Best Of...

With the end of the school year finally three days away, I want to share some of the bests of my freshman year. The year has been full of great things, but I am going to try to choose my favorite or best in each category!

Best Class: Although I loved all my classes this year, I think that my favorite class was English. I always looked forward to it, one reason being that I had the best English teacher that I have ever had. Along with improving my writing skills a lot, I got out of my comfort zone a lot. This class gave me a lot of confidence in myself and in my writing, and I am definitely sad to see this class go.

Best Teacher: This category is impossible to choose a best for. All of my teachers were wonderful this year, and I learned a lot from each and every one of them. I will always remember Mr. Jeffrey, Mr. Parker, Ms. Duis, Mr. Murphy, Ms. Payne, and Mr. Fairbanks. It is too hard for me to choose a best for this category More on teachers later!

Best Friend: Again, I am not going to choose a best friend. I have many, many friends, and many people who made my ninth grade year complete. Check my last post to see the blogs of all of my friends!

Best Coaches: I can't choose between my two coaches for the award of best coach. Charity and Amanda, you do not know how much you mean to me, and just how glad that I am that you are in my life. You have taught me so much, and not just gymnastics skills. Thank you so much for all of your support!

Best School-Related Memory: My best memory from school this year would have to be the AP study party. I had so much fun studying with my friends while we laughed and helped to get each other's minds of the big test. All of my study buddies and I sent the picture below to our AP teacher with the subject, "Are we going to pass????" and a caption of, "Look what you did to us!!!!" The responses that we got were terribly funny! He had many comments, ranging from French related answers to osmosis.

I'm sorry for posting it again, but it just fit so well! I am so glad that this picture will always remind me of one of my best memories!

Best Gym Memory: I think that this would have to be my meet in New Orleans. Click here for the link to that post! My teammates and I bonded a lot at this meet, and I got to know one of my younger teammates a lot better. Besides this, we had lots of fun wandering the city, stopping for a photo-op, and then laughing at the photos later!

One of the many pictures my team took in New Orleans!

Best Academic Achievement: I think that my best achievement for me academically was never having lower than 100% in my AP geography class. Since this is a college level class, this was a very big accomplishment for me!

Hardest Goodbye: Mr. Fairbanks, my orchestra teacher, will be leaving the Park City School District after this year. He made a decision to pursue his dreams to earn a PhD, so this summer he will be moving to London to attend the University of Cambridge. I will miss him a lot, but I wish him the best in his journey!

The end of the year is full of memories, goodbyes, and reflection. These are some of the best things for me this year, but I am very grateful for all of my experiences. I don't know how much I will be posting over the summer, but I will try to keep it up! Have a great summer everybody!!!

---Jamie---

Goodbye School, Hello Summer!

The school year is finally coming to a close. In nine school days, I will officially be a sophomore in high school. But who’s counting??? As much as I love school, I am very excited for summer!! For this final post of my freshman year, I want to reflect about what and who has made my freshman year a success!

For starters, I have made lots of new friends this year and I have gotten closer to my old friends, too. Emma, Lindsey, Brea, Julia, Sophie, Sarah, Martina, Micaela, Allie, Maddie, Sam, Nicole, Kara, and everyone else I grew close to this year, thanks so much for being a part of my life! Seriously, I don’t know how I would have made it through freshman year without you guys. I can’t wait to make more great memories together!

My crazy team! Nicole, if it weren't for you, I would never have moments like this!
Photo Credit: Nicole Finch

I know I already posted this, but again, without my wonderful friends,
I never would have had so much fun studying!

The end of a school year means saying goodbye to many things. Only nine more days left for me at Treasure Mountain. I also only have nine more days with some incredible teachers. I am excited to get to go to the High School next year (with its wide hallways, lack of backpack restrictions, and windows! Yes, windows!), but I am sad that this means leaving some of my wonderful teachers behind.

Goodbye homework, hello summer school! Because of my gymnastics schedule, I do not go to all four class periods in the school day. This means that I have to make up these classes somehow, and that means summer school for Jamie! I don’t really mind, though, because it keeps my brain stimulated the whole summer. Sophie, I can’t wait to be an artist with you!

