My Superpower (is Jumping)

I started jumping early on.

March 10th would have been Garibaldi Rous’ seventh birthday. MelT misses him like crazy. She talks about him all the time, mainly in the context of how he loved to roll in the pool. Everyone who knows Gari knows that his superpower was rolling. You can read his blog about it.

My superpower is jumping!

As you can see from the photo above, I started jumping at an early age. In that photo I am only four months old. At that point in my life, I was not into water or swimming. I’m pretty sure I was panicking about all the wetness.

I wasn’t the natural at jumping that Gari was at rolling. I needed encouragement to develop my skills. I wrote a blog post a bout it, Hurdle to My Happiness, a long time ago, back when I was a baby and MelT thought I was a boy. I have come a long way since then…but I do wonder what happened to that hurdle, not that I’m complaining. But I bet I could jump a really, really high one now!

No pool can hold me!

This was me last year. You can see that I have really developed my form. I watched a lot of Olympic diving, which has helped me achieve the hieght needed to be in competitive capybara jumping.

Up and Over!

This is me from last month. Along with height, I am working on speed. I think that even though this is a still photo, you can get an idea of how quickly I was moving. Speed is essential to a good, long, high jump.

An imperfect jump

This is what happens if you don’t have enough speed; you don’t get quite all the way over. Aside from it being embarrassing (especially since someone has to post it to the whole world!), you can scrape your hind legs doing this.

What it’s supposed to look like

Yhis is me from a couple of weeks ago. Yes! Look at that form! Look at the height! Imagine the speed and grace!

Jumping out of the pond

This is what it looks like when you nail the landing. A nice, straight body line, head held high over front paws, maintaining speed and moving straight into a run.

The run

Notice the water flying off my coat as I race to the next pool. See how my legs are moving almost at the speed of sound? I’m going so fast I’m almost invisible to the naked eye! You should see me…or not see me, as the case may be.

Entering the second pool

This is my follow-up jump. I probably need more practice at this but I’m working on it. I would also like more pools set up so I can jump through a series of them. To be honest, jumping into a pool, or other body of water, is more difficult than jumping out.

So that’s my superpower, jumping. I have heard that Superman could “leap over tall buildings at a single bound.” I am working toward that, although the fence is my more immediate goal.

I’m not sure how I’m going to save the world by jumping. I’m still working on that. Maybe I could jump on top of evil-doers. MelT yells pretty loudly when I jump on her. I’ll have to give that some thought.

Anyone else out there have a superpower? (Don’t say jumping, that’s already taken.)