Secret Sister

Recently, a handful of the Mini’s moved up to level six. They are ages seven through ten, and they are adorable. Our coach, Katy, decided we should have a bonding activity with the new level sixes to help them feel welcome to our workout group. So one day, she put all of our names into two buckets, one with the big girl’s names (that would be me), and the other with the little girl’s names. We each drew a name out of the appropriate bucket, but we were not allowed to tell anyone whose name we drew, except for Katy, who kept a file in her computer. This person whose name we drew was now our secret sister. Our job as a secret sister is to give a small gift, card, or some sort of encouragement to our secret sister. And, of course, we have to keep it a secret from everyone. Well, kind of. We have all shared within the two groups. The big girls shared with the big girls, and the little girls with the little girls. So whenever a big girl is setting up their gift for a little girl, the rest of us keep watch and make sure no little girls intrude to discover the secret. 

Having a secret sister is an ongoing process. It is fun to see the reaction of our teammates when they receive a gift, or how excited they are about an idea for their secret sister. The other day, I received my first gift from my secret sister. It was Valentine’s day, so she decorated a card, and gave me a water bottle filled with candy (sour patch watermelon, my favorite!). She wrapped it up and put it above my locker at the gym. It was adorable. 

The adorable card from my secret sister

This same day I also happened to give a gift to my secret sister. I gave her a Valentine’s day themed box of chocolates, and wrote a note. My group, the big girls, kept watch for any littles while I set up my present in my secret sister’s locker. The next day when I came to gym, my secret sister had a whiteboard setup on the outside of her locker saying “thank you s.s!” (we all sign our gifts “s.s” for secret sister, which reminds me of a funny story….) That note made me feel as good as receiving a gift of my own. I love having a secret sister to give to and receive something from. It helps remind me that someone is watching me and believes in me. 

So, time for the funny story I mentioned earlier. The first person to receive a secret sister gift was Patrisha. She is the youngest of the big girls, and gets to gym late because of school. So one day, she comes into the gym and asks me, “Do you know who’s initials are S.S.?”. I didn’t, so the two of us went through all of the names on our team, but no one had the initials S.S. I asked her why she was wondering and she told me there was a present and a card in her locker signed S.S. I told her I had no idea who it was from. Of course it never occurred to either of us that it was a secret sister gift. Duh! So about a week later in the car (we all carpool from school to gym) it had somehow come up in our conversation and one of the girls in the car said, “Um, I’m pretty sure it stands for secret sister…”. WOW. My team and I are pretty special. We had about a five minute laugh attack that day.

It's a Gymnast Thing #1

Most girls get excited over new clothes or shoes and wait for compliments on how cute they look, but guess what gymnasts get excited over…thats right, new leotards! When you get a new leo, you walk into the gym with the same feeling you have when walking into school with a new shirt. You say hi to all of your teammates, and just wait for them to notice. And of course, they notice right away. I mean, you only have so many leos, and your team is with you five days a week year round, so they are bound to notice. The very first thing they say to you is “Is that a new leo?!”, and you reply, “Yes!”, and they reply, “Oh I love it!”. So even though we get excited over new leos for practice, there is one leo that makes us stop in our tracks. It makes you nervous and excited at the same time. This leo, is the competition leo.

A new competition leo is something you get only every two or three years, so it is a pretty big deal. Just yesterday, we received our new competition leo. It was the end of gym, and we were stretching when Joy, who works at the front desk, walked into the gym holding a bag with a hanger. Even though the contents of the bag were hidden, we recognized the shape of it. Immediately, we jumped up. After waiting for about three months, it had finally arrived. 

New Competition Leo

Our coach reluctantly let us have a look; knowing she wouldn’t be able to control our excitement. We all gushed over the leo, and went to try it on. “Oh, it looks so good!” The eight of us crowded into the bathroom to admire the design in the mirror. Some of the new recreational coaches walked by giving us odd looks; they had never experienced the arrival of the competition leo before. After taking in every detail, we ran into the gym and did handstands and back-handsprings to test the quality of the material. Finally, when we were satisfied, we took them home in wait for our first competition.

