This is only the beginning of the second chapter. I'll be adding more later.
December 2004
I took a deep breath as I stepped into my ready stance in front of the bars. I looked up and saw two monsters dressed in blue ensemble, the judges. Behind them, hundreds of people staring back at me, shifting anxiously in the hard wooden bleachers. I watched as the judges scribbled markings, I could see what they were, on their pads of paper. I nervously started to fidget with my grips, waiting for the judges.
I noticed one of the judges pass the piece of paper she had finished writing on and looked up to face me. She raised her right arm, giving me the okay to go. I presented back, as was costume before gymnasts start any routine and turned to face still feeling her gaze on me. I tool another deep breath and took a step forward to prepare for my mount.
Kip, cast, back hip circle, followed by a drop kip was the beginning of my routine, and I flowed through all of them perfectly. Bars was my best event so I didn’t really have anything to worry about. I cast again but this time I put my feet on the low bar and stood up to face the high bar. This was the part of my routine that I was most worried about. I had never competed giants on high bar before in a completion. “Come on Amanda!” I herd one of my teammates yell from behind me. I jumped and grabbed the high bar, doing another kip, cast, and fell back down and around the bar to begin my giants.
Fall, tap, scoop. I said to myself after I was in my handstand on the top of the bar. These were all of the things that were necessary for the giant to be completed. I started to fall to begin my first giant. I made it around, and took my original position on the top of the bar. I heard a scream from my teammates, excited that I had done at least one giant. I had only one more giant to go before my dismount, when my routine ended, alone with my nervousness.
I repeated the words in my head as I fell to start my second giant. This time though I repositioned my hand position as I was falling. I felt a rush of adrenaline go through my body as I tried to fix my fault. I passed under the bar and felt as my grip slipped off of the bar. The next thing I new I was flying through the air and all I could see was the ceiling. I heard the crowd gasp, and my coach who was standing next to the bars step onto the mat, in an attempt to catch me. I knew that there was nothing that I could do at this point but wait for me to hit the cold, hard ground, and hope not to be injured.
I wrenched open my eyes, and stared at the blue carpeted floor. I had my head in my arms and I was lying on the gymnastics floor in our gym. I sat up quickly and looked around. I found all of my teammates lined up next to me still in the position that I was just in.
“Amanda are you done visualizing?” said a stern voice behind me which made me jump. I turned around to find my couch Buzz walking past the beams toward me. I nodded. “All of your routines?” I nodded again. “Perfect?”
“Yes all of them!” I said annoyed that he wouldn’t believe me. Visualizing was a big thing in the gymnastics world, especially to Buzz. Proven studies had found that visualizing while you were injured, helped gymnast’s routines, and helped them get better all-around scores. Buzz had told us many storing about when he was in gymnastics, and injured how he would watch videos of gymnasts and would come back from the injury and be able to through tricks he never was able to before. But Buzz made us visualize in we were injured or not.
“Well,” he said to me scratching his bald head. “You have a practice meet this weekend. I guess you can go home now.” I stood up and walked across the floor, pass the bar to the lockers. I opened my locker and took out my practice bag, sweatpants, and baggy sweatshirt. Before I slipped on my pants I examined the red square welts on my legs. They were from earlier in practice and my other coach, Becky’s plan to fix bent legs. She would take a paint stirring stick and smack us as hard as she cold on the legs if the were bend while we were tumbling. I was so used to this I would even sometimes smack my self in the leg every time before my tumbling pass in practice, so that I wouldn’t bend them.
I looked up and noticed that some of my teammates were also finished visualizing and making their way toward the lockers. I hurried to get dressed so that I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. I was still really upset that I wasn’t moved up to level 7 and I didn’t want that subject to be brought up.
“Are you coming to the meet tomorrow?” my teammate Sierra asked me as she retrieved her things from her locker.
“Do I have a choice?” I replied sitting on the bench and putting on my shoes.
Sierra seemed to be confused by my answer and stammered to find an answer. “Well…I…just…um…”
“Sierra,” I said interrupting her. “Yes I’m coming. Why wouldn’t I?” She shrugged a little as I stood up and threw my gym bag over my shoulder. “See ya!” I waved to her over my shoulder and headed toward the lobby door.
I pushed open the door and stepped into the lobby which was buzzing with the parents of the children from the younger classes. I was checking my box for mail when Becky came out of the back office. “Well, Amanda. Are you going to keep your leg straight now?”
“Yeah.” I said with a little smile. Ever since Becky had denied me the change of going to level 7 I hadn’t really wanted to be around her let alone talk to her. And now with the birth of her baby she was threatening to quit coaching. Becky had coached me for as long as I could remember, and it angered me how she was just going to get up and leave.
I grabbed my mail out of my box and headed out the front door. “See you tomorrow Becky.” I said turning before I went out the door.
“Bye Amanda.” Becky said as she was shuffling through things behind the desk. I turned back around and made my way out the door.
