see their knees bending backwards as they sat like soldiers taking it. Never in my life had I seen this and I began to worry my knees would pop out.
“What happened to using two mats and putting our feet on them in splits?”
“We do that too, but I change things up and like to use my background. It is things a lot of other coaches do not do. It is a little intense, but it gets the job done.”
He let go of my arms and said, “Shake your legs out.” I bounced them lightly to a closed position so I could stand. My legs were stiff and now I had to overextend my knees even more?
A hand appeared in my vision and I reached for it. Coach helped me up, and I automatically fixed my leotard from the slight reposition.
Gymnasts picked wedgies out left and right without a second thought and kept walking. Which is what I just did. Hey—it came with the territory. Sometimes it got stuck up in there, so we had to remove it or our ass hung out.
“Reagan, please work with Adrianna, yeah?”
Reagan glared at me for some bizarre reason as I got into the same position as the other girls, my toes elevated on the low beam. I ignored her. When she sat down, she didn’t hold back and bounced on my kneecaps like she was bouncing on a giant yoga ball.
It took everything in me not to scream at her and call her a bitch. I didn’t see the other girls jumping this hard, but I knew better than to complain. So I rolled both my lips between my teeth and took the newfound pain being delivered to my body.
We switched places, but I didn’t go as hard as she did. Honestly, I didn’t want to injure her.
“Harder,” Reagan demanded. “You won’t hurt me.”
I stopped and looked at her, because I was really worried I would. “You sure?”
“Yup. Just do it.” I followed her command, all the while smiling internally and taking way too much delight in inflicting a fraction of the pain she just handed to me.
After group stretching, we split up amongst the different apparatuses: vault, balance beam, floor, and the uneven bars. Coach walked over to the bars.
“Do a few warm ups and when you are ready, let me know so I can see your routine.”
“Okay,” I said, tightening my grips. Then he walked to another part of the gym.
Taking a deep breath, I watched as one of the girls warmed up on bars, doing light release moves where she flowed freely from bar to bar, giant after giant, an overshoot that involved a half-twist mid-air to the low bar, clear hip circles, where the gymnast circles backward without touching the bar to her hips, and then an easy dismount, like a back tuck. The other two girls went and then I was up. We all pretty much did the same warm ups, some adding pirouettes and other elements, but the real fun was about to begin.
A straddle back was one of my favorite skills to do on bars. It wasn’t used as often since most did the half twist mid-air to the low bar, but I loved it. There was something powerful in releasing the high bar to straddle the low bar mid-air into a handstand. It took me a while to master this move. My ankles kept hitting the bar, not to mention, initially it scared the shit out of me. Until I figured out the trick to tackling this skill was getting your hips to rise as high as you could manage by flicking them up and back, not your feet. Lifting your feet in a straddle back was a hard habit to break, but it didn’t actually pull you in the air the way your hips did like you’d think it would. Basically, I lifted my ass, stuck it up and out, and I was golden.
My bars routine wasn’t as intense as the other three girls who went before me. I guess it wasn’t supposed to be since I was a lower level, however, I became consciously aware I was behind. I didn’t have an early start in the sport like most did who were elite. Although I was young when I began recreational gymnastics, I was almost ten years old when I joined the girl’s team and officially began rigorous training.
There was a
“What happened to using two mats and putting our feet on them in splits?”
“We do that too, but I change things up and like to use my background. It is things a lot of other coaches do not do. It is a little intense, but it gets the job done.”
He let go of my arms and said, “Shake your legs out.” I bounced them lightly to a closed position so I could stand. My legs were stiff and now I had to overextend my knees even more?
A hand appeared in my vision and I reached for it. Coach helped me up, and I automatically fixed my leotard from the slight reposition.
Gymnasts picked wedgies out left and right without a second thought and kept walking. Which is what I just did. Hey—it came with the territory. Sometimes it got stuck up in there, so we had to remove it or our ass hung out.
“Reagan, please work with Adrianna, yeah?”
Reagan glared at me for some bizarre reason as I got into the same position as the other girls, my toes elevated on the low beam. I ignored her. When she sat down, she didn’t hold back and bounced on my kneecaps like she was bouncing on a giant yoga ball.
It took everything in me not to scream at her and call her a bitch. I didn’t see the other girls jumping this hard, but I knew better than to complain. So I rolled both my lips between my teeth and took the newfound pain being delivered to my body.
We switched places, but I didn’t go as hard as she did. Honestly, I didn’t want to injure her.
“Harder,” Reagan demanded. “You won’t hurt me.”
I stopped and looked at her, because I was really worried I would. “You sure?”
“Yup. Just do it.” I followed her command, all the while smiling internally and taking way too much delight in inflicting a fraction of the pain she just handed to me.
After group stretching, we split up amongst the different apparatuses: vault, balance beam, floor, and the uneven bars. Coach walked over to the bars.
“Do a few warm ups and when you are ready, let me know so I can see your routine.”
“Okay,” I said, tightening my grips. Then he walked to another part of the gym.
Taking a deep breath, I watched as one of the girls warmed up on bars, doing light release moves where she flowed freely from bar to bar, giant after giant, an overshoot that involved a half-twist mid-air to the low bar, clear hip circles, where the gymnast circles backward without touching the bar to her hips, and then an easy dismount, like a back tuck. The other two girls went and then I was up. We all pretty much did the same warm ups, some adding pirouettes and other elements, but the real fun was about to begin.
A straddle back was one of my favorite skills to do on bars. It wasn’t used as often since most did the half twist mid-air to the low bar, but I loved it. There was something powerful in releasing the high bar to straddle the low bar mid-air into a handstand. It took me a while to master this move. My ankles kept hitting the bar, not to mention, initially it scared the shit out of me. Until I figured out the trick to tackling this skill was getting your hips to rise as high as you could manage by flicking them up and back, not your feet. Lifting your feet in a straddle back was a hard habit to break, but it didn’t actually pull you in the air the way your hips did like you’d think it would. Basically, I lifted my ass, stuck it up and out, and I was golden.
My bars routine wasn’t as intense as the other three girls who went before me. I guess it wasn’t supposed to be since I was a lower level, however, I became consciously aware I was behind. I didn’t have an early start in the sport like most did who were elite. Although I was young when I began recreational gymnastics, I was almost ten years old when I joined the girl’s team and officially began rigorous training.
There was a
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