From D.C. with love

My lovely lady Danielle is in town this week, so in her honor:

Before our first meet as seventh-graders on the middle school team, someone made up half of Danielle's floor routine. Maybe it was our coach or another gymnast. Danielle selected a rearrangement of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" that was quite rockin' and not kiddish, if you can imagine such a thing. The opening choreography worked. But whoever started the routine never got around to finishing it. 

At the competition, Danielle still didn't have the rest of the routine. Nor did she have it when she saluted the judge and the music began. We watched as she performed the first half. Then, pumped with creative spirit and adrenaline, she free-styled the second half by running in circles, leaping, and front handspringing. She repeated these elements until the music ended. Her score was lost in the annals of time, but you can be certain we rewarded her with the loudest of applause. And a bit of giggling.

When all the world's your stage

"Good job with the floor routines," Greg says as the girls line up at the end of practice.

"They should be on YouTube," one girl says.

Natalie's eyes light up.

"Let's shoot higher than YouTube," Greg says.

"How about Facebook?" Natalie says.

Fair enough.

Of Music and Nincompoops

I read this article (perhaps "rant" is the better word?) and must throw in my two cents, especially in regards to this excerpt:

Mark Bauerlein, author of the best-selling book "The Dumbest Generation," which contends that cyberculture is turning young people into know-nothings, says "the absence of technology" confuses kids faced with simple mechanical tasks.

But Bauerlein says there's a second factor: "a loss of independence and a loss of initiative." He says that growing up with cell phones and Google means kids don't have to figure things out or solve problems any more. They can look up what they need online or call mom or dad for step-by-step instructions. And today's helicopter parents are more than happy to oblige, whether their kids are 12 or 22.

"It's the dependence factor, the unimaginability of life without the new technology, that is making kids less entrepreneurial, less initiative-oriented, less independent," Bauerlein said.

I've spent a few hours today figuring out how to download music from YouTube, cut it in Audacity, and import it into iTunes. Then there's the extra battle of ripping music from a CD, converting it to WAV, and placing it in Audacity for cutting. I did this all from online research. I also did this of my own accord.

Back in the day, I used to cut my floor music with side-by-side tape decks, rewinding and recording to make sure the transitions were perfect. Then CDs came into the picture and I did the same process, recording from CD to tape.

It's all technology, you see, and it's all mechanical. Just the methods have changed.

Sure, I'm not 12. But that's how old I was when the Internet became a relevant part of our lives. I can't help but think this mentality is of the recurrent "kids these days"/"technology = doomsday" ilk.

I'd argue that Internet searching affords a different independence, one we need in the digital age: the ability to ask the right questions and to piece together "found" information. To distinguish between authentic and useless. To test what they've found. And besides, we're going to need these 'Net-savvy kids as the world becomes increasingly digital.

Anywho, I'm off to take initiative and cut some more music!

Just like me, you've got needs

And all eight of you need me all at once.

The piecemeal (anyone else have this as an elementary school spelling word?) choreography practice quakes when the girls have reached different points of preparedness. Four have finished routines. Four have parts. The four with finished routines want to do their routines to the music. The four with parts want to, too. Out of eight, only two have no questions about their routines.

The other six fire questions like a dissertation defense, ignoring that I'm helping another girl.

"What do I do after this pose?" ::strikes pose from middle of the routine::

"Did I leave something out?"

"What do I do now?"

"I forget [insert entire section of routine]..."

"Am I with the music?"

"Can I do [insert skill] in my routine?"

"Can I go next?"

"Can I go after her?"

"Can I go after them?"

Audio and visual overload. Music on and off, laughter on and off, "Watch the corner!", "Girls, keep practicing during her routine - you don't have to stand there and watch" (of course they all do anyway), "Wait, what do I do after this?"--

Then they're gone for the day. I keep the routines. The poses, the timing. They forget, but I don't.

Wings to fly

At the world's insistence, I chose the much cooler option.

Right now the backs of my knees cringe. My arms battled the ropes during a double back and I've got some nice scratches. I convinced myself I'd die as I climbed the ladder, and again as I stood on the platform with my hands on the bar, a dude's hand on my harness the only thing stopping me from falling forward.

"Ready?"

Knees bent.

"HEP."

I jumped.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

It's gymnastics-related:

Choices, part two!

• Run an 8K race tomorrow morning;

or

• Go trapezing.

Should this even be a debate?

Hollie Vise + One Republic = Glory

As I prance around making up floor routines, a piece of beauty:



from gymnastike.

What Would You Do?

If I arrive on the Internet in the morning before I've read the paper (news + cereal = my preferred combination), I'm faced with a choice.

