Preparations

Before a meet, there are many things that you have to prepare for. Sometimes, we have an open week in between meets, which is used for preparations at the gym, including last minute tweaks to routines. However, along with this, there are a lot more preparations to be made.

One major thing that you have to prepare for is missing school. I miss at least one day of school for every meet that I have to travel to. To some people, this might sound fun. Instead of learning, you get to be walking around a new city, having fun with your friends and family! What is there not to like?

There is a lot not to like. The first thing not to like: Making up work sucks. A lot. It is one thing to not understand a concept that your teacher taught you, but it is an entirely different thing to not understand something because you are trying to teach it to yourself because you missed the lesson that day. Then, try doing your homework with half the information that your peers have!

On top of that, there is usually too much work and not enough time to make up work when you get back. This means you have to do some homework while on vacation. Instead of going to the Empire State Building, you have to do homework instead. 

Another thing you have to prepare for is traveling! This is a lot more fun than preparing to miss school. The best part is planning what you are going to do in your free days. For my trip to New York, I know exactly what I am going to do each day that I am there! It is always great fun to look through things you can do with your family and choose the activities you think you’ll like best!

Then, of course, is preparing for the actual meet. This means lots of routines and lots of pressure situations. We use pressure situations to help us prepare for when we feel pressure at meets. By doing these a lot, we get used to the pressure and then we don’t feel it much at meets. Here is a typical pressure situation assignment on beam:

Typical Beam Pressure Assignment
Photo Courtesy of:
http://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/unit-2-lesson-2-classroom-vocabulary/deck/2098891

After all the preparing everyone has done, we get to go and have fun in a cool place, like New York! I can’t wait for the meet this weekend!