfectly capable of making contact and staying there, I finally moved on to the max distance station. I only jumped from a few feet to start with until I got comfortable. Then I was interrupted by our instructor, P, who made all of us actually do our max distance. We jumped on the floor to measure our distance, and then he set the mats to just within that distance from the rail.
It was definitely intimidating, but I never let myself think about it too much. If I did, then I would hesitate and get sloppy. One thing I’ve learned while training is that you absolutely have to commit 100%. If even 2% of you is unsure, then there’s a chance that you’ll trip, fall, bail, etc. Usually, I don’t notice my inner monologue but P was really intent on pushing us mentally that night so we were more aware of our hesitations. I noticed my own when I was within a few inches of my max distance. Holy shit, that’s kind of far away. No it isn’t, shaking my head loose of the thoughts, go for it. Stop thinking and just go. Jump. Land. That was easy.
In the later class, P wanted to continue pushing us so we started doing running take-offs to rail precisions. He set up a flat mat underneath the rail as a marker for where we should take off. Each turn, he pushed the mark a little farther out if we had all nailed the last one. Towards the end, the edge of the mat was about 6 or 7 ft away from the rail which was a few feet above the ground.
I was feeling pretty good with myself so far. I’d only hit and bounced back once and the rest of the times I was getting pretty good foot placement and also impressing myself with my jumping distance. Spoke too soon. On my last run, I took off from my max distance, hit the rail, right foot slipped and I shot forwards, tried to roll to the wrong side while my foot was still caught, and hit my head after absorbing some of the shock with my hand and shoulder. Oops. No one wanted to go after that so we started stretching and I incorporated an ice pack into my stretching routine.
Just a few brain cells lost, right? And I think my parents are probably ready for me to find a new activity. Or maybe get a helmet.
Accomplishments: conquering fear of rail precisions
Things to work on: rolls on rolls on rolls so my instincts kick in when I have to bail
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