"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.

Empathy pangs

Today, I'm sore.

Abs wince when I laugh or cough. Back tightens when I sit against the car seat. Shoulders tender from spotting children/saving a few lives.

Two emotions simultaneously:

1. I feel out of shape;
2. I like the hurt; I feel like I'm doing something good for myself.

By Wednesday, the gymnasts complain, "I'm sore." They still have two more days of conditioning and practice to push through.

"I couldn't walk down the stairs this morning," Jamie says dramatically (but her presence at practices proves that she found a way, apparently).

"My back is killing me."

"My legs are soooooooo tired."

And so on.

Sympathy says, "Aw, that's too bad." Empathy says, "I know exactly how you feel."

I think that as coaches, we need to maintain empathy as we push the athletes. We want them to become stronger, faster, more flexible, more capable of enduring floor routines and bar routines. But we also have to remember what it feels like.

The fatigue. The feeling of, "There's no way I can do one more." The "my legs might fall off of me when I walk down the stairs." The "let me check how many muscles hurt before I try to get out of bed."

We cannot become so far removed from our own experiences, so satisfied with our methods, that we forget.

Physiologically speaking

As I pranced around the gym this evening, my left foot rolled and I fell to the floor.

Then I rolled around, getting the sting out, moving quickly so nobody would see my face. I knew immediately: not so bad. My ankle wouldn't swell and if I gave it a moment or two, I'd be able to run around again.

I broke my foot about four years ago. Landed a Tsuk on my side and groaned. One of the doctors said he was impressed that I didn't break my ankle -- which would have made the recovery much longer.

Compare this to one of my friends. One morning practice back in the day, we were sashaying about the floor to warm up. She was smiling and laughing even though it was 8 am. In the next instant, she was on the floor crying. Rolled ankle. Out for two months. She could never stop spraining or breaking her ankles. At the beginning of practice, she laced up her braces the way basketball players prepare for the game.

Some of my gymnasts are this way, too. Amy rolls her ankle and it immediately swells purple and blue. Brittany spends about half of every practice icing.

It seems that despite preventative measures and conditioning, at the end of the day, it's all about how you were born. There's only so much you can do to change your natural construction.

Can you hear me?

I've spent my mornings teaching writing and the afternoons coaching, and I've come to observe a similar phenomenon.

Talk talk talk and the kids slump, stick their feet out, gaze at some point behind me. For the young writers, it's the window. For the gymnasts, it's the pit.

"What did I just say?" I say.

They repeat it verbatim without making eye contact.

Maybe it's a specific task. Or maybe it's one of those talks about hard work and diligence, about attitude. The kind of talks where the kids give you an attitude without saying a word or showing that they're paying attention.

Yet the next day, or the next event, or the next writing task, it's these kids who have snapped in. They ask, "Can I try one more time?" when you tell them to get a drink. They bust out a poem when you think they've fallen asleep.

It all sinks in.

The world's longest competition season

has finally concluded!

The kids already ask, "Do we get new routines?"

Is it wrong that I want to take the next month (or two, or three) and go backpack through South America?