I can:

• Voyage onto the Times web site, click around on NPR, read the political posts of my Facebook friends.

or

• Peruse my favorite gymnastics blogs to see what's what in the gym world.

I'll leave my decision to your imagination.

She's So Lucky

The girls groan as they push through conditioning. "You're so lucky," they say to Kasey and Brittany, who do abs on the side. "I wish I didn't have to do this."

I had those days. Who hasn't? Under stressful circumstances at practice, sometimes I thought how nice it would be to have an excuse. Sit out, no expectations. Of course, not a real injury, I was quick to add to my fantasy. Just enough to bow out of bar routines for the day. I'd be braver the next day, up to the challenge.

In those days I didn't know yet what it was to sit out for days and months.

Brittany's ankles twist if the wind blows hard enough. It makes progressing in her tumbling that much more difficult. Nine out of ten days, she's icing at practice.

Kasey was just diagnosed patellar tendonitis and Osgood-Schlatter's. She can't straighten her knee when she walks.

"Yeah," she says sarcastically. "I'm really lucky."

Lean Body Mass

Coach P.: "Let's start strength."
Alejandra: "I'm gonna go throw up now."

Bird by Bird, Pose by Pose

It's still September. But soon it will be October, then November will whisk past, and then meet season descends.

The girls need beam routines. Some need floor routines. Some still look at me blankly when I ask if they've searched for music.

I've found a solution: the good old-fashioned assembly line.

Beam: I give them stations and take the first girl. We make up a mount. Send her to the next station and give the second girl a mount. We proceed in this manner until it's time to switch events. They all have at least a mount, a few poses, and one requirement (jumps, cartwheels).

Floor: is a bit harder. But I channel my old coach, who would listen to our music once and make up our routines. Always the routine fit the music. I was impressed then but really, unless you're hoedown dancing to "Requiem For a Dream," you can make the choreography match the music.

So I work it the same as beam. A starting pose, the first steps, a journey to one of the corners for tumbling. Sure, they don't all have music. Sure, one of the eight-year-olds wants to use an instrumental of "Teenage Dreams."

But it's either the assembly line or creating one master routine. While I know the latter would be faster, easier, it seems to me that the beauty of USAIGC is breaking away from doing the same routine as everyone else.

Back to Basics

I do many of these drills with my girls, but I like that this video is a reminder of the basics--keeping it simple! Pointing those toes, learning how to jump and land, etc.



From the YouTube channel of kollstolen.

Growing Pains

"Did you get taller?" Colleen asks.

"Thank you, Colleen," I say. "Nobody has ever asked me that."

Never mind that Colleen's brain orbits a distant star and you can't trust her judgment. Sometimes she has flashes of insight.

When I turned 21 and broke my foot, I learned that I was no longer growing. I had to face that when I imagined my "grown up self" in "grown up life" (teaching, strutting around in power suits, what-have-you), I would not be taller. As Emeline once announced, "You are not five-one."

Maybe in heels, Em. Maybe in heels.

My gymnasts are sprouting. Natalie's 5'3" and I suspect next week she'll be 5'5". Kasey and Kelsey have an inch on me. Brittany and I see eye-to-eye. Amy's shooting up the ranks.

I admit it's a little weird that the girls who turn to my opinion and corrections have to look down to receive it. I'm a little nervous when they ask for a spot. What about all those tall, buff guys working here?

That night, I see my friend Tara. The first question she asks: "Did you get shorter?"

Shawn Johnson FTW!

It's a feel-good day, and as such, in honor of SJ's comeback, here's her Olympic victory from 481095ymg2:



I don't know that this is the cleanest routine I've ever seen her do. But when I went to work that morning, booted up the news, and saw she'd won, I burst into applause at my desk.

Plus, this version has British commentary. What more could you want?

we've got a hot crustacean band

All right. We're doing this.

I sit the IGC girls down with a CD of music burned from YouTube. Someone, of course, asks what they need music for. The other girls fill her in.

"You don't have to use this music, but you can," I say. Translation: Please pick one of these songs and make my life easier.

They gather around the laptop. I skip the dramatic tracks and linger on the happy swing music. Granted, these girls are ten years old and on the cusp of "too cool for life." Soon they'll be on, "My life is too hard."

They listen. At the end, I ask if they liked any. "Number eight!" they all say. Arguments ensue. A game of "I'm thinking of a number between one and twenty" settles who gets number eight.

And what is that track? "Under the Sea." Not so uncool, after all.

Motivation proclamation

New for back-to-school: As soon as you walk in the gym, awkward school photos and candid lawn gymnastics shots of each girl greet you, along with fun facts. Favorite food? Best friend? Favorite gymnastics event? We've got the juice.

