The Chronicle of the Trampoline

The early origins of the trampoline are direct to some debate although it is said that the Inuit folk developed an early form of the apparatus, using a walrus skin to toss each other into the air. There is also evidence of some people in Europe growth thrown into the air by a number of bourgeois holding a blanket such as Sancho Panza in the novel Don Quixote, although instances of "blanketing" such as this are clearly non-voluntary instances of quasi-judicial, mob administered punishment.

It is certain, however, that in the early years of the 20th century some acrobats used a "bouncing bed" on the phase to entertain the audience. The bouncing in bedstead was in truth a form of small trampoline covered in bedclothes and used mostly during comedy routines.

Circus folklore suggests that the trampoline was fundamental developed by an artiste called Du Trampolin who saying the possibility of using the trapeze safety net as a appearance of propulsion and transplanting device, and experimented with different systems of suspension, eventually reducing the net to a practical size for seperate performance. While such trampoline like devices were certainly used in the circus, the anecdote of Du Trampolin is now widely regarded as a myth due to the depletion of documented evidence to assist it.

The first modern trampoline was built by George Nissen and Larry Griswold environing 1934. Both men were at the University of Iowa in the US; Nissen was a gymnastics and diving rival while Griswold was a tumbler on the gymnastics team. They began experimenting with a piece of canvas after observing trapeze artists using a tight collar to add entertainment value to their performance. They extended the canvas, in which they had inserted grommets along each side, to an angled iron frame by means of coiled springs. It was initially used to train tumblers but soon became accepted in its own right.

George Nissen overheard the Spanish word "trampolin", thought diving board, during a diving demonstration tour in Mexico in the 1930s and sure to custom an anglicised form as the trademark for his and Larry Griswold's new apparatus. In 1942 Griswold and Nissen created the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline and Tumbling Company and began moulding trampolines commercially in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

During World War II, the United States navy Flight Institute developed the end of the trampoline in its training of pilots and navigators, giving them concentrated practice in spatial orientation that had not been likely before. After the war the development of the space flight program again brought the trampoline into use to help train both American and Soviet astronauts, giving them experience of variable oppose positions in flight.

By reason of then, the trampoline has been developed further, with the competitive gymnastic sport of trampolining life part of the Olympics since 2000. A numeral of other sports utilise the trampoline as a training part too, including diving, gymnastics and freestyle skiing. Conceivably most significantly however, is the development of the trampoline as a children's toy, with many gardens across the nation containing a one of Nissen and Griswold's apparatus.

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