Focus and Determination

Focus and determination are key components to any sport, especially gymnastics. It is required most of the time, whether you are at practice or at a meet. Beam and floor are probably the two events that required the most focus and determination. On beam, especially when you are dealing with acro skills (cartwheels, round-offs, backwalkovers, frontwalkovers, backhandsprings, handstands, etc.) you must be very focused and cannot be distracted.

Beam requires an extreme amount of focus. For example, during flight elements. In flight elements, there is atleast a second where you are mid-air, not touching the beam at all, and then after that second or two, you come back down on the beam on either your feet or your hands. You would come down on your feet if you were doing a round-off but if you are doing a backhandspring then you come down on your hands. I am not a big fan of round-offs on beam so I don't do them, so I can't describe what it would be like to come back down on your feet, but I do do backhandsprings and coming down on your hands can be scary. If one of your hands comes down even a fraction of an inch off-center, you could fall and get hurt. Your hands come down onto the beam in a certain position, so the weight of your entire body is resting evenly on both of your palms, so if you miss a palm, ultimately your entire body weight plus some extra force is on one hand and that can be very dangerous. You don't only need to focus when you are doing a hard skill. I, personally, along with a few of my gymnastics friends, struggle tremendously with full turns. And, compared to everything else we do in beam routines, a full turn should be one of the easiest skills if not the very easiest in the entire routine. Whenever I do a full turn, I have to be completely focused and I have to spot the end of the beam or I will not even have a chance of staying on. Also, once you do something too many times, something hard or easy, and you don't give it your full effort anymore, then you are giving up and not paying full attention, which can only do you harm. 

Floor also requires determination and focus, along with beam. Some skills just require practice and are pretty simple and once you get them they are there to stay. Twisting skills (when you are twisting mid-flip either going forwards or backwards) are difficult to do without complete concentration and determination. I have never front twisted but I have back twisted and it is more difficult when you are not focused, because twisting requires your full attention. Along with twisting, you need to be focused during an entire floor routine when you do one, because you have to be conscious of whether or not your toes are pointed and your knees are straight along with being able to keep up your endurance during the whole thing.

All four events do require an extreme amount of determination and focus, but I only discussed beam and floor because they are the most complicated.

So, make sure before trying something risky or doing a skill for the first time that you aren't distracted or thinking too much because doing those things can certainly make things worse for you. Trust me, it happens. And when you do get hurt because you weren't paying attention, you want to blame someone or something so you don't take fault for what happened. However, unfortunately, you are responsible most of the time and you just have to accept that.

Clearly, as I have explained certain situations, focus, determination, and concentration are all very important when it comes to doing skills. 

Vault

As I mentioned in my first post, I am going to start going into the details of each event. At competitions, there is always an order of events, so I will begin with the first event in the standard rotation: vault. I'm guessing that even if you aren't a gymnast you have probably seen a vault, either in person or maybe even on television from the olympics (summer olympics, not winter) or other elite competitions that are televised.  And if you are one of the people reading this who have never seen a vault, it's basically a stationary object, made of wood and covered by leathery fabric, that you run towards and, essentially, fly over. As I mentioned in a previous post, you do harder skills as you move up levels. So that principle applies to vault as well. You do a harder vault as you go up a level. I am mostly familiar with vaults done in the Excel program because that's what I have been doing my whole life, so I will tell my experiences with vault and all the different vaults I have done.

The vault is also referred to by coaches and gymnasts as the 'table'. I only mentioned that because, when you start off competing, you don't even use the table when you vault. You are just starting so it is simpler for you because you are learning how to hit the springboard and get enough power and everything. When I started, I had to vault onto a big squishy mat, called a rezzi, rather than the table. When I started, my vault basically consisted of me running as fast as I can towards the rezzi, hitting a springboard, flying through the air until my hands reach the mat and I do something called a 'handstand fall to back". That has a literal meaning: you basically jump into a handstand on the mat and then fall to your back. It isn't that easy for very long, unfortunately.

The second vault I ever learned to do was on the table. And, yes, it was pretty cool to go from the rezzi to the table because you were using  the same thing as the 'big girls' which was pretty cool for a young gymnast. In order to actually make it over the table, you have to have enough power from the springboard when you hit it. So, even if it seems intimidating as you run as fast as you can towards a stationary object, you really do have to run fast in order to perform the vault you hope to perform.

The first one on the table you do is called a front handspring. Also, a front handspring has a literal meaning. You put your hands on the table and then go forwards off of it, landing on your feet. A fronthandspring is tricky for some people because you have a blind landing, you can't see where you are landing when you hit the mat you're landing on, so you could very well fall down right on your butt. But, that doesn't happen as often once you get the hang of it and know what you're doing.

Another vault I have done on the table, which isn't necessarily any harder than a fronthandspring, is called a half-on. You hit the springboard and your hands go half way around (90*), so one hand is on the at the front end of the table and the other hand is at the back of the table. You are essentially doing a fast cartwheel over the table. Once you master the half-on, however, you begin to twist off the table rather than just floating down. You first do a half-half, which is a half-on but you do a half twist down, the opposite way you halfed on. Once you have mastered the half-half, you try a half-full. A half-full is a little easier because you don't have a blind landing, but it's also harder because you need even more height off the board in order to get all the way around in the full. Right now, I switch off between a half-half, half-full, and fronthandspring. There are harder vaults that can be done as well, but as I have mentioned earlier, I have a permenant injury on my shins so I don't really practice vault very much. I usually just vault the practice before a meet and at meets. And, vault was my favorite event for a looonnnggg time, and I bet that if you did gymnastics, you would like it too.