One thing I will not be saying goodbye to is this blog. I really enjoy posting about myself, my gymnastics, and my life. I feel like it is a way for me to get closer to myself. I probably won’t be posting as frequently, but I will try to keep it up!

I also won’t be saying goodbye to gymnastics. I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again – you never get a break when you do gymnastics. Summer just means longer workouts that are more intense. The summer is a time to get new skills and to work towards the next level. I am excited to work hard and see where it takes me going into next season.

Summer means more time for team bonding, like team bowling day! I can't wait!

Saying goodbye can be hard, but because of goodbyes, you get hellos. As the school year draws to a close, I am optimistic that next year will be just as entertaining, challenging, and teaching as this year was. 

Just in case I am not able to post again, I want to thank everybody for reading my blog. I have really enjoyed this experience, and I have learned a lot about myself.

I hope you have a great summer!

----Jamie----

Spring Is In The Air

What comes along with spring and wonderful weather? Finals, recitals, and a very busy life for a teenager. With the weather being so beautiful, the last thing you want to do is sit inside and study. The last few weeks of school can be difficult with everything going on, but, to all you teenagers out there, keep your head up because the end is near!

Being a freshman in high school, I can now take AP classes. This means taking an AP test in the middle of May (aka TOMORROW!!!!!!!) I have been studying very hard for the past couple of weeks to prepare. I decided to make a sacrifice today to miss gym so I would have more time to study. You can never study too much (at least not in my mind).

My (exhausted) friends Lindsey, Emma, Sam, Allie, Maddie, and I after having a study party!

Studying with a brownie and some friends!

All of my study materials for the AP test.

May also means core testing, officially known as CRT testing. Even though these tests are ridiculously easy, they still drain a lot of precious energy and add stress to my already busy life. 

As many people know, music is also a big part of my life. Yesterday, I played in the spring violin recital for Sandberg Studio Strings. I love playing the violin and performing, but during spring I would just rather be outside than practice.

One thing that really helps me get through this stressful time is gym. Spending time with teammates and doing something that keeps your mind off of schoolwork is a great way to keep me going this time of year. If you do something that you love, it is a great way to distract you!

One thing for all of you busy teenagers to remember regarding school, tests, and studying: even if you are worried for a test because you didn’t have time to study, remember that all of the information is stored in your head somewhere. Sometimes, it is more important to get a good night’s sleep instead of staying up late to study because the rest will do you more good than last minute cramming.

For those of you that know me, you know this is not something that I would do easily. However, last week when I had three major tests in the same day, I decided to give this a try. I was very worried on the day of my tests that I wasn’t going to do well, but I ended up doing better than I had expected and hoped. 

So, while you take a break balancing your busy lives to read this post, I want to remind you to have fun! Take a break from your work and do something you love. As I move on to my next assignment and get back to studying, I want to wish all my peers luck in the upcoming weeks of testing!   

New Skills

Gymnasts never get a break. Even after our season is over, we don’t get any time off. In fact, during the summer, we have longer workouts. So, what do we do in all this time? We work on new skills!

Working on new skills is both fun and scary. After months of doing routines, it is a nice break to be able to work on something different. But, these new skills are often scarier than they are fun until you get the hang of them. 

One of the new skills that I’m doing is called a jaeger. If you would like a technical definition, this gymnastics terminology website is a good one! When done correctly, they look beautiful, easy, and not as dangerous as some releases. But, they are very scary to learn.

This is a video of Shawn Johnson competing on bars in the 2008 Olympics. The first release move that she does is a jaeger. 

Video Courtesy of: YouTube

The first day that I started to work jaegers, I was terrified that I was going to hit the bar. My coach told me that people work for months on being able to be close enough to the bar to catch it, so there was no way that I would hit the bar. I trusted her, and did three decent jaegers that were far away from the bar.

However, on the fourth try, I was trying to make a correction, but instead of doing it correctly, I pulled into the bar. I whacked my heels and Achilles on the bar. This was very painful, especially because I’ve never had any Achilles pain before.

When doing most release moves, you wear heel pads to help protect your feet if you hit the bar. My coach didn’t think I would need them, but she was wrong. She found a pair for me, though. Thank goodness!

