Our family has experienced a lot of firsts this year in terms of gymnastics. After sending our daughter to classes in every sport we had access to (soccer, softball, basketball, ice-skating, dance, cheerleading, tumbling, horseback riding, swimming, diving, golf, and who knows what else) and after teaching her some archery, shooting (the girl could easily become an expert marksman), and tennis on the side, we wondered when she would ever pick just one as her primary sport. She loved them all...except soccer. We rotated her through sport after sport until she watched Gabby Douglass win the gold medal for the all around at the last Olympic games. Then she decided gymnastics would be her sport. Most competitive gymnasts start at age 3. She was almost 9.
So we signed her up for a beginner's gymnastics class in a neighboring town hoping they would move her up quickly. Fast forward six months, and she was still in the beginner's class and had not learned any new skills. After much pleading, we convinced the gym owner to move her up to intermediate, but we were already frustrated with the gym and the way the owner had treated us.
Then we learned about a Christian gymnastics facility much further from our home with strong Biblical values, devotions at every meet, and a hugely successful boys team which is so hard to find around here. We sent her to a trial class, and they immediately put her on the recreational team. Say what? This gym saw potential in her that the previous gym owner had missed perhaps because she was too busy coaching her stars to notice the younger ones who were being taught by high schoolers trained to just go through the motions. There was no question what to do next. I would be commuting to take both kids to this gym. They wanted to put our son on a boy's pre-team, but he just doesn't have that competitive drive like his sister though he is the right size and has the coordination. And frankly, I did not have the time to do that commute four days a week! Finally our kids had landed in a sport where being small is an advantage!
Shortly after the kids started at this awesome gym, we moved across two counties. We looked at gyms closer to our new town, but none compared, so I kept driving the kids to this gym (one hour to get there during rush hour, 35-45 minutes to drive back home) two days a week for two hours of training each trip. It was so worth it, but if our daughter wants to advance any at all, she would need to go to the gym four days as week instead of two, so we are making finding a closer gym our next priority.
Firsts
This year in gymnastics, our daughter got her first experience performing by herself for judges. It was her first experience competing with a team, and the way those girls supported each other prayerfully and lovingly while competing against each other at the same time was inspiring to watch. She mastered a standing back handspring and a round-off back handspring for the first time and even incorporated them into her floor routine at the second meet. She also experienced her first bad fall from the beam at her first meet (followed by two more at the next meet) which augmented some of her fear issues with that event.
At her first meet ever, she won 1st place in the vault, bars, and floor and first all around for her age group and division, so they moved her up to advanced level, totally skipping intermediate. She faced some tough competition for the first time after advancing and fell twice on the beam at the next meet. She adjusted her strategy and kept working hard while her team encouraged her with scriptures. She did not let the beam mishap distract her during the events that followed. She learned how to maintain her game face.
The team's motto this year was "Faith, not Fear", and she took it to heart. At the third meet she conquered her fear of the beam and improved her beam score by over a full point without any falls that time. By the state meet, she was ready to face the enemy (the beam) head on with courage and determination.
Pirate's Revenge
The state meet was more entertaining than the previous meets because the hosts implemented a theme, Pirate's Revenge: Gymnastics on the High Seas. The signage, backdrops, and overall decor carried out the theme beautifully. After the initial warm-ups and before the processional, tumbling dancers dressed as pirates donning neon LED daggers, performed a fabulous dance with stunts while a pirate movie was projected on the back wall. The emcee dressed as as pirate and had a great British accent to go with her costume. In addition to paying for programs, costly gymnast entrance fees, and admissions fees to attend the event, family members could also purchase a pirate bear with an eye patch. This bear would deliver a secret message to your gymnast (for a fee of course) while the gymnast got to keep the stuffed bear. Our daughter was thrilled with her encouraging note and stuffed bear who looked a lot like our bunny except with an eye patch and hot pink skull and crossbones printed vest.
Capturing Some Pirate Booty (ie, Bringing Home Some Hardware!)
