The Sport That Gave Me Life.

Intro

When I was young, about 4 years old, I was put in a sport that would soon be the light to my life. I was put into gymnastics. It was quite literally and figuratively the light to my life. I really enjoyed it as a sport. I joined a couple different gymnastics companies and then settled with one until my career doing backflips was over. The main gym that I was at throughout most of my gymnastics days was The Rancho Family YMCA. I did it throughout rough times in my life. It was always something I could look forward to throughout the week.  When ever I had a bad week at school, I would always look forward to the weekend when I had practice.

The Setback

I remember one day we had sort of a test to see if any of the girls in my class would make the competitive team. I was tested along with the other girls. Right after the test the head coach told me that I had made the team. I was so excited, so excited that I could finally compete. I was happy for all the rest of practice after that. But, when we got to practicing on the beam, I remember we were warming up with hops on the beam. I was being really goofy because i was in a good mood. When i had gotten to the end of the beam, I still wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings and I lost my balance. I fell straight onto the wood floor because there were no mats where I had fallen. Which first of all doesn’t make any sense because it was a gym for gymnastics. People are bound to fall. I went to the doctor and found out I had broken my arm.

All of the working towards being onto the team and the day I find out that I made the team, I broke my arm. It took all the patience in the world to wait out the time I had to be in a cast. But I did it. I did sneak in a couple moves to keep my form while I was MIA.

Getting back to the Groove

The first day I was able to go back was also the first day of being on the team. I remember being so nervous that day. We started off on the trampoline and the first tumbling stunt we did, I face planted. I was okay but I was very embarrassed to say the least. Once I got the hang of everything, on came competition season. I wasn’t nearly as prepared as everyone else was. They had the entire fall season to train. My first competition I got 5th place on floor for my age group.

As time went on, I started to realize that I liked the off season more than competition season. I liked practicing but I didn’t like competing. I made a decision over the fall season that changed the course of my life.

The Decision

I had realized over that year that I didn’t like competing so I came to a conclusion with my parents that I would stop doing gymnastics and switch to something else for a while. So on my last Saturday practice my coach had already received word that I was leaving. So she was talking to me and kind of explained what I wanted to do. I wanted to focus more on my tumbling skills. And I was going to go to a different gym for that.

I didn’t end up doing what I wanted but I still do gymnastics when I can and it will always be one of my favorite things to do.