After you crash, you have to pull yourself together and do it again before you leave the event. This was no exception. Throwing another jaeger was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done.

The next day I was sore but ready to go! They were much better, and I almost caught one of them! Here are two videos.

This jaeger was pretty typical for me.

I almsot caught the bar on this one! You can see how at the end I bent my arms. My coach got mad at me for not catching it so she tried to throw a mat at me......

My coach really wanted me to catch, so on my next turn I tried to get closer to the bar so I could grab it. But, I was a little too close. I pulled in a lot, and I landed in a straddle position on top of the bar. As a result, I got huge bruises on my calves, and I must have whacked my elbows on the bar because I had a deep cut on my elbow. 

This scared me more than hitting my feet did, but I got up and did another jaeger, which was a long way away from the bar. Since then, I have done jaegers a few times, but I haven’t done them in the last week because of a nagging back injury. 

I am nervous to go again, but I know I will. Crashing is part of the learning process, but in the end it is all worth it. No pain, no gain, right?

Got Conditioning?

Are you looking for a good workout? We condition almost every day at gym, so when I want to work out, I know what to do. I am very grateful for this because, in the future, I will always be able to put together a nice hard workout!

One of my coaches, Amanda, is very serious about conditioning. When she started coaching us, we all thought that she was pushing us too hard in conditioning. Now, we are enjoying the challenge, and we are amazed at how much easier her conditioning is. However, when she is in a bad mood or our head coach tells her to, she conditions us hard. REALLY hard.

This is a workout that we did a few weeks ago that made my whole team sore for a few days. 

First, we did a beam jump circuit, but since most people do not have a beam at home, I will leave out the details.

After everyone was tired from the beam circuit, we were sent to get panel mats. Panel mats are about one and a half feet thick, so any object around that size will work just fine.

This is a panel mat. Any object about this size will work for these exercises.

We used the panel mats to do multiple exercises, each of which we did for a minute. We got about ten seconds to rest between exercises. First, we did jumps with two feet up onto the panel mat and back down. To get the most out of these, push through your toes and try to bend your legs as little as possible. Then, we did the same thing, but only using one leg. After one minute, switch legs. 

Finally, your legs get a break. Putting your hands on the top of the panel mat, do push-ups. The goal is to try to touch your chest to the top of the panel mat, but if you cannot do this, go down as far as you can. 

This is the position to do the first push-up exercise in.

After a minute, put your feet on the top of the panel mat and your hands on the floor and do push-ups this way. 

The position to do the second push-up exercise in.

Finally, as a transitional exercise, we did twenty inchworm pushups. To do these, do a push-up. Then, walk your feet up to your hands, and then walk your hands out until you are back in push-up position. These are easiest to do if you have an open area to do them in. 

These next three pictures show the progression of how to do inchworm push-ups.
Start out in push-up position.

After doing a push-up, walk your feet up to your hands.

Then, walk your hands out until you are in push-up position and do another push-up.

We did this whole block two times, and it was very exhausting.

We weren’t done, though. Block two of exercises started out with dips. To start a dip, get in this position:

How to start a dip.

Then bend your arms and push back up. After these, do push-ups with your feet on the mat again. Then, do two-legged jumps onto the mat again. Next, do two-legged jumps sideways over the mat. After those comes another set of twenty inchworm push-ups. We also did two sets of this exercise block.

All in all, this was a hard workout for my whole team. The thing that helps us get through these is to find something that motivates us. This gives us something to work towards as well as helps to keep our mind off of the aches and pains from conditioning. 

I hope you give this workout a try if you are ever up for a challenge! Good luck!

Meet Eight: Regionals

The season has officially ended. This is always a bittersweet time for me. I love season, so I am always sad when it is over. But, now is when we get to start working on fun new skills!!!!

Regionals went well for everyone on my team! I was very proud of myself, especially considering I hadn’t competed for more than a month. For it being the first Regionals for everyone else, they did amazing! I was so proud of them and how we did as a team!

