Souplesse

Literally: suppleness, softness, flexibility, adaptability, fluidity. On the bike: smoothness, a one-ness with the machine. Think of a climber dancing away on that steep section that leaves everyone else pushing squares and threatening to rip their handlebars off...

...Souplesse connotes style, but it also hints at a deep-lying efficiency, an elimination of non-essential movement. Much has been made in recent years of incremental improvements, the sorts of time gains made in wind tunnels and in customized nutrition plans. Souplesse has that same incremental value, except that it comes from within the athlete.
-courtesy of Red Kite Prayer


But how do you teach a 4 year old a one-ness with his machine? Hell if I know. What I do know, is what I didn't do, what I did do, and like throwing mud on a wall; what stuck. And of course the positive effects of peer-pressure.  So here is a top 5 list of what it took to get G and his best pal to seek their own Souplesse.

#1 Exposure through saturation. From the first exploratory ride around the block to see if bike riding would 'take' to regular rides on the Bullitt, making adventure part of the routine has been key.

#2 Balance bikes ROCK! Having a 2 or 3 year old start out on a balance bike is like a learners' permit to the freedom of riding. My happiest memories in recent years are of riding to the park G called "Thunderdome" and of cheating winter out of the dull-drums with all day sessions at The Lumberyard.

#3 Don't forget the pedals! From his first quad wheeled Radio Flyer thing until just recently, I didn't bother G with pedals. I should have. He was fast enough on his Skuut Bike and didn't want to slow down to learn how to pedal. Finally, in desperation, and with a broken elbow (Lumberyard while G wasn't looking!) I had Grandpa bolt the training wheel arms to the rollers. Two weeks ago I swiped the Big Wheel from Grandma and Grandpa's backyard to get G's pedals turning on our own sidewalk.

 

 

 

#4 Bribery. The idea came from a friend so I can't claim it, and I felt a little dirty and low-down presenting 'The Deal' of getting Optimus Prime for learning to pedal; -no training wheels, over the course of a 3-day weekend.  It was a useful with clear rules that G fixated on as the driving force to face his biggest life challenge since learning to poop in the toilet.

#5 Peer-Pressure. Along with bribery, the planning via emails, text messages, and discussions while the boys shredded the Lumberyard had me feeling kinda' sleazy like a politician with an agenda, but this agenda is AWESOME so I only felt a little manipulative. On Memorial Day, after two-days of trying, crying and frustration, we got both the boys together and once one of them was ready to try, the other stepped right up too. No joke, 5 minutes later, we had two boys stoked for their first parking lot criterium.

Mothers Day Special Guest Edition

In appreciation to the endless work of moms, this special guest edition post is the work of the NewmaMotha' herself. Not much else can compare to letting Mom write for this journal of enlightenment. Enjoy...

As a mom, I’m constantly trying to remind myself to have fun with my kid.  Sometimes that’s hard when the laundry is piling up, dinner ideas escape me, I need to take a shower and there are 137 emails in my in-box that scream for attention (I’m not actually that popular, but Amazon likes to tell me when new books by favorite authors are available and Bed Bath and Beyond wants to know why I haven’t redeemed my 20% off coupon.  Evil bastards.)

Anywho, tonight I planned for an early dinner and a trip to the neighborhood pool for Family Swim Night! The line coming out the front door of the community center should have been a give-away that a calamity was about to ensue.  It wasn’t until we got inside to pay and get our hands stamped that I clued in to the fact that it was $2 family swim night.  Let me tell you this right now; sometimes, paying LESS is not a good thing.  Because in this case when we paid LESS we got so much MORE.  Not in a good way.

Kids and people were everywhere.  There was nowhere to change or put our stuff and bodies were packed into the pool like minnows.  In fact some people that were at the back of the line never made it in.  They shut down admissions as the place was at capacity. We hit the wave pool first.  I was swept away following little G and Newms but soon we got separated.  A 10-year-old boy passed me awkwardly on the left and while I was getting out of his way, I got kicked, Michael Phelps style, right smack in the boob by some other kid.   Boob hits hurt.    I already knew this to be true because once I accidentally punched myself in the boob and it hurt so bad I passed out in the bathroom at work and was subsequently late to an important meeting.  But that’s another story for another day.  I sat out for a lap.  It was a war zone. 

The lifeguards were ever vigilant.  They paced and scanned from their perches blowing the whistle and pointing at kids who were pushing, shoving, rough-housing or generally being annoying (aka EVERY KID IN THE POOL) at 15 second intervals.  It was nerve wracking.  One whistle meant stop what you were doing.  Two whistles meant stop what you were doing and go find your parent.   Three whistles meant they wrote your name on a clipboard and gave your parent a final warning.  

Little G and Newms went down the big slide a few times and that was fun to watch.  I stood awkwardly in the middle of the melee protecting my boobage and waving.  Soon I decided my time would be better spent in the hot tub.  I settled in to the lovely warm water the lone female surrounded by 8 very large, very hairy and very scary fellas.  They did not appear to want to talk to me.  I know this because when I talked to them, they did not talk back.  The lifeguard standing above me overseeing both the hot tub and a portion of the shallow end looked a lot like Jim Carey in his SNL lifeguard role.  Turns, out he acted like him too.  Somehow a ding-a-ling parent wasn’t watching their toddler and the little guy attempted to enter the hot tub.  Toddler jumped in and before his little body was completely in the water, Jim Carey blew his whistle three times in my ear and leapt, hurdle style, into the hot tub to extract the kid.  He soared over my head.  As I looked up I saw Jim Carey’s junk.  Nuts.  Now I needed  a mind-shower.  He hit the water and scooped up the toddler in one move.  It was epic.  The parent was found.  A report was filed.  Jim Carey returned to his station which was directly over me.  The run-off from his swim trunks cascaded onto my head.  Before I could casually move, he jumped in for another rescue in the shallow end.  A kid, with a life-vest on being held by his mother got rescued.  It was intense.

