Our Rookie

I've never taken her gymnastics very seriously. She just sort of played around and taught herself some skills she'd seen the other girls do. Last May I finally gave in and let Natalie start training with me as a Level 4.

It's hard to be Mom and Coach at the same time.  As a coach, I only see flaws.  Being the perfectionist that I am, I am in the business of building state champions.  As a mom, I just want her to be a kid and with one serious gymnast in the house already, I wasn't exactly anxious for a second. (Holy moly it's expensive!)  And because I never wanted to be accused of giving my own daughter more attention than the other members of my team (I deal with a lot of CRAZY parents) I almost did the opposite and gave her less.  I think I wondered all along if she would actually go through with this whole competition thing.

She did and boy was she excited!  She wasn't as ready as the coach in me would have liked, but the mom in me could not have been more proud.  She's only six, so I'm hoping that she'll develop more body control but I see the potential.

Natty surprised us all with a 9 on vault!

She got a 7.7 on the floor, 8.1 on bars and a 7.0 on beam.  That's a 31.8 all-around which means she qualified for the sectionals meet.  I certainly wasn't expecting that!



Our veteran supporting our rookie:

I think it was hard for Alyssa to watch from the sidelines (she doesn't start competing until January), she's used to the gymnastics spotlight resting solely on her.  But she was very sweet and encouraging to her sister.

Way to go, Natalie!