This article is also interesting:
Banning cartwheels: School litigation fears are unfounded

And if I hear the phrase "nanny state" one more time, I may sic Mary Poppins onto those sexist nitwits.

I am a klutz. I wouldn't have ever dared to try a cartwheel.

On the other hand, I believe I have fallen out of every variety of fruit tree that grew in the San Fernando Valley. Avocado trees were the worst because they are big.

I did try to learn how to fly - we would flap our arms and jump off of roofs. Never worked.

And I was a reasonable body surfer - never really got interested in using a board. I met, sometimes rather violently, the bottom of many a sea shore when I miscalculated a wave.

Oh yea, I did fall off of the Sepulveda Dam. It has steel pipes sticking out every few feet on the way down - ouch, ouch, ouch, and ouch - lucky I didn't break anything.

And did I mention that I once climbed El Capitan in Yosemite? (I only made it up about three feet, but that counts, doesn't it?)

"The courts recognise that children need physical activity and physical activity always carries some risk."

LIFE is a risk!!

Actually @Kenny Chaffin it wasn't about banning cartwheels as much as playground materials - apparently lots of unpleasant surfaces and slopes.

@Muse nanny state sounds a lot more harmless thang surveillance state which seems to start with safety for the rich.

Banning cartwheels outright seems a bit excessive; however, instruction would be helpful.

I, too, have been a lifelong klutz. I remember as a child being afraid of tumbling in PE class because the first time I tried a forward roll, I managed to sprain my neck. Never was very athletic. Couldn't do a cartwheel back then or now if you paid me a million bucks! My granddaughter, on the other hand, is in cheer, as they now call cheerleading, and does regular tumbling and flips and such with ease. Ah, to be young again.

When I was in second or third grade, some kid fill off of the jungle gym and broke his arm. I distinctly remember seeing him stand up and his arm was bent in one too many places.

I have hiked over massive piles of driftwood, big thick old growth from up in Olympic National Park, carried down to the beach by floods and storms, where, when you are up on top of the pile, you can peer down through a tangle of logs and maybe see the sand twenty feet down or so. Just casually walked of this stuff for half a mile or so, with nary a thought that along with my sixty pound pack, if I went over, I might never make it back up. Not so much a pile of driftwood as a landscape of pick-up-sticks of the gods.

My dad worked in risk management for self-insured government bodies. This would include occupational health and safety. The stories he would tell us, and the advice he would give us, was sometimes out of this world. Some playground equipment was without a doubt incredibly dangerous, and he would have it removed from public parks. He wasn't enforcing a "nanny" state, he wasn't killing people's fun, he wasn't "clutching his pearls". He had the actuarial tables and statistics to know exactly what was of real danger.

I ended up chating with an elderly hippy yesterday. He kept telling me how "progressive" he was. He had built a space on his own property for performance. His complaints were loud about the "nanny state" telling him that he needed more safety measures in place to use it. I asked him to please not use that term, but he just went on. He told me all about how there was a ten foot drop in places where people needed access in order to move around lighting, sound, and other rigging. He was told he needed personal fall protection equipment. "How dare they! If I want to climb up and down a rope in my space, I should be allowed to do so." But it wasn't just his space if he was opening it up to other people to use.

@Muse Love means setting up people for success and awesomeness, not getting hurt. Or at least that's my take on it, maaan.

I've tried and failed at a lot of things. Well, most of the things I've tried.

The other day I read an elaborate cursive bumper sticker that said "Eat Mom." I raised my eyebrows, exclaimed to myself "Eat Mom?!?" The US president is a woman and child rapist still supported by 100 million of my fellow citizens so I didn't think to question it.

I squinted a bit and saw that it said "Cat Mom," laughed in relief, and felt much better.

I failed miserably at cartwheels. Had no sense of where my feet were. I'd try one, ask friends if I got it that time... nope.

I should not have had to wait until I was in my 50s to find out why. (spoiler: autism)

LIFE is a risk!!

THISSSSSS

s/ raised by a cop with undiagnosed anxiety disorder