As we all know, the majority of vaulters is female, so how do boys discover and learn to love vaulting? We have talked to a vaulter who gave us insights and shared his thoughts and experiences of his first vaulting session with us. Can you identify yourself or one of your teammates?
I have always wondered how my friend Kathi came up with the idea of bringing with me to a vaulting class, a place with 99% of women, to be honest, I wouldn’t have brought my friend to my football trainings.
However, I kind of ended up at the riding stables! I will never forget the expression on the faces of my new teammates, when I showed up to my first vaulting training. Ten girls who went from being surprised to a little bit shocked:
“What is he doing here?” “He won’t dare to get on the horse!”
Excepting my new female trainer, who grinned at me, as it was her plan from the very first moment to make me part of the team.
The first few attempts of a mount went surprisingly well and I was quite proud of hearing my teammates say jealously:
“How can he jump so high?!?!”
Mounts, ground jumps, handstands, etc. No problem, I’m strong and athletic! I can do it on the ground, so I can do it on a horse, too, right?
But as you all know, vaulting is a sport, which also requires a lot of coordination, flexibility and elegance, which I completely lacked.
“I have to point my toes and stretch my knees? And coordinate with the canter of the horse? What?!”
At least, the girls had a lot of fun at correcting my humble moves and my misunderstanding of horses:
“If I stand in front of him, can he see me? If I give him a carrot, how will he be able to differentiate between the carrot and my fingers?”
I had always done some gymnastics and many other types of sports, but vaulting seemed to be more difficult than I thought. So it got as hard and challenging as you can imagine. Without a single feeling of rhythm in my bones I tried my best and became part of the competing team. I wanted to prove them that I was able to get much better scores than all those girls.
That was my first step into that Vaulting World.
The first step of becoming a cowboy among many cowgirls was made.
By Anonymous
Part II coming soon…
