The Life of a Gymnast

Chapter 34: Repetitions

“Girls, you need to be prepared.  We have a meet this weekend!  You need to be training routines, not just skills.  Let’s get going!”.  With 2 claps of her hands, Lizzy sends us sprinting to our favorite beams.  

I warm up my series first, then my leaps and jumps, then my turns, and lastly my dismount.  Today’s assignment is make 2 routines in a row or make 3 total, which isn’t too bad.  It’s going to be our first competition of the season, so Lizzy doesn’t expect us to be perfect.

I mock salute to the imaginary judges before jumping into a middle split.  From there, I slide my left foot over so one leg is out straight and the other is bent under me.  I do a quick pose and a turn myself into a press handstand.  From there, I step down into my series; handspring handspring.  I stick it, and move my hands in a flourish.  I do a few more poses before lunging into my turn series.  I do a full turn with my leg in horizontal and step right into a full turn like normal.  I have a slight balance check but dance out of it.  Jumping hard, I do a wolf jump, split jump, tuck 3/4 for my jump series.  Again, I have to dance out of a few balance checks.  I do a half turn with my leg in back attitude and step right into my leap series; switch leap to two feet, split half.  I stick it perfectly this time, and I hurdle into my round off full dismount.  I take a slight step, but it’s good enough.  I salute again to the imaginary judges and take a breather before starting my next routine.  

I end up making that one as well, so I can move on to new skills.  I start to work on front aerials on the floor, then a line on the floor.  Finally I pulled out a floor beam and tried a few there before we switched events.

We were going in backwards Olympic order, so we went to bars next.  I pulled out my grips in a cloud of chalk dust and start coughing.  I finally catch my breath and finish by sliding rubber bands through my fingers and attaching them to the buckles of the grips.  This is so that the dowel doesn’t come off the grip, because they get progressively looser.  

“Your assignment for today is to stick 3 dismounts and do 2 of each half of your routine.  Good?  Good, now lets get going”, Coach Bart tells us as we are sitting in the pit, putting on our grips.  

Halli speaks up.  “Coach Bart, Lizzy said we were supposed to be doing routines…”

A collective groan is emitted from my groups throats as we all collapse in the pit.  

“Halli come onnn”.  She just giggles and shrugs.  “At least I’m honest!”  

Coach Bart comes back with “Halli, do I look like Lizzy?”

“No…”

“Then why the hell would I say the same thing she says”. 

That shut Halli up.

I go over to the chalk bucket and start to warm up.  I just have to go through some timers and a dismount before I can start my halves.  

Deciding to do my first half first, I start in between the bars.  Kip, cast handstand, half pirouette.  Toe up to high bar, kip and stop.  I jump down to get some chalk before repeating that.  Then I move on to my second half, which is harder.  I start on the high bar with a kip cast, half pirouette to overshoot, free hip, monkey circle, back to high bar.  I stop again to get chalk before completing another second one.  Dismounts are only slightly easier; they’ve never really been my strong suit.  I have to do at least 5 before I stick 3 double pikes.  I go to Coach Bart for my second assignment.  

“What should I work on now?”,  I pant.  I was exhausted; I haven’t done that much in a while. 

“How about some double layout work, or would you rather do releases?”

This was a hard choice.  I glance at the clock and see that we have 20 minutes left of our 45 minute rotation.  That’s just enough time to work on jaegars.  

“I’ll do releases”.  

He sends me to the block pit to warm up front giants and some jaegar drills.  He wants to spot me for a few before I try it on my own.  

I warm up with some front giants to a forced stop at the point where I would release.  Jaegars still kind of scare me, so I’m glad Coach Bart is spotting me for a few. 
“Mia you ready?”, he yells from one of the bar sets.  I nod my head in reply, and shake the jitters out of my hands as I chalk up.

I kip into a cast handstand, and Coach holds me still as I do a blind change into a front giant.  I lean into another front giant and at the top of the skill, I let go and flip over.  I feel his hands gripping my stomach, trying to turn me over faster, but he can’t do enough.  I released to late and my feet hit the bar before flipping me onto my head in the pit.  Coach jumps in next to me.  

“Mia?  Hey Mia, you okay?”

My head is pounding; when I fell backwards I need myself in the forehead.  I was upside down in the pit and could barely breath, and I struggled to pull myself upright again.  Other than a bad case of nerves and aching heels, I was fine.  

“Yea, I’m good”, I manage to smile.  

“Good, because you scared me there!”

“Was it really that bad?”, I force myself to laugh.  I wouldn’t let the other girls know how terrified I was, because I could see them staring at me from my peripheral vision.  Britt and Halli were standing next to each other laughing, and Emma had a worried look on her face.  I saw Catt with the younger group on beam, but she was looking over at well.  

I shook my arms out and glanced up at the bar.  There was a cloud of dust around it.  

“Well, you ready to spot another?”, I ask Coach.  He looks surprised but nods his head all the same.  

I kip up into a handstand, and Coach holds me to do a blind.  This time, I tap harder in the front giant before releasing a little earlier.  I feel the hard wood under my calloused, bloody hands, and relief floods my sore body.  I kip out of it into a front support.  Coach claps.

“That’s more like it!  That’s the Mia I know”.  I smile and jump down into the fluffy pit to chalk up again.

During this past summer, Coach Bart has made me so much better.  I’ve gone to multiple workshops and met a lot of great friends.  A lot of them are either training elite (like I am) or have already qualified.  I was looking to compete level 10 this year, which was a big deal.  The only thing I was really behind in was beam, but I made up for my lacking series with intricate dance and jump series.  

I slam the door shut behind me.  “I’m hooooome”, I call out to the seemingly empty house.  Nobody replies, so I walk into the kitchen and drop my book bag on the floor.  It’s 7:03, and I still have to eat dinner, shower, do homework, and go to bed.  I sigh and start making some chicken noodle soup for dinner.  Not the healthiest, but it’ll do.  

As the water is boiling, I pull out my homework and begin my math.  Thank god that tonight, I don’t have too much homework.  I usually have an assload, and I’m up till the early morning studying.  

The garage door starts, and I open the door to greet my parents.  They’ve been getting home from work pretty late recently, because they’re starting a business and it’s been pretty intense.  By the time they got home, the soup was done and I start pouring it into bowls for my parents and myself.  

We sit down for dinner, and my parents glance at eachother.  I look at them and look back at my history book.  “Mia, we have something we need to talk to you about”. 

A/N: Guys I am literally the worst at updating k?  K.  Anyways, I'm gonna try and be better!  My goal is to update on the weekends, so I'll try my best. 

Also, if you guys have any questions about gymnastics or the book, just comment or message me!  I love talking to my readers, and I love getting feedback too:)