Ready or Not

Oh, the holidays! My coach was nice enough to give my team the week of thanksgiving off, giving us a total of five days off! It was wonderful! I had five days to read, hang out with my friends, and have fun! It was great to have a few days off to relax, but I knew I would regret the time off when I went back to the gym on Monday.

In most sports, having time off is not a big deal. If you have a few days off, your first day back is a little bit hard, at worst. However, in gymnastics things are very different. The more time you have off, the harder it is to get back into things, and the longer it takes for things to feel normal again. Also, it is easier for some people to get back into things than it is for others. As for me, it takes me a while, especially to get timing back.

With competition season knocking on the door, we have intersquads every few weeks. My coach decided to schedule one the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. That only gave us two days to come back from the break and be in tip-top shape.

Monday was rough. Bars and tumbling were the worst; I was falling on the simplest things. Beam had highs and lows. I couldn’t make a routine for the first half of the workout, and normally beam is my best event. I was very frustrated, so I went to talk to my coach, Amanda Johanson. She struggled with beam in her career, and she always knows what to say. She got me back on track, and I had a strong finish to beam.

Tuesday was better, but still not where I wanted to be. I still struggled to make routines on beam, but the rest of the workout was better. My vault, which I have been doing for four years, was looking as good as ever. Bars was awesome - I finished my assignment quickly and I only fell once the whole workout. I was confident, until I got to floor. 

Since I landed on my head on my front pass in the last intersquad, my coach changed my pass to what I competed last year. We had been working hard on it to fix timing and altitude, and they were much better. However, I hadn’t been able to land one the day before. I tried to put that behind me, but it didn’t work. I went to my back, my butt, my back again. I was very frustrated, and I ended practice with not a lot of confidence for the intersquad.

I was surprised. The intersquad went very well for me! I didn’t fall on any event, and everyone looked confident and strong. We had our highs and lows as a team, but we had greatly improved from a month ago. It gave me a lot of confidence, especially since I did so well after time off. It made me ready to embrace our upcoming season, and it gave me confidence to attack it with all I have!

How I felt after the intersquad - confident and ready to go!
Photo courtesy of: Que Sera Sara