Spot On

I know the signs. She stands with her arms up. One toe pointed. Her hands drift back, then stop. Drift back and stop again.

Wait for it, wait for it...

"Can you spot me?" Maya stands on the beam for her fifth back walkover of the day.

In my day, I was a big fan of the "Just stand there and only spot me if I'm about to die, okay?" My girls aren't terribly different. Most of them become independent quickly, or ask for a few spots at the beginning of the workout and go forward from there. Of course, there are exceptions.

"You've already done four," I say.

"But I feel like I'm going to die!"

"You're not going to die."

"Please?"

The thing with Maya is that she can turn off the fear under pressure. At the meet, she'll go for the back walkover and make it. Some practices she connects back walkover to back walkover without a qualm. And other days are the "I'm going to die" days.

I'll be honest. Spotting makes me nervous. Really nervous. Not beam, so much. But vault does. I stack blocks next to the table so I can reach the girls. But there are so many ways their vaults can go wrong, so much potential to fly out of my hands. Tumbling, too. The older Level 4's ask for spots for back tucks, but their sets and flips are so inconsistent that in one turn, they flip at your shoulders, and in the next, their heads scrape the floor.

One day all of the girls tumbled together. Greg, John, and I supervised simultaneously. Greg's 6'3", John 6'0", and I come in at a whopping 5'0".

Natalie stood in the corner for her back tuck. Then she turned to me, ignoring my taller counterparts, and asked, "Can you spot me?"

I stepped in, but I needn't have. She flipped above my head.

A few months ago I kneeled next to the low beam as Maya prepared for her back handspring. Truth was, I'd never spotted a back handspring before on a beam of any height. But how much could go wrong on the low beam?

She lands. We both exhale. She goes again, and again, once slightly crooked. I put her back on the beam.

"You just saved my life! Thank you!" She meant it.