You, me, and an 8.3

So.

The IGC team placed second yesterday against some heavy-hitters. They won medals and so on and so forth.

Except their scores barely made it to the 8's, and occasionally, the 9's.

I judge now and I've been around gymnastics long enough to know an 8.5 routine from a 9.0. I watched a girl from another team do a spectacular vault and stick the landing. Height, amplitude, form -- it's all there. 9.3, 9.4, I thought. The score went up. 8.65.

Kathryn did a floor routine without a fall or a missed requirement. Not a 9.0 performance, but anywhere between an 8.6 to an 8.8, I thought, because that's what she normally scored.

8.0. Boom. Roasted.

She asked me what she'd done to lose 2.0, and I had to think about it through the meet. Finally I said, "I think the judge took off points for literally every step you took."

It's things like this that make kids lose interest in gymnastics. Inexplicably low scores when they do solid routines. A two-tenth difference in scores between an okay routine and a girl who was clearly much better. And as I looked around the gym, I could see that it wasn't just us. It was every team. One coach said that the floor judge did not give anyone on his team credit for a certain requirement. A dozen kids. Not one?

I don't understand judging so close to the chest. If you give someone a 9.0, and the next girl is better, you have plenty of room to go up. Hence the 9.025, the 9.050, the 9.075... Give the best their due, but don't kill the entire field in the interim.

But in the meantime, as coaches, we have a few choices. We can get pissed at the scores. (Check.) We can get pissed at the kids. And/or we can try to keep them afloat.

"I'm not even going to get an 8," Amy says worriedly before her floor routine.

At this rate, no, she won't. "Look, I don't care what you get," I tell her. "Do a nice routine and don't worry about it, okay?"

The words were by no means a magical inspirational salve, but I wanted to make it clear: sometimes, there's only so much a gymnast can do, and you have to let the rest go.

Conversations with a gymnast that I have coached for ~3 years

"Do you have a job?" nine-year-old Colleen asks.

"Yes, I have several," I say, and list them for her.

"Oh," she says. "I didn't know that you worked here."

"What did you think I do, hang out?"

The tell-tale smile proves that I'm right.

Internet memes, or how to be a terrible role model

There's many a practice where the older girls are giggly to the point where they can't get a thing done. They crack each other up. The tiniest phrase or word or stumble sends them off. Then they have to repeat/reenact it countless times.

Coach P. ignores them and works with the younger girls. Greg shakes his head. Sometimes I yell and the entire gym goes silent. Then they continue, but in whispers.

Other times, well...

They're practicing their beam routines, fairly productively, and it slips out of me: "Imagine Tebowing in a routine?"

Boom. Done. All of them more focused on their routines than they've ever been besides maybe at States. "I got it, I got it!" Natalie, the oldest, yells.

"Me, too, right here!" Kathryn says.

Kasey milks the pose for an extra moment.

Yep. Coach Instigator.

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.