At 36, I Learned to Backflip Like Biles

“Do you want to go to an adult gymnastics class?”my friend Jenn asked 36-year-old me. The idea seemed crazy—I’d been a competitive gymnast as a kid but now I was an out-of-shape appellate lawyer who worked a truly absurd number of hours and had three children under the age of six. It had been nearly two decades since I’d stepped foot on a gymnastics floor. Reliving my tumbling glory days wasn’t exactly on my to-do list.

But I couldn’t really think of a good reason not to do it. I could surely still do some things at least—handstands and cartwheels, maybe even a flip on a trampoline. It could be fun.

We approached our first class warily, nervous the mat would be filled with a bunch of high school and college cheerleaders and we would feel like awkward, middle-aged women making a seriously misguided decision. But we were pleasantly surprised—the class was filled with women and men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s—even 50s. Some, like Jenn and me, were former gymnasts (“used to be’s,” we called ourselves), while a few others had picked up the sport for the first time as an adult (something I still find extraordinarily impressive).

I’d showed up. Now my goal was to not look like a complete idiot. Or break anything.

I was surprised by how quickly I could pick some things back up—my spry-teen muscle memory snapping back into action. In the very first class, I was able to do back tucks and layouts—two types of backward somersaults in the air—on the TumbleTrak, which is essentially a long trampoline that is bouncier than a gymnastics floor but not as bouncy as a traditional trampoline. Granted, I saw stars when I did them, but I landed on my feet.

Other attempts went less well—I learned quickly that muscle memory could not overcome an actual lack of abdominal muscles or flexibility. And that falling as a 36-year-old hurt a lot more than falling as a 14-year-old who weighed literally half as much as the adult woman she would become. I could barely walk for the two days after my first class, but I kept coming back. The feeling of flying was as exhilarating as it had been when I was a teenager, perhaps even more so: This time around, I was defying my own expectations. My adult gymnastics teammates celebrated every improvement and every new skill I tried with unbridled enthusiasm—as if I were training for the Olympics rather than fooling around on a Thursday night. And for the first time in my adult life, I looked forward to exercise, scheduling my life and work around it rather than searching for excuses to avoid it. I was hooked.

As the months went on, I kept setting new goals—and nailing them: a back layout with a full twist, multiple front tucks in a row, and an Arabian salto on the floor (a jump half-twist directly into a front tuck). So I set my sights on what seemed like a ridiculous goal—doing a back layout with a double twist. For the uninitiated, this is hard—even for a 16-year-old competitive gymnast. This was a skill I’d never mastered even when I was at the top of my game as a teenager, only getting as far as attempting it a couple of times in practice. It scared me, even back then.

Flipping around on a trampoline as a 36-year-old woman (and now a 37-year-old woman) is not easy. Injuries happen more easily and take longer to heal. Work, and especially work travel, often gets in the way. But I’d had a taste of what it would feel like to unleash my inner Simone Biles, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could. So, week after week, I kept showing up.

I spent six months working on the double twist but couldn’t get further than one-and-a-half rotations. The double seemed beyond my grasp.

Meanwhile, my six-year-old daughter, Sydney, had made the gymnastics team at Hill’s Gymnastics—a fantastic club near our home, where Olympians have trained. She had a goal of her own: a roundoff back handspring without a spot. Until she mastered that skill, she would not be allowed to compete in the floor event, but she was scared. So I offered her a deal. I told her that when she found the bravery and fierceness to do her roundoff back handspring, I would find the same fierceness in myself to land a double twist.

It sounds like a brilliant parenting tactic from your friendly motivational mom. But really, I was buying myself time. My daughter still seemed pretty far away from mastering her goal, so I figured I had plenty of time to deal with my own fear. But my daughter surprised me. My challenge sparked her competitive drive, and she landed her roundoff back handspring—without a spotter—that very week. Uh-oh.

When I went to my gymnastics class that week, I reminded myself of how brave my six-year-old daughter had been. How she had set a goal for herself that seemed big and scary, and then mustered up the bravery to accomplish it. And then I went for it.

And I absolutely killed it—sticking the landing.

I did another one, and another one, and then asked a friend to record it so I could show Sydney when I got home. She was as proud of me as I was of her.

I was so excited about my Biles-esque goal, I posted it to Twitter—and it went viral. Apparently “middle-aged, out-of-shape lawyer channels her inner Simone Biles” resonates for more people than I could have imagined. My back layout with a double twist currently has almost 2 million views.

I’m still taking my out-of-shape, overworked appellate lawyer self to class each week—and loving every minute. Now I want to improve my fitness level not out of self-consciousness with my appearance but because it’ll help me do harder and harder gymnastics moves. Plus, I know I’ll be a better tumbler than Syd for a limited period of time—she’s bound to exceed my skill level at some point—and I have to milk that for as long as I can.

After accomplishing a move I never in a million years thought I’d be able to do, I’ve set a new goal, which seems even more impossible: a double back somersault. To do a double back, you have to jump high enough into the air and complete two backflips before landing on your feet, which requires some serious athleticism. It’s daunting, but I know I can do it. And I’ll even take that attitude to my professional goal: arguing a case before the Supreme Court.

Jaime Santos is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a partner in the Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice at Goodwin Procter in Washington, D.C. She is also a coåhost of the popular Supreme Court podcast, Strict Scrutiny.

Originally Appeared on Glamour