Full of Blocks of Foam

The dirty, pungent, itchy thing full of blocks of foam. You never know what is down there: socks, bandaids, food, and of course the dust, dirt, and dead skin. When you land, the contents fly into your nose, eyes and mouth. Yep, sounds delightful. It is like looking at a ball pit you played in as a child thinking, “Why in the world did I ever enjoy this? Nasty.”

But…..

The fluffy, injury free, life saving thing full of blocks of foam. Like landing in a cloud of comfort. You can land on your head over and over, and get right back up and try again like it never happened. 

For example...yes, this is me.

So, how can I be describing the same thing? What is this revolting yet glorious “thing”? Three words: the foam pit. 

Image courtesy of Firestorm

 The pit is the life-saver for all gymnasts. You can chuck almost any skill imaginable, and come out perfectly healthy. Well, other than the contents you inhaled when you landed. Truly, the worst outcome is getting stuck head first and needing your teammates to dig you out. 

But…after a certain amount of time, the foam blocks get packed down, calling for a fluffing. This means the whole team jumps in the pit and starts throwing all of the blocks out until you reach the bottom. The job of fluffing the pit fits my initial description: nasty. The pit is about eight feet deep and contains one thousand blocks, all of which must be taken out. As you get closer to the bottom, the grosser it gets, as the small items weave their way through to settle down there.

No matter how many points I make on how horrible the job of fluffing the pit is, I have to admit, I do enjoy it. It is a time where my teammates and I can talk about things other than gymnastics. We come up with games to play or blast the music and sing at the top of our lungs. Some of the younger girls try to build tunnels in the foam, and us older girls help them since we are pros from doing the same thing forever ago.

One activity we do to entertain ourselves while emptying the pit is to throw all of the blue blocks on one side of the pit, and black blocks to the opposite side. Then once the pit is empty, we push all of the blocks in, and the two colors of the pit are divided in half. 

Foam Art in 2010 (sorry its kind of blurry!)

During the process of putting the blocks back in, someone always ends up getting pushed in with the blocks, and sinks all the way to the bottom. It is always interesting to figure out a way of getting them out without getting stuck yourself. And when all of the blocks are put back in and we have finished admiring our masterpiece, everyone wants to jump in. We jump off the bar, or throw the little girls in just to have them get stuck again.

Another time we really enjoy the pit is during sleepovers at the gym. When you are younger, it is the first place everyone wants to sleep. Looking back to those past sleepovers, I still don’t understand how I could ever sleep in there. Maybe because it is warm and makes you feel safe when you are little? Well, maybe not, since there is always the rumor of the pit monster. It is also the go-to hiding spot for the little ones when we play night games. And of course you can use the pit and the area surrounding it to make an exceptional fort.

So overall, the pit is the best invention ever. It is life saving when you are doing skills, and a good time to bond with the team when it calls for a fluffing. So to whoever invented the pit, I give you a round of applause. You are a genius.