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What is it that makes people want to bounce? Is it to sample the feeling of flight — break free from gravity for a fleeting moment or two? When the Innuit people tossed each other up in the air on a Walrus skin, was it for sheer pleasure, or were they simply trying to get an elevated view of where the polar bears were in a land where there aren’t that many trees to climb?
 Whatever the reason, it is not a new phenomenon. The evidence of trampolining bounces right back to archaeological drawings in ancient China, Egypt and Persia, (or Iran as it’s now known). If the Inuit, sometimes known as Eskimos, were using their walrus-skin trampoline for purely practical purposes, then they are at the far end of a long line of practical uses, such as firemen catching people who have had to jump from high buildings.
As well as pleasure and practicality, there is entertainment. There were artistes in the early 20th century who used a ‘bouncing bed’ on stage to raise laughter. Of course the ‘bed’ on which the acrobats or clowns performed was a small trampoline covered by bedclothes.
Monsieur Du Trampolin
And it’s in the circus that we see what was probably the earliest example of the modern trampoline and trampoline-type devices. But there is no evidence that a certain Monsieur Du Trampolin developed the first trampoline, after being inspired with a vision of other uses for the trapeze safety net. Circus folklore has it that he experimented with all kind of different formats, eventually reducing its size and building an act around it. Sadly there is no proof that Mr Du Trampolin, or his bouncing safety net, ever existed.
The trampoline as we know it today was developed in 1935 by Americans George Nissen and Larry Griswold. Nissen was a tumbler on the University of Iowa gymnastics team and Griswold was the assistant gymnastics coach there. The two men often visited Bloomington, Illinois, where many circus people had there winter homes — including ‘The Flying Wards’, who were among the world’s best trapeze performers. No doubt intent on honing their skills, the two men would practise and work out with the Flying Wards at the local YMCA, including making or mending their large trapeze nets. It during the many hours spent making and repairing these nets, that Nissen and Griswold developed the idea of creating the trampoline.
One day, with the help of the wrestling coach at the University of Iowa, the two men bolted together a frame from lengths of angle-iron. After inserting grommets along each side of a piece of canvas, they attached it to the iron frame with springs, and the first trampoline bounced into existence.
Nissen was still training for tumbling, so they decided to move their invention to the YMCA camp where he was an instructor, so that he could use it for his tumbling training during his free time. Of course it didn’t take long for inquisitive children to discover this new trampoline, and they loved it. Nissen and Griswold of course realised that the trampoline could be more than simply a piece of equipment to use when performing or for training. It was something that many others could enjoy. They were inspired to start producing their bouncing baby, and set about introducing it to a wider audience. In 1942 Griswold and Nissen created the Griswold-Nissen Trampoline & Tumbling Company.
The trampoline found many uses that Griswold and Nissen couldn’t possibly have imagined. In World War II, the US Navy Flight School used trampolines as part of the training programme for pilots and navigators — giving them concentrated practise in spatial orientation that had not been possible before. The development of the space programme saw the trampoline put to good use again, giving prospective astronauts the experience of variable body positions in flight.
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