Three quarters of the way through the meet, it seemed that none of her scores at the state meet were as high as they had been in the past although there was less disparity in her scores between events, and the beam was the last event on the schedule. I wasn't sure if the judges were scoring all the participants more rigidly or if our girl had forgotten to pack her mojo for the trip. Regardless, I knew God was with her yet still found myself fighting feelings of frustration that we had spent a small fortune, driven all that way, and would not get home until after midnight only to pull her out of bed early the next morning so she could take EOG standardized tests at school just to have her leave the meet feeling disappointed with her performance. Then an amusing idea came to me. I told my husband, "Wouldn't it be funny if after all her battles with the beam, she walks home as the state champion in the beam event?" I made that remark in jest, for I did not think it was remotely possible.
I took my camera as close to the beam as I could to video record her routine. She delivered the best performance she has ever done on the beam, and her score was higher than any she had received on any event all season. Her coach was crying as they slapped high fives and exchanged hugs. How appropriate that her first event (bars) at her first meet ever would yield her second highest score of the season and her last event (beam) at the last meet of the season would result in her highest score for the season. My joke came true. She took home the gold medal for the beam!
I was so excited and could not wait to show her my video, but apparently something went wrong while filming because as soon as she walked up to the beam, the video went black. I have full videos of every event except for the one that was her best the entire season! Ugh! Oh well, I guess the videos are only useful for correcting mistakes, and that performance did not need much improvement at all!
Her gym owner who was filling in for one of her previous coaches who quit two weeks before the state meet (ugh!), predicted that she would take home the gold medal for the vault. She had not gotten first place in vault at any of the meets since moving up to the advanced level, and she did not even place in vault at the second meet, yet he thought she would win the gold at the state meet with more competition? I did not believe him. Each gymnast gets to perform two vaults at each meet, and I think they take the best one for scoring....or maybe they average them together. I just don't know! We are all so new to gymnastics that we're still learning the rules. I did finally figure out that the straighter the body without any bending at the waist or knees the better. Her first vault was not very good for her. I watched her coach whisper something to her, and then she performed the next vault nearly without fault. I love the way his hands flew up in the air in celebration of her much better second vault. His prediction came true, too. She took home the gold medal in the vault.
We have loved the AAU league and especially like the more relaxed schedule (half as many meets, much less travel, fewer practices) as compared to USAG. We are looking at two gyms closer to home and only one has an AAU team and is currently ranked last in the league. So we must pray a lot about what direction to take next so as to preserve family time, peace, and sanity while also nurturing her God given gift. To God be the glory for all His excellent works!
She was wired on the way home that night. She needed to rest for her big end of grade standardized tests next week. She may be even been delirious because she asked during our drive home, "Is that coffee I smell?" Her father then corrected her by saying, "No dear, that is a skunk you smell." I don't think this girl will be a coffee drinker.
The next evening after dinner she said, "I sure hope eating all these vegetables pays off someday so that I didn't consume all those nasty things for nothing." So I reminded her that the vegetables certainly paid off the night before at the state meet. She hesitated for a while and then said, "I can't stand it when I can't come up with a comeback for Mom!" :-)
Mom: 1, State champion gymnast: 0
Appendum:
On Thursday after the meet, the coaches held a mini party for the team to show them how impressed they were with their performance at the state meet. Our daughter wasn't the only one who brought an excellent performance. Her best friend from the team, for example, tied for first on the bars with a 9.4 score, a record for this green team. The gym owner's wife said that she usually texts the coach after every meet to ask how their team finished. She said that he will usually reply with "fine" or "good" but never anything more than that. At this meet, however, he texted her before she ever texted him, and his message was simply, "Wow!" Even though the AAU gymnasts are young and experienced and not quite the focus that his level 9 and 10 USAG teams are who are vying for scholarships and such, he still got quite emotional at the girls' meet because they had come so far so quickly. Congratulations again to all of Nick's AAU girls.
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