Day 78: That Time I Did a Flip Off of a Trampoline and Landed on My Face

It was a typical day in early October, nearly 3 o’clock in the afternoon. School had let out some time ago and two young boys were eager to find some fun.

My friend and I decided to do jump on the trampoline, which was our go-to for all my friends around that time. We bounced around, did flips, beat each other up in sleeping bags, and pretend to be The Rock while dropping the People’s Elbow off of our back porch. Now, we were not allowed to jump off of the railing of the porch for a sensible reason: freshman boys do dumb things.

The show, Jackass, was big at the time, so my friends and I created our own show called Bitch-Slap. ABC refused to pick it up, but it lives on in the video archives of my computer. Beyond the few “shows” that we shot, we liked to tape ourselves any chance we got. It was our little 15 minutes and a chance to rewatch our stupid hilarious antics.

On that particular day, bravery struck my brain. I was pretty good at doing flips and flying off of the trampoline in our staged “fights”. I never got seriously hurt and knew the proper way to tuck and roll. So, I thought it was time to up my ability. My plan was to jump off of the railing, do a front flip off of the trampoline, and land on my feet. I had done hundreds of front flips before. That should have been easy.

What I didn’t take into calculation was that the trampoline was slanted because our house was built on a slight hill for water run-off. That was smart. I was not.

I climb the railing. I look at my friend who is holding the video camera. I take a deep breath and jump. I bounce, flip, the sight of the woods comes into view, and then the zooming image of the ground comes closer to my body. Smack! Pain shoots through my stomach. I groan. Adrenaline kicks in. My friend rushes over and asks if I am okay. I laugh and tell him yes.

I shake off the pain within a couple of minutes while my friend videotapes two flys on the trampoline that appeared to be having sex. We have a good laugh and I tell him that I need to see the flip. We rewind the tape and there is nothing but the ground and two flys. He forgot to push the record button before I jumped.

Daaaaaaaaaamn it!

So, after several minutes of internal agony and disappointment, I decided that being able to watch me do the flip, even if I fail again, is worth getting hurt again. After all, I walked it off pretty quick.

I climbed back up on the railing and stood there for about five minutes. By that time I realized my error in calculation and knew that there was very little chance that I could adjust my velocity and trajectory in mid-air. My friend yelled at me a couple of times to jump. I told him to shut up and make sure the video camera was on this time.

Moment of truth: I knew I had to do. I knew that I would be able to have that video forever and be able to show my grandkids the dumb shit I did when I was a kid. I would be able to make my other friends laugh. And, unknowingly at the time, I would be able to make my students explode in laughter. It was worth it.

I took another deep breath and jumped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5BvN0nhZM0

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Author’s Note #1: I will not do that again.

Author’s Note #2: If I ever own that house and a trampoline, I may do it again.