The Life of a Gymnast

Chapter 31: A Triumph on Beam

I stand at the end of the beam, staring at my feet.  My arms are up next to my ears, and my whole body is tense.  I’m trying to get myself to go, but I’m stiff with terror.  

My body relaxes with disappointment.  I flinch in fear of what’s to come from Lizzy before terrorizing my confidence on my own.  

“Come on, Mia.  This really isn’t that hard.  You need to swing your arms and go, no matter what”, I whisper to myself.  I walk down the beam and back again, wiping the sweat off my feet and raising my self-confidence.  I stand at the end of the beam with renewed courage.  

Before I feel the debilitating fear take over, I throw my arms down and back up, leaping into the first of two back handsprings.  My feet hit solid beam and I jump backwards again.  One of my hands slips, but it’s not a fatal fall.  The judges wouldn’t have noticed in a competition.  I finish, and salute to signal the end of my flight series.  Shaking my arms out, I get set to go again.  Once I make three, I pull out another mat to make it just the high beam and me.  I feel the nerves start to act up again and I push them down the best that I can.  I only have a few weeks left of summer training before it’s competition season.  I have to get this down.

I successfully complete hand hand series on the high beam, without mats.  I’m proud of myself; we still have 15 minute left of beam rotation.  This leaves time to work on dismounts.  

I walk to the tumbltrak, where we learn new series and dismounts before trying it on the floor or beam.  I warm up with a round off back layout, landing straight up into the pit.  I bounce back to my starting spot and try a full.  Again, I land straight up.  I’ve been doing these here for a while, so I move over to the floor pit.  I’ve done them here too, just not as often.  

My goal is to make 10 before going to the beam pit, and I get them done with 5 minutes to spare.  Enough time to try a few.  

Once again, I stand still at the end of the beam, this time looking at the end of it.  I take a deep breath, step, and hurdle into a roundoff.  I do a layout into the pit, sinking into the foam cubes.  Seeing somebody climb up onto the dismount beam, I hurry to pull myself out of the pit.  No more than a split second after I started to pull myself out, she went.  She twisted around twice before landing pin straight into the pit.  Even from my angle, however, I could see that she had poor form.  Her legs were bent and apart, her feet flexed.  She could do a double, but it sucked.  It’s Laney, of course.  One of the girls who has it out for me; makes sense that she couldn’t wait to try and show off.  

I pulled myself back up onto the beam, determined to get this skill.  I knew Laney was looking at level 9 this year, but guess what?  So was I, so look out, bitch.  

I launched into another roundoff, this time twisting the layout around.  I made it perfectly, which I’ve never done before.  Especially since I’ve never done it off the real beam before. 

“Nice.  Just turn with your shoulders instead of your head.  You’ll get around faster and it will require less effort”, the new coach says.  

I didn’t know he could coach beam too!  

“Have you ever tried a back handspring into the dismount?”, he asks.  I shake my no.  

“Maybe you should try that.  Your roundoff lead in is good, just a little weak.  I think your back handspring would be better.”  I nod my head yes, then glance over at Lizzie.  

“Don’t worry about her, I’ll take care of that.  Just start working on it”.  I nod yes and warm up a handspring rebound on the floor.  I feel the nerves rise up through my stomach, filling my chest.  I do my best to push them down again.  This is a real opportunity, and I have to make it count. 

I see coach Bart talking to Lizzy, and I can only pray that he can convince her to give in.  I look over at them in between turns, and they’re seeming to come to a conclusion.  I see Lizzy sigh, and nod her head.  Bart pumps his fist, and she rolls her eyes.  It looks like she’s conceded!

Bart comes back over.  

“She agreed, but on the terms that she has nothing to do with you…I don’t know why, but anyways…it looks like you can learn the dismount!”

“Thank you so much!”, I thank him.  I’m so excited.  

I go to bed dreaming of that dismount that day, of where I could go with it.  I looked up youtube videos of the elite compulsory, and their dismount is a backhandspring into a back layout.  I fit the two and two together, and I’m elated.  Bart wants me to go Elite!  

A/N:

Thanks for 26,000 reads guys!  Keep the votes coming, and make sure to comment suggestions and comment on my board!  BTW sorry for not posting, I was at camp and sprained my back :( but I'm back now!