feeling inquirious

Hello fellow inquirers!

Over the next few weeks I have decided that I would like to teach myself some gymnastics for my Free Inquiry project.

A little backstory:

Four years ago, while playing at my university, I tore a muscle in my shoulder and have not been able to do nearly the same things as before:(

So, for my Free Inquiry, I wanted to work on getting some of the strength back in my shoulder by trying to re-teach myself handstands and cartwheels in the hopes of restoring my pride (and strength of course). I was in my third year of my undergrad when this happened and it was really hard for me mentally to go from playing the sport I loved, to not even being able to tie my shoes without help.

Although I am now at a pain free point with my shoulder, I have always been really sad with the amount of strength I lost in my arm; the actual ability to hold myself up with that arm.

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This project initially got me really excited, because after learning some basics gymnastics last year, I realized how much it was able to fix some of me mental struggles with sports as well. Since my injury, I haven’t really been able to enjoy my sports the same and this was really hard for me. Gymnastics made me feel like a child again and I started to get excited for physical activity again. So with this project, I am hoping that I can combine some outcomes and fix some of my love for sports that I’ve lost and gain some strength back in my upper body.

My goal by the end of this is to be able to do a handstand (hopefully) and also a cartwheel because I just think they are so cool.

Problem areas I can already tell you:

• legs need to be much straighter and in a line for my cartwheel 🙁
• need to get much straighter for the handstand (I feel like I am going to fall backwards even though I am not)

So, every week I plan to share with you:

• Exercises I have been doing to help
• progress picture or video
• Something new I learned about Gymnastics that week
• a reflection of my week

until next time,

xoxo

Also, during my gymnastics phase last year I got really interested into how Gymnastics can be really beneficial for students with cognitive limitations and attention deficit disorders (ADHD) so here’s a little peak of a lesson plan I incorporated into my project on students with ADHD! I loved how gymnastics made me feel really care free and I couldn’t stop researching different uses; the original study I found focused on kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and found that because these kids were encouraged to stomp around, they expelled a lot of energy which helped with their focus throughout the rest of their classes!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15jCOJ66cIcBfutYQFr_xz4iUyoycyg0a/edit