About that time, a really really old, skinny dude, I’ll call him Frank, decided to hit the hot tub.  As he got in I noted he had two black eyes.  Somebody very recently kicked this scrawny guy’s arse. He was looking right at me as he descended the stairs and made a lot of ahhh and oooh noises as the warmth enveloped him.  I smiled.  Who doesn’t love getting into the hot tub?  But then I noticed that he was using both hands to massage his package while staring right at me.  Ah, I see now. Frank was a creeper.  Time to get out of the hot tub and find my family.  Just as I decided to make my exit, Jim Carey blew the whistle four times.  Now I know, four whistle blows means ……Turd. In. The. Pool.

We’ll never know who, (my money is on Frank) but someone really took the kids to the pool.  Jim Carey moved all the kids into the deep end (yes, this makes sense) while another lifeguard fished the debris out of the water with what must be a poop catcher.  This is about the time that I give the “abort” signal to little G and Newms, who were standing in line on the stairs to get one more run on the giant water slide.  In much the same fashion as we entered, an insanely large group of people left the community pool, a little less innocent than when they went in.

Bonus – they gave us free passes for our next swim.  So, it was a happy ending for all.  Except for maybe Frank.   

Rights of Spring, Boys of Summer and Americas' Pastime

In 1980 I was nine. In 1980 I was a New York Yankee's fan. For reasons still unknown to me, in 1980 my parents would not let me play Little League. I was the only kid in the neighborhood who wanted to -but was unable to be on a legitimate baseball team. Granted, I organized pick up teams in an effort to create a team that would somehow transcend organized ball-sport reality and win the Little League World Series. Unfortunately most of my draft pool were kids that were less interested in baseball and more motivated to just not be stuck inside, at home.  Not until 1983 was I given the privilege of riding the bench on a real life baseball team.

Regardless of my credentials, I needed to see the Yankees play in order to be a true fan. In hindsight the best guess I have as to why I chose the Yankees was because I LOVED eating Reggie! bars between throat freezing drags of a Slurpee on the curb of the neighborhood 7-Eleven.

During one of my afterschool 7-Eleven stops I learned the Yankees would be playing the A's in nearby Oakland in a few weeks. I discussed with my parents who in turn explained I would have to buy my own ticket and another for an adult to take me. My mind wandered for days as to how to hustle up enough cash. Finally my mom and I decided that growing flowers and selling the starts door to door in the neighborhood would be my cash cow.

So a flower starter I became. Styrofoam egg cartons each filled with just enough soil and seed were watered daily and left in a window sill to grow. And grow they did. All of my futures sprouted and as they were able to stand up on their tiny little green stocks, I drug my wagon throughout the neighborhood selling the shit out of my flower starts. I learned to have a solid, quick sales speech. To look my customer in the eyes. To enunciate to my customer and pray for divine sympathy that the mom of the house would answer the door.  I learned to not show the face of rejection from kids in my class who instead answered the door and flipped me crap calling me a desperate loser. Which I was.

I sold all my flowers in a week. I made $4.50 then called Ticket Master to order up two tickets along the first base line, close to the visiting team dugout. Words to this day cannot describe the tearing out of my soul I felt when I learned that $4.50 wouldn't pay for peanuts at a Major League Baseball game. I felt worse than when my brother pulled his Skylab stunt over on me. I was lost in an abyss.

Time passed and game day grew closer. Tickets appeared for the whole family to go to the game. This was huge as previous family outings involved camping and my dad napping or just my dad napping. My excitement was nearly the equal opposite to the disappointment I had felt from my pathetic fund-raising gardening experience.

On game day the whole family walked into the stadium, climbed up the concrete stairs in the cool shade to the concession level. I saw for the first time the ever so green and well mowed grass of the outfield as we walked through a tunnel to the box seat section. Then across an aisle to stairs baking from the late morning sun near left field. We climbed ever still to bleacher seats so high I could feel the breeze from the San Francisco bay. I had the same sensation as when one is on the highest point of a roller-coaster. I looked down to that emerald green grass and perfectly striped infield about the size of my 3rd grade hand and realized I would barely be able to make out any of the players. I accepted that I was in the cheap seats as my legs grew weak with each step closer to the heavens. Stuck at an altitude that if I fell I was certain to die I wondered if a car roof would cushion my fall.

Players came out onto the field. The National Anthem was played. The crack of a bat echoed. The Yankees come to find out, only wear pin-stripes in the Bronx. At away games they dressed in the same color as the primer on my neighbors unfinished GTO. My brother and sister argued, fought and made fun of everyone and everything. They both wore 3/4 sleeve tour 'jerseys' of Journey and REO Speedwagon. Lord only knows what my parents wore, but I know my dad took a nap. Beer was spilled on my mom by a drunk stranger, and I definitely smelled pot.

Billy Martin kicked dirt on an umpire, Reggie Jackson got on base, but Baseball -the experience I anticipated; was not the experience I had. Wise to the worldly knowledge of ticket prices, I estimated the cost of the whole family going to an A's game as I stared at my shoes through the late innings. For the record, the Athletics won in a year that history would show as a good year for the team. Likely it was a good game. But the cost, I figured in my 9-year old head, was far more than the expense for me to have played Little League that season. And definitely not worth the price I had to pay of sitting in the backseat sandwiched between teen-aged siblings all the way home as we were sun-baked and wind-burned from spending 9-innings together as a family in the cheap seats.