Klutz Syndrome-Afflicting Us All

We all know someone who can’t get out of their own way. Maybe you ARE that person.

These people are usually well aware of their tendency to crash into things—and often refer to themselves as a “klutz”. If there is something to trip over, a banana peel to slip on, a low hanging branch to walk into…they’ll find it.

Over time and many episodes of such behavior, the professional klutz has adapted socially, deftly picking themselves up and dusting themselves off, mastering the art of looking nonchalant as if they fall down an entire flight of stairs on a daily basis. Their battle cry is: “I’m OK!”, “Just a scratch” and “Wow, who put THAT there?!”

This tendency towards clumsiness is not genetic (I don’t think), but there are some folks who seem to be definitely accident prone. When we identify these unfortunate souls, we scramble to relieve them of any duties they’ll volunteer for, like say, offering to carry your grandmother’s antique china across the room to put away.

“Whoa! That’s OK…I’ve got it! No trouble!”

Whew. That was a close one.

The peculiar thing is that we have ALL suffered bouts of clumsiness—and rarely if ever can we attach a cause. There are just some days when it might have been better if we stayed in bed. The brain synapses don’t fire correctly for some reason on certain days, causing a bad case of “butterfingers” or the dreaded “Chevy Chase Syndrome”, where simply walking from Point A to Point B without falling becomes an insurmountable task.

So….the population is roughly divided into three general groups:

1) The Majority-Able to function without frequent episodes of clumsiness. We have “one of those days” every so often where we join the ranks of #2 below, but mercifully, its duration is relatively short.

2) The Klutz-People who are literally an “accident waiting to happen”. Since they expect things to go south, this of course is a self fulfilling prophesy that never fails to deliver. I wonder if these people also have “one of those days”---when everything goes RIGHT. A glimpse of normalcy in an otherwise vast wasteland of disaster.

3) The Athlete-Here’s the OTHER end of the spectrum. People with uncommon coordination and body control. Perhaps you know one or two of these fortunate folks. They always seem to GLIDE from one place to another. Cat-like reflexes, balance and grace. We tend to think of pro athletes when we conjure up images of physical expertise. True, the pros all exhibit above average coordination, but there are others---who may never sign a multi-million dollar sports contract—who have skills that equal or EXCEED those of the pro athlete.

Don’t believe me? Check out this INCREDIBLE video of athletic, gymnastic and physical prowess:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOOlUR9Cg1Q


Hey, don’t try THAT at home!

I think I’ll stick to golf…where being an occasional klutz on the links has me in good (and exceedingly large) company!

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