I have a new love affair. It is with the Rings. ( the following is offered as a snapshot of the equipment, no such ambition or delusion should be inferred!!)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-YDm-Eh8w0&hl=en_GB&fs=1]

Some fella was showing me how to use them this evening and I am converted. Women do not compete on the Rings in gymnastics and so that’s probably why we never go near them. They do not shred your hands to the same extent as the A-Bars, but chalk galore reigns.

The first move I have to learn is to swing high enough to invert the body over the arms or alternatively a chin up lifting the whole body upwards from hanging to a balance position.

Hmmm. I could be quite a long time swinging on them before any such thing might occur. But I think I will certainly get stronger forearms and that will be very useful for my shelf hanging. I am more and more tempted to try trapeze, but a trapeze artist who comes to the gymnastics training said it’s really hard on the forearms.

**

The backflip is better. I have cut out the round off for now and instead am doing them in threes. The first is the strongest. The second is middling and the third decidedly wobbly if not verging on a fail. By the second my shoulders protest. By the third they collapse often. But who cares about that the first one is glorious!

And onto more glorious matters I must now go and repot my sprouted seeds, they are underwhelmed by the lack of attention.