jump high, jump far, jump as high as you can.
yesterday was wednesday. which means that i was down in south minneapolis with my junior high girls. last wednesday, we were reminded that judy would be there the next week and that we should dress accordingly. now, judy, she's this wonderful woman who lives to exercise, it seems. it puts those of us who are well on our way to becoming out-of-shape adults (who, me? it'll never happen... i won't let it) deep into shame. judy's great. she has this incredible heart for our girls and is such a great motivator for them. a bunch of them forgot to dress accordingly (which means dressed to sweat)... i, unfortunately, totally forgot and wore a skirt to work. that in and of itself is not unusual... i wear skirts most days, but i bring an extra set of clothes on wednesdays if i know that we'll be doing anything active. since my brain and body are still working hard labor in overtime to readjust to the timezone, i forgot. so, i did circle aerobics in a skirt. with tights on. i was hot. more precisely, my legs were hot. and i was restricted from a few moves which involved high kicking of the legs. it's a good thing i love what i do.judy explained to the girls that from the ages of 11 to 20 they should do lots of jumping, or putting impact on their leg bones... this is like depositing money into a bank, except it's strength into the bone bank. after you're 20, every jump is a smaller deposit into the bone bank. after 30/35, it's, so long bone bank, you're bum out of luck. jumping no longer deposits anything... so, i'm 26. i have 4 years to make deposits. not only was i hot last night... it hurt. that's not a good sign.
in high school, there was this guy named kenny that was friends with one of my friends. we used to go and see him in swim practice after school sometimes. the summer after he graduated, he took a fast ride on his bike and ended up underneath a suburban. i remember him saying to his team, jump high, jump far, jump as high as you can. it was some sort of pre-swim exercise. i don't think kenny knew the profundity of his words.
don't you think it's so much easier just to give a little hop? hops don't hurt. but hops don't make much impact. too often, in life, i find myself just hopping along. hopping has little committment. i can hop without losing my breath. i can hop and my bones don't hurt. i can hop, but it doesn't really get me anywhere. it's the jumps that make life worthwhile, not the toe in the water. the more i live life, the more i realize that when you jump, it often hurts for a bit, but you get used to it rather quickly and then you get to swim longer. slowly wading into cold water has never been a wise or fun thing to do. now, hopping. hopping in water would just look silly, so i never do that, but it's all the same. i realize the benefits to jumping, but i still do it so little. because it seems easier. because less invested is easier to handle when it comes crashing down. my heart has me convinced sometimes, that it can't handle more than a hop, more than a little at a time. i know how wrong my heart is... i know that God is in control and has never steered me wrong, even when i question His decisions, but still, i hop...
posted by julie @ 2:11 PM
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