Not with a bang but a whimper

I would love for the Level 5's to finish their season just as gloriously.

They don't.

Kips still missed. Falls off beam. Errant vaults. Floor routines off the music. Coach P. claps supportively after their routines. I know he's not impressed.

Our last gymnast, Amy, salutes for beam. During the warm-up for bars, she lost a tooth. In the beam touch warm-up, she crashed on a jump and had a subsequent teary meltdown. She's fallen off beam every meet, always more than once. Lots of 6.0's.

But Amy's improved this season. She points her toes, flicks her wrists on floor, almost has her left leg split down. Her leaps hit a full split. She wants to be a real gymnast.

Today she wobbles wildly, but saves herself. She lands her cartwheel and I clap in delight. Just the dismount left -- and she makes it!

8.15. I high-five her. She grins with one tooth missing.

Spring Awakening

The prospect of USAIGC sends the older girls a-flutter. Now they're making up beam routines and saying, "That's going to be my floor music" to every song on the radio. This new excitement means there's a better chance they'll stay in the sport, especially for the girls like Maya and Kathryn who have started to drift.

But we still have a season to finish out.

One March weekend, I drive an hour to arrive at the competition gym. 7:45 a.m. isn't a particularly kind time for a gymnastics meet. The older Level 4's--Christina and Alejandra are our representatives today--slump in with messy hair, looking like they just woke up from sleeping in the car. Compared to the hairsprayed ponytails and crisp buns of other teams, Christina rocks a sloppy side ponytail. Alejandra arrives late and sneaks in during the national anthem. Not a good start.

Floor first. Nobody does a great routine but Christina scores an 8.95 and Alejandra a 9.0. All right, we'll take that.

Somehow it gets better from there. By the end of the meet, Christina's pulled a 35.75 all-around. Alejandra, 35.05 despite an 8.0 on bars. She beats just about everyone on beam. I feel like a pride mama. Thus I text my mom, who has sat through countless competitions and understands what these scores mean. Success, solid scores -- these things are finally possible.

Realism and new life

And as a staff, we all face it: most of these girls are not taking gymnastics anywhere. Some could, but they don't want to. The Level 5's are much better this season but in no way are they ready for Level 6 bars. The Level 4's are kickin' it but they too are foiled when it comes to kips.

They're bored. I'm bored. We're all bored.

The solution? USAIGC.

Under the USAIGC system,

• There are no compulsory routines. While gymnasts must fulfill certain requirements, all of the choreography is optional;
• Gymnasts can specialize on events;
• The levels range from Copper, equivalent to about Level 3, and run through Platinum, similar to Level 10/beyond;
• Gymnasts can compete at two adjacent levels (i.e. bars and beam at the Bronze level, and floor and vault at silver);
• Every level leads to a national championship;
• Gymnasts can compete under the USAG J.O. (a.k.a. Levels 4, 5, etc.) and USAIGC systems simultaneously.

Thank God.

Keeping It Staffy

I like that I like Coach P., because the gym would be misery if I didn't.

I can honestly say that I love going to the gym. Even if my girls drive me mad. Even if practice is at 8 am and I went to bed at 3. Why?

1. It's gymnastics.
2. I love the girls.
3. I love my fellow coaches.

At fourteen, I began teaching at the gym I competed for. I'm not certain how legal this was, but I did obtain a special blue card from the nurse's office. Many of my teammates did the same. A few hated coaching and switched to jobs in retail and restaurants. Others stayed on. Often we worked side by side with our own coaches, glimpsing what it might be like for them when they coached us.

As a result, the staff became extremely close. We spent hours lounging around the gym or hanging out in the parking lot after classes and practice. Many a table filled with our breathren for half-priced appetizers.

Sure, drama ensued. About half the staff dated each other. Love triangles, break-ups, friendships tested when some coaches left for other gyms. But when we hit our stride, the chemistry was undeniable. The kids, the parents, everyone felt it.

We're not so inseperable at my present gym but we still enjoy each other. We're a little older, aware that we're focused on multiple life paths outside of the gym. We have our own lives, though John and Meghan and I often frolic in the gym after practice. And as the number one guardian against drama, nobody is dating anyone else.

To the test

February 14th. Valentine's Day for many, the world's longest day for us.

This date marks Coach P.'s debut on the competition floor. The parents are whispering. Their hopes are high or at least curious. Greg hasn't said much, but the few words confirm my thoughts: If the girls succeed today, have he and I failed as coaches?

Floor begins well, with Jamie and Kelsey performing crisp, 9.0-earning routines. Vault goes nicely. Bars...ah, well. Bars goes back to its old ways, meaning the stronger girls miss their high bar kips and the weaker ones take their 5.0's. Alejandra makes us proud with a tidy, sassy beam set that wins her first place.

Coach P. and I linger for an hour, waiting for the start of the next session. Maya's the only 6 competing today and she shows up a half hour into warm-ups. The good news is that by this point, Coach P. and I have bonded. He learns that I studied writing and asks if I can help him with his English. We talk about Russia. His accent is strong but he catches irony and sarcasm. I like this.

The bad news is that we've been in the same gym since 8 am, and it's now 6 pm and Maya sobs after bombing beam, her final event. Clearly worth the wait.

I'm not sure how to feel. Sure, I can't help but be glad that our girls did nothing out of the ordinary. Some victories, plenty of falls. But I've begun to think I can trust Coach P. I want to see his magic.

Squat-ons got you down?

Found this on Gymnastics Coaching:

Showmance

Emeline: "Tomorrow is dance day with ballet bar (aka folding chairs)"
Emeline: "and we will be using Glee music"

...Pretty sure it's time to think about a gym change.