A Week Full of Pranks

On Friday of this week, it was our coach Bryce’s birthday. Bryce has only been coaching at the gym for a few months, but the team already has plenty of inside jokes and humorous moments with Bryce. He is twenty-four years old, is in the National Guard, and is super buff. For his birthday present, we decided to fill his locker with a bunch of objects. If you saw his locker, you would think we just threw a bunch of random objects in there, but every single one of them had meaning. The biggest object was a homemade diagram that had trees with bow ties on them, a plastic smurf and a plastic tiger. It also had some grass and rocks to make it look like a jungle. So, what in the world do trees with bow ties, a smurf, and a plastic tiger have to do with gymnastics? Well, I guess it really doesn’t, but let me explain a little. This whole scene was based off of a phrase Bryce said about one of my teammates. “She is like a wild tiger in a civilized jungle.” Well, that is not weird at all. The trees with bow ties represent the “civilized jungle” and the tiger represents my teammate. Now the smurf. Whenever my teammates or I say something comical or bizarre, he doesn’t smile, he smirks. So for the smirk we put a smurf in the scene. I am not sure how we came up with a smurf for a smirk, but it works. We also put in a candle, hair gel, a stopwatch and some other objects. I will spare you the time of explaining all of these.

We did this prank on Monday, since this was the best day for everyone to be able to participate. This was going to be our only prank, but then some of the other coaches spread a rumor that we were going to pull a prank on him everyday this week. Of course we had to take the opportunity.

Day two was not as good of a prank because we did not have time to prepare, so we just wrapped his locker with pre-wrap (something gymnasts use under athletic tape for injuries, or for headbands). Day three was a glitter attack. This story comes from the day our team did the ice bucket challenge. All of us wanted to get Bryce wet, but we never did. But after practice was over, on the way out, one of my teammates, Patrisha, snuck up on Bryce and covered him with glitter. So this prank was a re-creation of that moment. Our head coach Katy asked him to get something out of her car, so we hid outside by the door and as soon as he walked out, we threw glitter all over him. For the rest of the day, we kept finding paths of glitter throughout the gym, and Bryce had glitter all over him. The next day he came in he still had glitter behind his ears literally.

Prank number four was the best prank. When gym was over, Katy took Bryce to Maxwells with some other coaches for a birthday dinner. While they were gone, we decorated Bryce’s car with car paint. On the windows we wrote things like “just married” and “baby on board” and “off to Paris”. Remember, Bryce is twenty-four, in the National Guard, and super buff, so to have this written on his car is hysterical. We had some issues with this prank. Bryce must have heard about it, so he hid his car from us. We spent thirty minutes running around trying to find his car.

Just one window of his car.

The last prank was on Friday, Bryce’s actual birthday. At the end of practice, we brought out a cake for Bryce. But he couldn’t cut the cake, so we jokingly made fun of him by saying “are you not strong enough Bryce?” Finally we told him that the cake was a block of ice with frosting on top. Then we brought out real cupcakes for everyone to enjoy.

This week of pranks was very successful, but now we need to make sure we live up to the same standards next year!

Does Gymnastics Define Me?

I am a gymnast, but is that all there is to me? Being a gymnast limits you from other activities such as other sports, instruments, and even hanging out with friends. I train five days a week, four and a half hours a day at Black Diamond Gymnastics. I have early release from school, missing one period every day, then go to straight to gymnastics until six. I get home, eat, do homework and go to sleep. This is my basic routine Monday through Friday. So, although I have a small amount of time to be social, does gymnastics really define me? This question went through my mind multiple times this summer. 

When most people think of me, they think of “Morgan, the gymnast”. It is the same with other people, “the football player” or “the singer”. But is our sport or activity all there is to us? Gymnastics is a huge part of my personality, but I have other characteristics that define me. This summer, when I was pondering this question, I really thought about what else there was to my personality. This was tough at first, as most of my life revolves around gymnastics. Many of my closest friends are teammates, I am at the gym twenty two and a half hours a week, and wherever I am I cannot help but do a handstand, some flips, maybe stretch a little, or just hang upside down. This concept is not something I thought about for a minute and concluded “well, I can throw a ball so I am okay”. No, I literally sat down at the computer and looked up lists of sports and activities to try in high school. I ended up doing some simple activities at home with my family for fun.

My family, where I live, my friends and even school have a place in my character. I have done gymnastics since I was four, and although it is not all that defines me, I believe it has been an immense part in shaping who I am today.

This is me (left) after my first gymnastics competition when I was six!