Last week something really embarrassing happened during one of my training sessions. Please remember, before you get the wrong impression, that I’m normally a very polite person! Lately, I’ve been working on the record for keeping a children’s top spinning for a mile. You hit the top with a small whip to keep the top spinning and moving, then run after it and hit it again. The big challenge is that the top is not allowed to stop spinning for the entire mile.
I’m currently on vacation in Antalya, Turkey and I was at the lower level of the Sheraton Hotel in the middle of a top spinning practice. I was hitting the top along the long corridors, determined to keep the top spinning for half a mile. I had be careful of the occasional well-meaning guest who, upon seeing the top on the ground, would attempt to pick it up and give it to me, but otherwise things were going well. I was sweating profusely, my knees were all scraped up, but the top was still spinning.
As I neared the bank of elevators, I smacked the top with the whip and the top went flying. Suddenly, the elevator doors opened and the top spun right into the elevator. I couldn’t believe it! In the intensity of the moment, without thinking, I ran into the elevator screaming to the shocked guests not to touch the top. As I frantically swung my whip at the top, everyone huddled in the back of the elevator. Somehow I managed to get the top, still spinning, out of the elevator just before the doors closed and I continued my practice!
It wasn’t until later that I realized that I had prevented those poor people from getting off the elevator and, not knowing that I was training for a record, they must have thought I was a raving lunatic!
Last week something really embarrassing happened during one of my training sessions. Please remember, before you get the wrong impression, that I’m normally a very polite person! Lately, I’ve been working on the record for keeping a children’s top spinning for a mile. You hit the top with a small whip to keep the top spinning and moving, then run after it and hit it again. The big challenge is that the top is not allowed to stop spinning for the entire mile.
I’m currently on vacation in Antalya, Turkey and I was at the lower level of the Sheraton Hotel in the middle of a top spinning practice. I was hitting the top along the long corridors, determined to keep the top spinning for half a mile. I had be careful of the occasional well-meaning guest who, upon seeing the top on the ground, would attempt to pick it up and give it to me, but otherwise things were going well. I was sweating profusely, my knees were all scraped up, but the top was still spinning.
As I neared the bank of elevators, I smacked the top with the whip and the top went flying. Suddenly, the elevator doors opened and the top spun right into the elevator. I couldn’t believe it! In the intensity of the moment, without thinking, I ran into the elevator screaming to the shocked guests not to touch the top. As I frantically swung my whip at the top, everyone huddled in the back of the elevator. Somehow I managed to get the top, still spinning, out of the elevator just before the doors closed and I continued my practice!
It wasn’t until later that I realized that I had prevented those poor people from getting off the elevator and, not knowing that I was training for a record, they must have thought I was a raving lunatic!