I think the attention's good. It makes the girls feel noticed, makes them stand up a bit taller. It may even make them want to work harder (imagine?!).

This summer, I sat the older girls down for an inspirational talk on goal-setting. Then I sent them to separate areas of the gym with pencils and paper. They returned with specific goals, which delighted me. Of course, some of the girls then disappeared for the rest of the summer, along with any hopes of learning new skills.

Today we hand out index cards to all the girls. It's official: everyone's setting a goal, and it's going up on the wall for all posterity.

I look over Alejandra's shoulder as she writes:

Bars: pullover
Beam: back tuck

We all gotta dream.

Semblance of September

After spotty summer attendance, it was nice to come back yesterday to a nearly full house. One light was out and it cast a stage-like glow over the floor as the girls ran around the floor.

A new season descends.

auspicious beginnings

"Who remembers their floor routine?" I ask the young Level 4's today.

"I don't!"

"Barely!"

"Parts of it!"

"A.k.a. not really?" I respond to "parts of it."

"That's right," she agrees.

At the eleventh hour

YES for devices that rip music from YouTube!

Rejoice!

de nuestros amigos sudamericanos

YAY for awesome floor music.

BOO that none of my girls can pull it off.

Gotta keep striving, yo.

Higher powers

In light of dramz at her gym, let's all hope that Beth and I can coach side-by-side. Better yet, let's take up a collection for gas money.

Endgame

For those who know me in real life, it's been a summer of "Where do I go from here?"

This might be my last year at the gym. If I get into a Ph.D. program nearby, or that "full-time job with benefits" my mom keeps mentioning, I'll stay. If Ph.D.'s or jobs or what-have-you beckon from other lands, I'll go.

Will there be another gym? Quite likely. Will it be a "good gym"? I don't know. I'm not sure that's the world I want. What I do know is that I need to have multiple worlds, to live all kinds of lives.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last...

(Name that poem!)

I return from a long weekend -- buenos dias!

The gym's closed for the week so the girls can get acclimated to school and the coaches can rest up for the inevitable "omg middle school is like so hard lol wut" that awaits us.

Coach P. and I left a present. On Wednesday I decided it was time for the IGC girls to attempt squat-ons. I sensed this could be deadly. Instead of the try-it-and-pray-there-aren't-lawsuits method, I asked Coach P. if he'd help me move the resi mat.

I Google-imaged "gymnastics resi mat" and found a disturbing lack of images for what I describe. I link you, then, to a high jumping mat that looks similar. They are tremendous and squishy, and during our team sleepover, fights erupted over who got to sleep on it. They're also quite onerous to move, especially if the gym's small and you have to climb over a dozen items on the floor while moving it. Thus ours stays by vault.

Coach P., the girls, and I lifted it over our heads and traversed the dangers of high bars, medium bars, floor bars. We dropped it in place.

Not surprisingly, the girls loved it. Their squat-ons were scary as expected but showed improvement. Any mishaps? Just land on the mat. We went around about twenty times and they were still eager and excited. Just as eager and excited as I was to move the resi back to vault.

Coach P. looked at the red beast. It would have to return to vault for tomorrow's classes of small children. "We'll do it in the morning," he decided.

"I won't be here in the morning," I said, feeling responsible.

He waved his hand. "Don't worry about it."

On Thursday afternoon the mat remained under the bars. On Friday morning the resi mat was a huge hit, everyone jumping their classes from low bar to high. On Friday afternoon, the mat still hadn't budged.

I sense this will not change.

Kicking It Old School

"Tina" and I were talking about Tammy Biggs, a national team coach, during our delicious half-priced appetizers. As fate would deem it, I was YouTubing for Level 4 beam drill ideas when I found this video courtesy of thegymnasticminute.



I like this drill. It's simple enough for my girls who get about an inch off the beam.

Hugs, Not Kicks to the Head

Yesterday I covered for a rec class. It was all well and good until one little girl burst into tears. Her twin sister had kicked her in the head.

"I didn't mean it!" said the Kicker, eyes wide.

Her twin sat on the low beam and bawled.

"Go hug your sister," I said. "Make her feel better."

Kicker sighed.

"Let's go," I said.

She ran to her twin, tapped her on the shoulder in a faux one-armed hug, and ran back. "I did it!"

"A real hug," I said. "Minimum of five seconds."

Kicker signed more loudly. This time she hugged Weeping Twin by the leg for a instant. Weeping Twin cracked a smile.

"You want to sit out the rest of beam?" I said in my don't think you can sass me, little girl voice.

Kicker obliged, embracing her sister and counting onetwothreefourfive in one breath. "I did it," she said, exasperated. Weeping Twin laughed, her head trauma now healed.

So much love.