Sometimes our purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others and that is nothing to be ashamed of. Some of the greatest moments in my life have come from doing something stupid or just purely for the hell of it.
Those thinking age brings wisdom, I can tell you now it doesn't. It brings experience and knowledge if you are open to both. However knowing that something is stupid and has been a bad idea in the past doesn't mean you won't do it again and it often shouldn't.
There is an expression, don't test the water with both feet, but sometimes we see no choice. I remember being in a particularly hot mountain valley beside a beautifully clear stream with a sheer drop into it. Many around me were wet from swimming leading me to assume the stream would be a good way to cool off. Seeing no way to get in steadily, I plunged in and with effort got straight back out, having felt slithers of ice brushing past me. The onlookers I thought must be insanely tough found this highly amusing and informed me this was water straight of the mountain and nearby glacier, so great for drinking but not advised for swimming in. There was a pool dug out of the rock half a mile away, filled by a stream that meandered its way down and was comfortably warm in summer, which everyone else had been using.
I like my training and have done as many stupid things in the name of trying to get fitter than most of the rest of my life combined. My belief in my own ability is ludicrously high and my desire to be better means I will push beyond the point of sanity most weeks. Meaning I fail frequently and sometimes ridiculously.
As with anyone training I always want one more rep, or disc. Most of the time this obsession yields steady results, there are of course exceptions. Plyometric exercise is all about elastic strength and one activity I decided to do was jump over a step stack then rebound jump as far as I could, making the initial jump pure prep. Last set last rep, too tired to realise I didn’t have the strength left. First jump, no half measure brushing the stack, hit it with both feet sending it tumbling and giving me an uncomfortable space to land on.
Of course this minor mishap could have gone totally un-noticed, but as I stood up there were at least 30 people looking at me either concerned, concealing laughter or not bothering to conceal. A quick bow and tidy up reassured all that I was as OK as I get and not worried about being a momentary laughing stock.
There are activities that go well together and others which don't. When you are used to being able to stop on a bicycle with feet clipped in and simply balance while waiting at lights riding home from ballet can be amusing. Ballet is an activity where your toes are most often facing to the side, so totally different to normal stance or pedalling position. Riding home, I stopped, in my mind I was perfectly placed to simply sit and balance as always, in my body however I wasn't and without as much as a wobble, simply fell over in a heap.
If you think this is the limit of my stupidity, you don't know me at all. This is to show that I believe in being able to laugh at myself as well as others, and am aware of how often I have made that possible.
There will be more of this type of thing in due course.
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