Giddyap Gym Class
It’s another day, another gym class at Vasquez High School in Acton.
Running. Calisthenics. Somebody constantly blowing a whistle.
Seven miles away, just over the border in Palmdale, three Vasquez students are traveling their own trail to physical fitness.
For this trio, gym class means driving half a mile down a rutted dirt road, past high-tension wires and tumbleweed, to perform handstands on top of a cantering horse named Belle. Gym class brings wide-open vistas of snow-topped mountains and hawks circling lazily overhead.
Best of all, though, it gives full credit.
The three are charter members of Southern California’s only experiment in rodeo education--”my three pioneers,” their teacher calls them.
They put in at least five hours a week practicing the little-known equestrian sport of vaulting. A cousin to such rodeo disciplines as calf-roping and bull-riding, vaulting combines the fluidity of gymnastics with the rigors of horsemanship.
“People go, ‘Vaulting? Does that mean you jump over the horse?’ ” said Crystal Pakizer, a 15-year-old freshman. Not exactly.
“Vaulting is sort of like rodeo trick riding, but it’s more refined,” said Debi Pakizer, Crystal’s mother and the class instructor. “We use music, and our routines are more choreographed.”
Officials in the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District--Los Angeles County’s smallest district with a high school--launched the class last fall, charging participants $45 a month. They figured the program suited their 200-square-mile district, a rugged expanse of desert between Santa Clarita and Palmdale.
“This is horse country up here, for sure,” said Vasquez High Principal Gaylene van Zijll. “Why shouldn’t the kids get credit for it?”
California has more than a dozen vaulting clubs, but Vicki Smith, office manager of the American Vaulting Assn. in Bainbridge Island, Wash., said she did not know of any other public high school in the United States offering classes for credit.
Debi Pakizer hosts the class at her horse ranch on Peaceful Valley Road.
On a recent weekday, Crystal, 15-year-old Brandon Hall and 17-year-old Amber Gibbs pile into Pakizer’s 1972 Mercury Comet for the trip from school to the arena.
Brandon wears an innocent grin and a T-shirt with the logo of the metal band “Tool.” He wants one day to be a professional dancer.
Amber is long-limbed and graceful. She hopes to be an actress.
Crystal grew up on the ranch and announced to her mother while still a toddler that she planned to “do the horse thing.” At school, she serves as an assistant in the athletics department.
All three work to dispel ignorance of vaulting, which earlier this century was an Olympic demonstration sport. Supporters are trying to restore it to that level of visibility, noting that vaulting dates back to the 5th century B.C. in Greece.
Back at the ranch, class members change into the usual vaulter’s ensemble of spandex and slippers. (Boots, chaps and 10-gallon hats would hamper their moves.) They “tack up” Belle, outfitting her with a surcingle, a saddle with special handles.
They run and stretch while Belle, a 12-year-old former star of Wells Fargo Bank television commercials, gets loose.
Then the music kicks in.
What booms out of the portable stereo is hardly Tchaikovsky, however, but rather canned dance beats from a CD compilation called “Jock Jams.” Although it is certainly no classic, this album makes Belle hot to trot.
“She knows the different music they use,” Debi Pakizer says. “If someone tries to slip in another CD, she won’t budge.”
As the horse circles an arena 40 feet in diameter, Brandon, Crystal and Amber take turns at the mount. First they lope alongside, matching her clippety-clop stride before vaulting up into the saddle to begin their routines.
Compulsory moves--including the seat, flag, mill, scissors, stand and full-flank--precede the freestyle program.
The maneuvers, especially rare ones involving two and three vaulters, recall the dexterous displays of ice skating.
With Belle’s legs pumping up and down, the vaulters stand upright. Their arms stretch out, suggesting flight.
“Point that toe!” urges Debi Pakizer. “Keep that stomach tight!”
Students also serve as cheerleaders for one another.
“Get up there, Amber!” yells Brandon, who has ridden broncos and roped cattle at his mother’s family’s ranch in eastern Montana.
“C’mon Crystal!” Amber shouts later, offering a hug after Crystal’s circuit.
The high-fives ring out like whip cracks. The freedom of horse country, a welcome alternative to a fluorescent-lit gymnasium, keeps the mood upbeat.
“We learn new things every day, just as we would in a regular class,” Crystal Pakizer said.
Next year, Crystal will return as a sophomore. But Amber probably will go to college. And Brandon will be in the 11th grade--but at Palmdale High School, not Vasquez. He switched schools last week, but Vasquez and Palmdale agreed to let the vaulting credit transfer for the rest of the school year.
Next year it is probably “Happy Trails” for Brandon. He knows that will mean no more class credit for trips down Peaceful Valley Road.
“I’m already taking regular gym at Palmdale,” he said. “I chose volleyball and softball because at least that meant I could be outside.”
Debi Pakizer is undeterred by the impending departure of two of the three vaulting pioneers.
“We have four eighth-graders who are really excited about the class,” she said as she led a tired Belle back to the barn. “They should help keep it going.”