Ho, ho, ho!

Two months and two days later, a blog post!

I've spent the end of this summer and the fall trying to mentally distance myself from gymnastics when I am outside of the gym. I'm still coaching. The kids are still cracking me up. I'm also now in the judging arena, which is a weird little universe with rules spoken and not.

So why the mental distance?

1.) I'm trying to imagine myself as a real person. When people ask what I do for a living, I intentionally place coaching as the second or third job on the list, not the first.

2.) I fear that by being too into the sport, I will both not be a real person, and will be disappointed.

Said disappointment would stem from the girls' competitive success (or lack thereof). You see, our kids are no longer the afterthoughts. I'm not saying they walk into the gym and the competition falls to their knees and begs for mercy, but they're good for several medals, some first places, and a team award.

Do I enjoy the success? Heck, yeah. Not in a creepy stage mom way (or so I hope). I'm proud of the kids. But I was proud of them even when they were little disasters forgetting the Level 5 floor routine.

A shift, however, at the beginning of this season. I felt myself less understanding of the cute blunders and the bent knees and the inevitable 7's on bars. One of the Silvers was at the end of a fantastic beam routine when she fell doing a silly, froofy turn. Even the judge looked upset that she fell.

"What did you do that for? We took that out!" I said as soon as she walked over. And thus she hid in a corner and cried as her 8.75 was raised.

I did not feel good about this.

Less of a tolerance for the all of the above makes me a better coach. I know that. But I just...I don't know. I just can't reconcile myself with the idea of being that person, the one who makes a kid cry because she made a mistake. The world didn't end. The wrath of God didn't rain down upon us as she fell from the beam.

So these months have been an effort in stepping back and saying, What is all of this really about? Still working on that answer. 

Keeping it cool

Too cool?

Yesterday, the kids had their first meet of the season. It was surprisingly disaster-free (everyone made it over the table, nobody melted down on beam) until bars, when young Larissa jumped to the high bar, peeled off, and landed on her neck.

Coach P., who had been standing next to the high bar, immediately dropped to the mat to assist her. There was the tense moment when we all watched: Is she okay? Will she get up?

She did get up, but she was in tears. Coach P. had her salute to the judges and then brought her to the side, where folks from the host gym arrived with ice.

What did I do? I set the board for Colleen. She stepped onto it, looking at Larissa with concern.

"Let's go, Colleen," I said.

Now I'm wondering if Larissa's mom thinks I was insensitive, or negligent, or something of the sort. But as soon as Coach P. went over to her, I knew that my role was to keep the kids calm and keep them moving.

When a kid goes down at the gym, I do the same thing. Keep the world turning. Do not yell, do not go running. I am not the one to play the first responder, although it has happened at times. But then, too, I maintain the same demeanor. Send a kid for an ice pack, sit with the injured girl while making sure the others are occupied, start telling jokes when it appears that she's okay, just scared.

But maybe too detached? Today makes me wonder.

That awkward moment

when a kid's parent friends you on Facebook.

What do you do?

So far, I've left the request hanging in the "yet-to-respond" pile. But another one hath arrived.

I don't want to reject. I know I can set it so that if I accept, they can't seem much of my wild and crazy (yep, so wild and crazy) life.

But then they can message me. And poke me. And send me requests for Farmville or whatever game's all the rage these days.

Once again: what's a sister to do?

Eureka!

I love that moment where you find a way to reach the unreachables.

Young Mariah embodies the phrase, "She wouldn't hurt a fly." Instead, she'd probably gaze at it and blink in wonder as it tried to suck her blood.

When you work with Mariah one-on-one, she's with you. She focuses as best she can. But when she's just one of the group, as everyone must inevitably be during practice, she moves about in a rather lost manner. The basic things you emphasized in one-on-one time -- pointed toes, straight legs, the finer stuff -- disappears entirely. You repeat yourself. She nods, then continues to bend her legs and drift along through her routines.

