On gymnastics...

I’ve managed to make it through an entire semester without talking in great detail about one of the most important things in my life: gymnastics. Since no one has suggested a better topic, I think I’ve earned the right to devote a little time to the best sport ever!

After our annual home meet, we have a banquet that recognizes the seniors. It’s a tradition for the juniors to introduce the seniors by describing them by their characteristics, personality, and funny things they say. I’ll skip over our team’s inside jokes and jump right to a slightly revised version of my speech.

When I first started to think about this speech, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted it to be poignant and touching, humorous, serious, or something in-between. Eventually, I decided that my answer was “yes," and like a good English major, I decided to create metaphors for every event. My main goal was to make it through the speech without crying, and I’m happy to announce that all of us made it through in record time without ANY tears.

What gymnastics means to me, event-by-event:

Vault. I think it was the movie “Stick It” that asked who actually likes to run and jump at a stationary object. Sometimes there’s a little flipping and twisting involved, too. Therefore, I think vault is like the obstacles in life that you can’t surpass; you have to face them head-on. Sometimes you hit the board perfectly and fly over all of your problems. At other times, you really intend to deal with a situation, but you actually just smash into the table and fall over. Not so good. Oh well. Once in awhile, you’re really lucky, and you’re able to run to the side of the table (or obstacle) and bypass it altogether. (Of course, I’ve managed to embed the tape measure prongs into my foot while doing this, so this method isn’t totally safe!) The table is kind of unavoidable, and so are tough times in life.

Bars. Taking risks. If you think about what we do on bars… well, sometimes you wish you hadn’t started. We hold onto a bar and swing our bodies around, throw ourselves with reckless abandon from bar to bar, and fly 8 feet in the air and hope we land on our feet. I think of bars as representing the crossroads in life, when choosing one route means giving up another. You can’t let go for a straddle back and say, “Oops! Didn’t mean to do that! Rewind!” and sometimes you have to jump into a new situation with both feet (hands?) and never look back.

Beam represents balance, both figuratively and literally. Gymnasts are probably the best time managers ever, and we use our skills on beam to balance gymnastics with everything else in our lives. I think that’s what makes us so unique—we somehow have time for everything, and we manage to make everything work out for the best. (In my recent RA interview, I was asked how I can devote so much time to my extracurriculars and still do well academically. The answer? I spent 16-20 hours/week in the gym and another 5+ hours/week with my violin under my chin, and my schedule in college seems relatively relaxed in comparison!)

Floor represents doing what you love. Every time I compete on floor, I love all of the support that this team gives during the entire routine. When I graduated from high school, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to function in a world without gymnastics taking up all of my free time, and somehow I managed to put off functioning in the big and scary “real world” without gymnastics for four years! Gymnastics has been the most amazing support system at college; it’s been the one constant throughout the vast majority of my life, and I’m proud to call myself a Miami gymnast. :) 

Wow! I may have to start writing about gymnastics every week if no one suggests another topic! (I know I had a ton of questions when I was looking at colleges... I'll tackle just about any appropriate subject...)

Comments

[Dave]

i stopped reading after "best sport ever" when i realized that it wasn't describing EITHER broomball or trying to take your eyes away from any pictures one might have of me. +3 clever points.