Heh, I remember a group of us doing that as well. Also "penny drops" off the monkey bars, where you'd hang upside-down with your legs, swing back and forth, release and essentially do a flip and land on your feet. God we were fearless back in the day.

We called those "baby drops", and flipping back off the swing seat as it comes forward we called "cherry pickers". I'm 46 now, I can still do both. Once you've learned them, they're easy.

can and do are two different things. things heal a lot faster when the landings are wrong in playground days than they do at 46. i have personal experience with the healing slower bit if not from a cherry picker move.

At 50 I strained my shoulder doing just a few simple push-ups, and it took nearly a year for the pain to (mostly) go away. Getting old sucks.

I tore a rotator cuff when convinced that riding a long board down the street while not in a sober state would be easy. Going downhill of not an impressive hill, and the speed wobble on a board I had been on for 3 minutes suggested time to bail. I didn't roll nearly as well as a younger me would have. Nearly a year sounds about right.

Skateboards are a mortal enemy of vertebrae

Yeah, You're way off your game when you're drunk. I learned that lesson the hard way a few times over in my early 20s (though not so hard that I needed a trip to the hospital).

> God we were fearless back in the day.

I have a rule on myself to stay young. Every time I see a swing rope into water I must do a back flip, and every time I see a 1m diving board, I must do a gainer (run forward, back flip).

I'm 41 now, I'm really curious how old I'll be when I can't do them anymore.

We always say “a backie a day keeps the doctor away”.

It’s entirely incorrect but it keeps life fun!

When I was a kid, lots of us learned to do a backflip off the swing without even bothering to stand up. It isn't that hard to just lean back at the apex, roll out of the seat, and land on your feet. I mean... It's not that hard when you're small, light weight, and heal quickly.

I had a classmate that bit off his own tongue landing one of these. Crazy stuff.

Probably my worst memory of around 3rd grade was when I left the swing in such a high and terrifying arc, that I shat myself when I landed. Also my first introduction to Mother's Logic after I explained why I propelled myself into the air: "If the other boys jump off a cliff, are you going to do that too?"

The only answer to that is: of course I would

Cliff diving is a thing.

My friends are pretty level-headed, if they are all jumping off the cliff, I bet there’s something really bad chasing them, I should jump too.

'Bridge' https://xkcd.com/1170/

I'm jumping first, they have to follow me!

As a kid I once tried to jump off a swing that was much taller than I was used to and instead of landing on my feet I hit flat on my back. Thankfully the ground was relatively soft. That was the day I learned that the phrase "knocked the wind out of me" can be literal: I couldn't breathe right for a few minutes after.

If one of the snow-buried sidewalk tiles is raised higher than the others; don't push a snow shovel with your hands against your chest, when you pickup speed and then slam to a stop on the raised bit...

I haven’t shoveled snow in years but you just brought back some surprisingly good memories of shoveling snow in my teens.

I had a similar experience walking over a set of bars (on a hog feeder, not a playground), slipping, and landing right on my diaphragm on top of a bar. It was a small eternity before I could take a breath.

I also did that and had never heard of getting the wind knocked out of you. I thought I had collapsed my lungs and was going to die. I tried to tell a friend but couldn’t talk obviously. So I just sat on a bench to accept my fate. “Mom will be very sad” I remember thinking.

Fortunately the breath eventually comes back…

That is very interesting. I had a similar experience when I was I child. I had a toy electronics set and thought of using an outlet instead of the weak battery. Of course I got a nasty shock. I was sure I would die know. I wasn't really scared or upset about that. More about how my parents would feel. It wouldn't be fair that my father had to carry his dead son out of the house so I sat outside against the wall of the house waiting to die. Reading your report makes me wonder if this is just the state of mind of a child.

+1 although it was a climbing tree in my case from which I wanted to abseil (with a very thin rope)

I fell from one of those long balancing logs straight onto my back.

Icy playground. I managed to skid, trip, fly, and then land on the upturned hard-shoe of another kid. He ran off laughing oblivious, I could stand but was unable to breathe properly for a few breaths

When I was 6 or so I did the same off a rope swing hanging from a tree. I guess I was lucky because another kid broke their arm off the same swing not too long afterwards.

"My friends are reasonable people, if they decided to jump off a cliff it means whatever is chasing us is worse than the fall".

My friends and I used to do the same thing. Even without drawing your body in while spinning the momentum and height make it possible to pretty easily flip off the swing.

Thanks for reminding me of this memory :)

If you want to see how it looks; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoJpVre8JHw

Original commenter mentions he did it standing up.

That video is peak educational content. Easy to follow, straight to the point, good difficulty progression. If only all tutorials were like that...