What was it that worked so well during the private lessons that was lost on her now, besides the extra attention?

Then I remembered.

"Mariah, I'm going to judge your routine," I said when she came over to the beam closest to me. "You have to get a 9.0."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, no!"

But what happened? Toes pointed. Legs straightened. Turns completed and cartwheels stayed on the beam.

In a word: magic.

"I would do anything for love"

Meatloaf should have added, "Or for a brownie."

Over my few years here, I've witnessed many an incident of parent-gymnast bribery:

"If you get your kip, you'll get a cell phone."

"If you do your back walkover on high beam, you can have brownies."

"If you don't cry after your bar routine, we'll go to the mall."

Does it work? Kinda sort. Would they have accomplished the skills (or not crying) anyway? Probably, eventually.

I bring this up because Coach P. is concerned about the motivation of the Level 5s, who are a potential disaster waiting to happen. He's hit the conundrum that I've experienced many a time with the older girls: if you yell, they get sad, but don't work harder. If you're encouraging, they fool around. If you're somewhere in between, nothing happens.

It might be time to break out the baking sheet.

I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation

(But I'd like the kids to be looked upon well.)

There are the coaches who embrace the judges and ask about their children. The coaches who know every judge by name and have a history. The coaches who seem to eke out that extra advantage.

Then there's us.

I don't converse with judges more than necessary. Many of them remember me from my competitive days -- they'll call me by name -- but there's not much else to say. Whenever there's an inquiry, I send in one of the male coaches so they can work their manly magic. I get nervous. Maybe that's it.

Since we started an IGC program, there have been whispers. One person heard from this person that the judges have said, Those girls are much better now. Their scores and placements reflect this.

Still. You wouldn't watch a meet and think, What's up with those scores? Those girls are getting extra tenths because of their gym name. We're not at that point. (Yet?) And is it really that desirable for the kids to get inflated scores? I say nay. But, of course, it will happen inevitably, if not to us.

In addition, the judges don't approach me to say things like, "What great routines." My friends who work at the well-known gyms say they're experienced it: judges coming up to them after the rotation or after the meet, unsolicited. I suppose that's cool. I suppose it could happen one day.

But if our kids are getting the same -- or higher -- scores than the fabled gyms, I'll happily live without the pat on the back.

hey, blog, hey!

It's been a long hot summer. At least, I think it was hot. I was in the gym for much of it. (In the AC -- YEAH!)

To borrow from Santana's "Maria, Maria," the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Which is to say that the girls who came to practice regularly (who were, for the most part, already our better girls) have continued to improve. And those who didn't show up for the entire summer, or one day a week, didn't exactly accomplish anything.

I was pleased by the discipline the kids displayed, especially our older kids. They were the first to complain about the summer schedule: "But we can't go to beach! What if our friends want to hang out?" (Rest assured that they had the majority of the hours in the day to hit up the beach.) But those who complained the most ended up having the best attendance, and with little 'tude in the gym to boot. It's the latter that's always the miracle.

As the season quickly approaches, the IGC girls look solid. You couldn't always say that. But now, it's true. They'll go out there and perform anywhere between great and serviceably, but the embarrassing times will be fewer.

The Level 4's have become Level 5. This does, in fact, have the potential to be scary. Front handsprings over the table look like slow, slow handstands falling to the floor. Bars are gross. Quite gross. The thing is that the kids don't seem to mind at all. But they will mind when they go to a competition and don't win any awards. The true motivation for our youth.

Whenever the new Level 4's perform a beam or floor routine, something that is beautiful and pristine in our world (a work of art, a statue) weeps. But I like this new batch because almost all of them catch on quickly. They're young and hyper and all demand my attention at once. I almost went hoarse trying to teach them the beam routine en masse. Yet there's some real ability buried beneath the flexed toes and splayed fingers.

The question is, do I have the patience and the skill to unearth it? I hope so, so long as I don't lose my voice.