Follow me or perish, sweater monkeys

Please don't think I'm a sadist. I'm not the type of person to thrive on children crying. Rather, it's the epiphany in the girls that pleases me: the moment of, "Oh, gymnastics is difficult and I have to work hard now? I had no idea!"

The spell is brief.

The parental complaints begin to wear on my boss. Eventually she asks Coach P. not to push the girls in their splits. Coach P. rolls his eyes -- how do the parents expect their children to do well in competition with being babied at practice? But he understands that this too is a business.

The little ones, Generation 4.0, take to Coach P. the best. Besides Larissa, they are unintimidated. More of the parents are on board. They do what he asks.

But the older girls, the ones whose competitive woes brought Coach P. here in the first place, soon revert back to their ways. Giggling, sitting around, complaining.

I wonder how Maya will react to Coach P. Here she has the opportunity to learn from an elite-level coach. To get stronger on bars and to add to her already powerful tumbling and vault repertoire. I wonder if she'll be subdued, listen to him the way she doesn't listen to the rest of us.

And she is and does. For about three days.

"She is really annoying," Coach P. soon says.

Maya just doesn't care. And she doesn't care if she distracts her teammates in her apathy.

The culmination took place at a practice that, sadly, I was not at. Apparently Maya was more of a piece of work than usual. Coach P. let it go. At the end, as the girls stood before him, he started to give an inspirational talk about hard work. Maya began interrupting, talking over him, moving around.

Coach P. threw his clipboard to the ground. He told Maya that she wasn't a very good gymnast and that he didn't want her on the team. I don't know if the girls were frightened by the clipboard or his words or both, but evidently they all walked out of the gym with pale faces, some in tears.

The only parent who wasn't distressed to hear this from her daughter? Maya's mom. "Good," she said to my boss. "Someone's got to put her in line."

Tears for fears

I watch Coach P. carefully those first weeks. In the beginning he works mostly with the older girls. The girls simultaneously become my biggest fans. "Are we going to beam with you or Coach P.?" they ask. "With you, right? Please?"

Coach P. operates quietly. "May I step in?" he says instead of talking over us other coaches. He has drills for the girls, some of which we've used and some that are new. He's all about repetition. Routines, routines, routines. More routines. Very reasonable.

It's in the warm-ups that Coach P. earns his reputation.

Kasey sits in her split. The girls chatter as usual. Then Coach P. approaches and pushes her the extra half-inch to the ground.

I don't expect Kasey to flinch. She's tough. More flexible than the other Level 5's.

Instead she starts crying.

In those first weeks, at least one girl cries per practice. Larissa refuses to enter the gym for warm-ups, sitting in the lobby with six-year-old stubborness. If they don't cry during splits, one will during conditioning. The strength training is not revolutionary, but like the routines, there's a lot. Many a squat-jump ensues. Alejandra has breathless, dramatic episodes. Parents call complaining that their children can't walk the next day. Coach P. tries a fun leap frog-type game, but Chloe falls over Amy and hurts her hand, and the tears continue.

As for John, Greg, and me? We can't help but love it.

And the heat goes on

"Coach P., are you okay?" Holly calls.

His response is inaudible.

"Well, you're sitting with your head in your hands..."

So it goes 'round here.

Like seven inches from the midday sun

In my day we'd start practice at 7 pm in hopes of outlasting the summer heat. The gym always felt ten degrees hotter than outside and though the tremendous industrial fans made much banging and booming, they were only effective when you stood in front of them, calling words into the metal and letting the air distort them.

We sweated. Everything sweated. The plastic beam covers dripped. Better put on all the chalk you can before bars. Floor, that was okay, but we were so overheated that it was difficult to find the will to live, let alone tumble. But if there was one thought that kept everyone trucking, it was the possibility of a post-practice water fight in the parking lot. The owner kept a bucket load of water pistols for this purpose.

More often than not, my teammates scampered outside and I stayed in for a few extra minutes. One more back handspring on beam. Okay, two more. And then I stepped outside and went from ninety-nine degrees to frigid in an instant. Yes, that was something to keep pushing for.

After a long weekend and existential crisis,

I return!

A real entry will occur tomorrow during the heat wave, when going outside will equal instant collapse.

..

Dear Emeline,

I hope your gym can handle my ridiculousness. ;-)

Double Dutch

As a complete aside, I received an exciting e-mail today. Should the stars line up properly, I'll be in Rotterdam as a volunteer for the World Championships in October. Whoa!

Stranger Comes to Town

He arrives in January. A mild man, dressed simply, voice never raised. He claps once for their attention. Instead of sitting on the floor for their stretches, he takes them through kicks and jumps, then jumping kicks, all of which make them laugh. They are paying attention.

He is Coach Petrovitch of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

As a gymnast, I looked upon new coaches with fear and curiosity. Would they like my gymnastics? What would they try to fix in me? Would they yell? These new coaches were almost unanimously male. Each brought his own trademark. It was a matter of how well his style blended or rose above the present coaching environment. Non-offensive or innovative coaches persisted; those who fell below phased out.

As a coach, I wonder: Am I going to be ousted?

My boss hasn't given any sign that she's displeased. But I know she's tired of parental complaints when the girls do poorly in competition. John and Greg have been at the gym for years, and if anyone's going to get the boot, it's this girl.

Coach P. has extensive international competition and coaching experience. One of his roles will be to mentor us, my boss explains. I like the idea of mentorship and learning. But I'm still concerned.

As January thickens, I hold my breath.