Fleas in a jar: my double back somersault

I am about to turn 40 and I have started learning a gymnastics skill that I never really trained as a child - a double back somersault. It was always deemed too difficult for me, none of my peers in Singapore back then could perform this skill and thus I didn't think it was particularly necessary for me to learn it; since I was really only aiming to be the best in Singapore then and I wasn't trying to compete against the Russian or the Chinese gymnasts. But this week, I thought, heck, I need a new challenge and started learning it and my initial attempts have been actually better than I thought - then I realized, hey you know, I think I can actually learn this - it is not impossible, see the video below from last night.

In the video above, I am doing it into the sponge pit. That video was taken last night - today afternoon, I did the same skill onto a mat placed on the surface of the pit and I am actually getting onto my feet for some of the attempts. It'll be a few weeks, maybe a few months before I can actually complete the skill well enough to land on my feet, but hey, that's my new challenge. But I am sure you're wondering, why am I learning this when I am 39 and not back when I was 15? Well, to answer that question, you'll have to understand my mindset back in Singapore. I am sure you have heard of this story (or some variation of it): if you put a bunch of fleas in a jar, they will try to jump out of the jar to escape, even if you have screwed the lid on. What they will find however, is that their attempts to jump out of the jar is futile as they keep banging against the lid. However, after some time (about 3 days), they give up and never jump any higher than the level of the lid. You can take the lid off, but they fleas will not jump out of the jar. The fleas behaviour has been used as an analogy for the mindset of people who convince themselves they can't achieve something.

I guess that's the mindset I had back in Singapore - I was the flea who was only able to jump as high as the lid and no more. I did just enough to be better than those immediately around me, but I didn't have the ambition or aspiration to become better than those from other countries. I remember taking part in various international competitions back in the 1990s and my ambition was always simply to be the best Singaporean gymnast, I never ever thought that I could challenge the gymnasts from other countries. To do that, I needed skills like the double back somersault - I wasn't capable of performing skills like that back then but I didn't need such skills to become national champion in Singapore in the 1990s. Thankfully, the standard of gymnastics in Singapore has risen a lot since then and plenty of Singaporean gymnasts today can do the double back somersault. Now it's my turn to do this skill.

It was leaving Singapore that changed my mindset, it took me out of my comfort zone, it made me embrace greater challenges and want to do so much more. And that is why at the age of 39, I am now learning a double back somersault, a skill which I didn't even try to learn as a teenager because I told myself I couldn't do it nor did I need to do it. Ironically, I'm not ever going to compete that skill but I want to do it now just to prove to myself that I can do it even as I am about to turn 40 and that I am not going to be the flea who cannot jump out of the jar. I am going to jump out of the jar, with a double back somersault. Just to watch, gimme a few months, I will work hard and land this skill.