Our sweet, not so little, CJ had her first gymnastics meet. This meet was different from her other ones in that the previous ones were mock meets. Set up at our gym, with real judges, but no other teams. Just our girls, learning how to handle being judged and corrections.
Two weeks before her meet, upon realizing it was only two weeks away, CJ burst into tears and started rattling off, "I have a BUNCH of BIG corrections to make, like on the beam I put my heal down and that is a half a point deduction, and I don't know why I'm clicking my ankles together in my handstands, but that's another deduction, I only I have two weeks....." I stood there trying to not have my own panic attack or to start crying myself.
She was worked up and my stomach turned to knots trying to figure out how to support her, since I know slightly more than nothing, especially of the stuff she was rattling off. Making a huge mental note to play it cool. No big deal. I'll love her no matter what her scores are, no matter how many falls she may have.
CJ was excited. Don't get me wrong, she couldn't wait to get there. Checking in, is a bit anxiety building in it's own way. Athletes have their own check in, then go through those doors. Parents a separate check in and often door. YIKES! I was told, it all works out. It does.
She did fantastic, and down right amazing! She was confident. No nerves. She was out there doing her routines like it was just another chance to do her routines. Mistakes didn't rattle her. She just went out there and showed them what she's got.
Her lack of nerves, might actually scare me more, than her being at least a little bit anxious about her first meet and all!
She started the entire meet off. I mean everyone! She was THE.FIRST.GIRL.TO.GO. She walked out onto the floor. Her music started, and she did it. Soon each event had girls performing, but I was nervous for her. She didn't realize she started it all off, probably a really good thing.
That meant she earned the first score of the day as well. 8.425 -WAY TO GO!
Moving onto vault. Here's the thing with her vault. She either nails it and looks great, or she flops in one way or another. It's probably a really good thing that she gets 2 chances at the vault. Since she has experience messing up her first one, she was able to do her second vault as if the first one never mattered. As I am told, by others, running down to the vault the second time, after flopping the first one, is the hardest thing to do. CJ miss read the markings on her first vault and ended up not vaulting at all. She walked back and got an 8.925 on her second one. That was her highest score of the day!
CJ saluting the judges for vault.
Vault #1
Vault #2 looked great!
As we watched
scores come up, we had noticed that the uneven bars scores seemed low.
They were being scored very tough. At her last mock meet, CJ fell twice
from the bars. Saturday, not a single fall, and once her score came up,
8.0 looked like a great one! It was her lowest score of the day.
The final event for her was balance beam. She has some great lines, leaps and skills when she puts her mind to it. Once again, she lead her team and did a beautiful routine, no falls, and landed a score of 8.875!
Things I learned, while she competed in the level 4 events, she was only competing against the other girls in her age group, JrA which is the youngest group. Gymnastics is a funny sport when it comes to scores.
CJ placed in two events, Bars she placed 10th and for Beam she placed
5th. She placed in bars, her lowest score, yet her highest score, vault,
did not earn her a placing. Each event is an individual event, and as
we had noticed, bars were not getting very high scores overall. For the
all around, she placed 9th in her age group. First meet under her belt,
and she is still beaming from it all. Her team earned second place.
Here she is on the far right saluting for her bar medal.
Here she is on the actual podium for 5th place. Look at that beaming smile!
This was a smaller meet, but it was perfect size for CJ to get her feet wet. And for us the family as well. CJ's great Aunt Karen even came to watch with her grandson.
CJ can't wait to get back to practice Monday night. She can't get enough of it. I am leading a devotional at church, and just the week before, we talked about our gifts. This is CJ's gift. It fills her like nothing else does. Watching her at the meet confirmed that, watching her confidently doing what she knew she could do. Not distracted by being judged or the crowd calling out to her or others. Not being shaken when she made a mistake or didn't smoothly perform a skill. She was having a blast fulfilling her passion.
I'll stop gushing, but it is my blog ya know.
