Bounce

I don't know if it was all the smiles around the room but the atmosphere this afternoon was infectious.

We were at the local leisure centre doing class 5Ps first session of trampolining.

The trampolines were huge not your average garden trampoline for sure and they had no nets. I stared at them with a look of dread and a feeling of pure terror.

The children were put into groups of seven and talked through the role of being a spotter. And then that was it...off they went.

And it was heart in your mouth kind of stuff.

By the time the first child had done six bounces I thought I was going to have a panic attack! They went high! Oh so high. And I was responsible for seven little bodies keeping safe. Seven lots of parents were trusting in us grown ups to keep their precious offspring safe. I took the role very seriously. My group of spotters were ultra tight spotters,they watched their friends,they spread around the trampoline and they didn't mess around. Yep,they tried but flip when a child is bouncing that high on a trampoline you have to have rules and stick by them.

It took a while but soon the panic stopped. I began to actually watch the children instead of just stood bracing myself,ready for them to fall off. I started to relax a little,smile even.

And the children were doing well. Talk about desperate to have as many goes as they could! All I could hear was 'is it my turn next' again and again and again. 

First they had 10 bounces each and then 20 bounces each,they did half turns and seat drops,their faces began to get pinker and their legs got achier but it didn't stop them wanting to bounce.

As the session finished there were groans from the children,I think they could have bounced for at least another hour! Whilst the trampoline teacher sat the children down for a last chat,I turned to Chips teacher and the other helper,we all had smiles on our faces and we all agreed it had been a fantastic afternoon. Apparently I had not been the only one who had thought eek when the children had started to jump and it was funny how quickly we had turned from nervous jelly in our tummy spotters into smiley relaxed wasn't that great' spotters. Amazing.

And so a day that I had dreaded turned into a day of success and a situation that I had feared would be hard turned into a triumph for a certain little boy and a person who held the key to this experience being a positive one proved to be worth their weight in gold. 

My friend Mandy used to say "God can help you to win the lottery but you do have to buy a ticket first" 

Today we put ourselves into a tricky situation and the outcome was more than good. It was a smiley afternoon and in the words of Chips "Trampolining is epic"