Gymnastics at its Finest

Chapter 12

"Girls! Time for warm up!" A, maybe 35 ish year old, women says.

"Hey Mattee?" I ask.

"Yeah?"

"Who's that?"

"Oh. That's one of our coaches. Her name is Rachel. Her specialty is beam, but she's an amazing coach on every event." Mattee says.

"Oh ok. So who's that?" I say, pointing to a guy who's setting the bars.

"Oh. That's Franko." she says. "Usually coaches us on bars or vault. Amazing floor coach though. We don't really have him on beam."

"Do we ever have Cliff?"

"Oh yeah. We have him almost every day. He kind of oversees the whole practice, and coaches us on every event." Mattee says.

"Ok good." I say. "I like him a lot."

"Yeah me too." She says.

"So, what's the warm up? I don't want to completely embarrass myself." I ask.

"Don't worry. I got your back. Just follow my lead."

She runs out onto the floor, grabs a band, and starts stretching out her ankles. I do the same. We talk a little bit as we stretch.

"So what gym did you used to go to?" I ask.

"Oh, I've always been here. Always have been, always will be."

Yeah. That's what I said. But this gym is definitely a different story.

"What about you?"

"I went to 'practice makes perfect'. But I left because the coach was a total jerk and kicked me out of the gym. I was just practicing, and I was having trouble with one of my tumbling passes, and he just cussed at me and kicked me out. Olivia decided she didn't want to be coached by someone like that, so she came here with me."

"Wow." She said. "I'm so sorry."

I shrug and give her a half-hearted smile.

Next we run, just like at our old gym. We talk as we run too. Turns out Mattee has a ton in common with me and Liv. She is a level 10, like us. She's an all around gymnast, like me. But her best event is beam, more like Liv. Her favorite event is bars, just like me.

We finish by stretching out all of our muscles. From hamstrings to wrists. We finish stretching, so now apparently it's time to go to our events.

"You ready?" Liv asks.

"Heck yeah." I respond.