CHARNEY HALL Keeping Fit
Thick ropes were lowered from on high, perhaps 6 in a row, and in turn we were taught to climb by wrapping one leg around the rope and then gripping it between the insteps of the feet lower down. Initially we could not stop laughing as most boys gave up after a few attempts but soon (well after weeks and weeks of practice) we got the hang of it and were able to shin right up into the ‘gods’, some 15 feet above the floor - what a view!
The rings were hard work and we were expected to do pull-ups, eventually up to ten.
That was well nigh impossible.
And what happened to all those redundant ropes? Fast forward to today and it would seem that there is a thriving market in the world of interiors for recycled ropes as bed supports! Whatever it takes...
Soon large sections of thick woven coconut matting which were piled up on the floor were arranged behind a ‘box’. The box, better known as a ‘vaulting box’ - this was all new to us - was pushed up against the matting with a wooden springboard neatly tucked up against the front side. The spring board appeared to be just that - a sloping board but were there any springs? I hoped so. For an 8 year old the box looked frighteningly high...Mr Fawcett barked at the first boy in the line - ‘rrrunn!!’ His whistle blew - there was no option. It was not possible to opt out or take it easy on the approach as we soon realised that it was the momentum generated by the speed, transferred to the spring board that propelled each boy in turn over and not into the box. However there was an added complication......you had to somersault over the top and end up standing bolt upright the other side!
It was only after conquering our fear of the box which we now could jump over like rabbits over a kitchen garden wall that we were introduced in later years to the ‘horse’. Like the ‘box’ the springboard was tucked up to the ‘tail end’. Well there was no tail but the leather clad body had a distinctly shaped ‘bottom’.
The Pommel Horse
The horse it turned out was a pommel horse without the handles. It was covered in stretched cowhide and beautifully stitched, had 4 straddled legs - it was going nowhere - and it was l o n g. The far end, I suppose you could call it the head end, was worn smooth - we wondered why (see above)....the object of this tortuous exercise was to vault fully outstretched over the apparatus, landing on two hands at the very end, if you were lucky, parting legs mid-flight, either side of the horse’s body and landing ‘to attention’ on the ‘cocomat’. The very first attempt was daunting as it required full commitment and the very fastest take-off and I felt very apprehensive, fearful even.
......some smaller boys didn’t make it and landed midway along the back of the horse. Others, who were shortly to be on the way to the spinal unit of the nearest hospital, were pulled briskly forward by the upper arm by Mr Fawcett, all within a fraction of a second of smashing their coccyx on the end.
Would you believe it that this apparatus is now considered to be ‘vintage’! The pages of the internet are full of them. I wonder where our horse ended up? Perhaps he is still out there somewhere.....maybe in a different, quirky, recycled form....
With the mass screening of athletics on televisions, now exceeding more than 60” in size, these moves are made to look easy but we know that they aren’t and that they never were!
‘Gym’ was an integral part of the exercise regime at both preparatory and public schools. Given the right encouragement maturing bodies responded quickly and developed a healthy musculature so that when it came to our last year we were in good shape to take on the competitive rigours of our parents’ choice of public school.
Mine didn’t have any climbing ropes so I couldn’t excel in that particular pointless field!
Aaah! but there was a point to it after all......here I am socially distancing, 60’ up the top of a mast this year!
There was more fiendish equipment in store as the term progressed : wall bars for crunches and hand stands, parallel bars for swinging on your hands, feet off the floor and a beam to improve balance which, because of a recurring attack of vertigo whenever I climbed upon it, I detested.
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