A Gymnast

Sprinting down the runway, I can feel the blue carpet against my feet with every step.  Fifteen feet, ten feet, then five, now time for take off.  I hurtle into the air, punch off the springboard, and place my hands down with perfect form.  My body flips straight over beginning a front handspring.  While in the air I picture my landing.  My feet touch the big blue mat and I squat down to land, lowering my hands parallel to the ground.  People clap as I walk over to get high fives from my coach and then my team.
 Now, seated with my team I wait, thinking about my form, anxiously guessing my score.  A different world, a different mind set, and a different desire when I competed as a gymnast.

Gymnastics occupied many hours of my weekly life.  Every week I trained four days for three hours each day.  Boy gymnasts compete on six different events.  At the gym I trained at and competed for, I practiced each day including a  warm-up, three different events, and stretching.    

While the training season was year round, we competed in meets for about 5 months on weekends.  I remember being anxious but focused every meet, thinking about form while trying to remember to have fun.  Each meet was an opportunity to get used to being judged, and realizing I have one shot to show them what I got.  Rose-City was our biggest competition and the last meet in the regular season.

Rose-City was a meet and a qualifier.  Every year your individual score at Rose-City holds you back or pushes you forward to State Championship.  The best of each state, decided at Rose-City, got to move on to State Championship.  Just as the best from each state competed in State Championship, at level five, my level, the State Championship became another qualifier for Regional Championship.  The final meet for my skill level, and the most exciting and competitive of all the meets.  

I traveled to Washington, Montana, and Idaho for Regional Championships.  Many of my teammates and friends also qualified each year.  We just chilled at each new locale, living the dream, and anxiously awaiting  the most important meet of my career.  

Along with all the memories of traveling, some of my favorite times were just working in the gym with my teammates, striving to get better and having fun.  I had so many amazing experiences made  possible because of, the gym and gymnastics..  I put hard work in training everyday, which showed through all my gymnastic accomplishments.