Bottoms Up

I write often about motivation--namely, how the girls vacillate between excitement and apathy.

There's one factor I haven't addressed yet. For good, bad, or worse, the oldest girls in the gym--the ones who have pushed through Level 5 season after season--are the best. We have no high-level athletes yet. They can watch gymnastics on TV or online, see the girls at other meets, but when it comes to day in and day out, their teammates are swimming along beside them. There is upward movement, but it's slow.

If they can't look up, they can certainly look down.

That's where the young Level 4's are, the ones who were originally cute and tripping over themselves and flailing on the beam. They're still cute and sometimes still flail. But each day that an older girl stays at the same skill level, a younger girl breaks through.

Is this the best motivation? Is it easier to idolize than to race to keep the lead? We'll have to find out.

All I know is that when seven-year-old Colleen, who last year at this time could barely do a good round-off, runs across the floor and lands her first round-off back handspring back tuck, the older girls are watching. Some of their mouths are open. Did she just--? Yes, she did. Now what about you?