I hope you enjoyed my overview of vault. There isn't much to the event, it's easier than all the others so I tried to think of everything I have done and experienced that I could share with you.

Feel free to leave comments with any questions you have about vault or anything else about gymnastics!

Next post: Bars

How It All Started

A lot of girls when they are little want to go to dance class or gymnastics class or other girly sports like that, so they either beg their moms or their moms do it before they have to beg. I'm going to be honest, not as many people as you think actually stick with the sport past the classes they take as a little kid. Some continue on in recreational classes until they are asked to join team, and others just kind of stop going after they do a certain number of classes for a certain amount of time because they just don't like it anymore. Sometimes, even girls at a very young age, cannot do it anymore because of an injury. I know that happens a lot for older gymnasts but it happens for young ones as well.

Going from recreational classes to team and being a competitive gymnast is a big step for any gymnast. They immediately begin practicing more times a week for more hours and it is a lot more commitment on their part. The first few weeks or even months usually determine whether or not someone is meant for this kind of lifestyle. Of course, as it is with all other sports as well, people drop out at different times for many different reasons. For me, the leap from classes to team was a pretty big deal and a really big change for me. I went from a one hour class once a week to three practices a week two and a half hours each. And, for a girl in third grade, that's a pretty big amount of time to be spent focusing on the same thing in a gym full of chalk while a lot of other things are going on around you. That aspect of the sport, having to focus so much all the time, is extremely difficult at times, but I'll get into that later.

As you become older and practices become longer and your whole body begins to be sore all the time, you become a much better gymnast. You adapt to having meals in the car or having dinner at 9 or later on most nights. Also, as you get older and get more homework, you get used to staying up until the early hours of the morning just to finish what you need to get done for the next day at school. You learn to always appreciate weekends because you get to sleep in and relax and let your body heal as much as it can in two days, except of course, if you have a meet, which take up many of your weekends during the competition season. Competition season is usually from around October or November until May for Excel and JO (Junior Olympic) and is from December to February for high school gymnastics, if that is something you decide you are interested in. If you are in high school and are trying to manage high school gymnastics and either Excel or JO from December to February, good luck. That is all the advice I have for you because during those three months you are basically in a gym at least five days a week, sometimes in two gyms in the same day. And during those three months, you stay up even later and eat even later and even less because you have so much going on with school and sports, food is sometimes the last thing on your mind, even if you are starving.

Even if it seems like it's miserable and a lot of work and I make it seem like I hate it, I really do love it. I love everything about the sport. It may be miserable at times and you get so frustrated that you want to quit and you are in so much pain sometimes that you can't walk, you realize that without the sport you have nothing. Like, right now for example, I am out with a serious knee injury and can barely walk, let alone do gymnastics. So I have nothing to do right now and for at least the next 8 weeks and I am already itching to get back into the gym. Sometimes it takes an injury in which you can't do gymnastics at all to makes you realize how much you miss it and how empty your life would be without it. So, if you are a gymnast and you are reading this, you should appreciate being able to do it while you still can because those years when you are able to do it will be the best years of your life.

Please leave any comments about ideas or just responses to this post- I'd love to hear from you!! :)

An Overview of Gymnastics

So, this is my first blog post ever. If it's not like other blog posts you've read, bear with me, I'm still new at this. :) My blog is all about gymnastics, as you can probably tell from the title and the blog address but I'll tell you anyway. I am going to talk about the ups and downs, the committment, the frustration, the skills, and everything in between about gymnastics. I'm going to start off this week with the basics.

Gymnastics is divided into two categories if you are interested in being a competitive gymnast. You can choose to go into the Junior Olympics program or you can choose to go into the Excel program. The Junior Olympics program is more intense and more competitive. Excel is also competitive but is slightly more recreational because the amount of time you practice is less, so you can have a life in addition to being a competitive gymnast. The Junior Olympics program is divided into levels 1-10, 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. Excel is divided into 5 levels: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and diamond (formerly known as rookie, novice, intermediate, advanced, and superior). So, the better you get, the more levels you move up. (I am an Excel platinum gymnast by the way).

Unlike other sports where you always practice and play on either a field, rink, or court, gymnastics is made up of four events: floor, bars, beam, and vault. Each event is induvidually challenging. In order to be a good gymnast overall, or all-around (as it's referred to in the sport especially at meets), you must be good on each event. But that's a LOT harder than it sounds.

Everyone has a favorite event and sometimes that person's favorite can change, but generally you always have an event you like more than the other three. For me, my favorite was always vault. I loved everything about it: the way you could run as fast as you wanted towards it and then soar off a springboard over it, and that all thrills me still, but due to an injury I have on my shins, I developed a pain that always happened when I would hit the springboard. And, let's be honest, it's never fun to be doing something that causes you pain. So floor became my new favorite and still is. Along with having a favorite event comes having a least favorite event. A lot of people consider beam their least favorite because it's kind of horrifying to do some of the things gymnasts do on a four inch piece of wood, but I have always enjoyed it for some reason. For me, my least favorite is bars. The main reason is the fact that I always rip (swing on the bar so often that I lose layers of skin on my palms and eventually have a layer of that skin peel off, leaving fresh skin exposed, which is as unpleasant as it sounds.) Also, I have never been really good at it. I've always been just ok, and it's hard to like something that you aren't exactly good at.

Well, that's the best overview of the sport of gymnastics that I could come up with right now, but I will have a post following this one coming soon that goes into more detail about each of the events.

Please feel free to comment with any questions or ideas for a following post!

~Fun Fact~ Gymnastics was recently proven as the most difficult sport in the world both mentally and physically.