Me before the competition!
Photo Courtesy Of: Charity Christenson

Here is a quick run down of my scores: 

A 9.025 on vault, an 8.75 on bars, an 8.9 on beam, and an 8.85 on floor. But, with these scores come a few stupid mistakes. 

On beam, I almost fell on my full turn! A FULL TURN!!!!! A turn is the skill that I have been doing the longest, and it is the easiest of all my skills! They are the most pointless skills, too. Everyone underestimates how hard they are to do well because they are worried about their other skills. I was a victim to this at Regionals.

On floor, I stepped out of bounds on my double back. It was a really good pass, but I just underestimated the landing. This is a one to three tenth deduction, depending on how big my step out was.

Even so, I was really happy! I didn’t get any awards for anything, but I was okay with that. Also, I didn’t qualify for Westerns, but that just means more time to work on new skills! My teammate, Sam R, did get awards on beam and floor, third and ninth! This is great, especially since it was her first Regionals and since she wasn’t feeling well.

Phoenix was very hot and lots of fun! After Taelor’s meet on Friday, we went out to an early dinner at Mi Amigo’s, a Mexican Restaurant in the Arizona Center. 

Having fun at the Arizona Center!

Posing at the Arizona Center!

Then, while my parents went to dinner, Taelor, Alicia, and I went shopping at Urban Outfitters and Charming Charlie. Taelor, who is a big tomboy, put on a dress for the first time that I have ever seen!!!

Alicia, Taelor, and I trying on dresses at Charming Charlie!

Trying on tiaras at Charming Charlie. We were "Prom Queens!"

On Saturday, I watched Monkey and Alicia, and my parents and I went to the Arizona Science Center. There was so much interesting stuff there, and I had lots of fun! We saw a movie in the IMAX theater called To The Arctic. It was really eye opening, and I am glad I saw it. 

I am so glad that I was able to experience Regionals with all my wonderful teammates, and I am so glad I will always have all of these wonderful memories! 

Watch Out, Phoenix!

You never know what to expect in Park City, UT. This weekend, it was 60º and beautiful, and now there is six inches of snow on the ground. Earth cannot make up her mind about what season it is.

A winter wonderland in Park City on April 9th.

However, things are a bit more predictable where I am headed. On Thursday, I am off to Phoenix, Arizona, where it is always hot, Hot, HOT!

Yes, you guessed it. Regionals, which is this weekend, is in Phoenix! Along with leaving the crazy, unpredictable weather of Park City, I get to go compete in one of the biggest meets I can be in, along with all of my other wonderful teammates!

On Thursday, I will embark on a very busy mini vacation. Here is a sampling of my schedule:

But, before that, the basics. The meet is hosted by Arizona Sunrays Gymnastics. The meet itself will be held at the Phoenix Convention Center. 

Thursday night, there is a workout at the meet site. This is always nice to go to, because you get to try out the equipment that you will be competing on. Also, you get to watch some of the other girls who you are going to be competing against. However, since it is for Level 9 and 10 only, I will be all alone.

Friday is Taelor’s session. After this, my family is going to the Arizona Science Center. Also, Friday night we are likely having a team dinner somewhere in downtown Phoenix! Last year, when we had a meet in Phoenix, the team dinner was at Coach and Willies, and it may be there again this year! Wherever it is, I am looking forward to it!

My team eating at Coach and Willies in Phoenix last year.

Saturday, Monkey and Alicia compete. I am planning on going to watch both of them and hanging out with them between the sessions. Also, Saturday will be a day for me to rest and get my head in the game for my session.

My teammates and I hanging out between sessions at Regionals last year!

Bright and early on Sunday morning, I will be flipping around at the convention center! I will compete my hardest and try to qualify to one final meet. If you are in Level 9, you can qualify to Westerns from Regionals. To do this, you have to finish as one of the top people in your age group. I don’t know if I will be able to do this, but I will be okay with whatever happens.

Sadly, I am leaving before one of my teammates competes. Even though I won’t be there cheering for her, I will be sending her positive thoughts!

I am very excited for this one, last meet! One more chance to hang with my buds, one more chance to get out of Park City, and one more chance to show the world what kind of gymnastics I can do! Watch out, Phoenix, here I come!