It's a Gymnast Thing #2

Handstands. Handstands at the beach, handstands on a hike, and even handstands at a gas station. The signature mark of a gymnast. If you are a gymnast, you can’t help yourself. Everywhere you go have the urge to do a handstand, a flip, or something gymnastics related. And, of course, you must take a picture. If you were to look through my phone, about three-fourths of my pictures are handstands or flips. Which means you will now get to enjoy the journeys of my handstands.

This picture is the most recent and one of my favorite handstand pictures. It was in Hawaii during Thanksgiving break, and my mom and I went to a beach near our hotel to watch my uncle surf. In between waves, we spelled out the words ‘believe’ with pieces of lava rock we found on the beach.

These pictures were from this summer in Lake Erie. On this vacation, I did a lot of gymnastics on the beach, and of course took many pictures. I could not choose between these three pictures, so I decided to use them all. So, I have my backflip, side-ariel, and bridge on a paddle board.

This picture is from Running With Ed in the Spring. A few girls from my team formed ‘Flipping For Ed’. In between each leg of the race, there are rest stops, and at each one we took a handstand picture. This one is my favorite and is at the Utah Olympic Park.

In the winter, we went to California for a competition, and after the first night of seeing a gorgeous sunset over the ocean, I was dying to get a silhouette handstand picture in front of the sunset. So, the next night, two of my teammates and I took a bunch handstands and leap pictures. Jamie is on the left, I am in the middle, and Gen is on the right.

Also this winter, we went to Arizona for a competition. At our hotel, there was a huge fountain. My mom knows how much I love my handstand pictures, so she suggested to take some in front of the fountain. One night, we went after dinner and took some good pictures (the splits on the edge of the fountain), and the next day after my competition, we went and took some more in my competition leo (the bridge). 

This picture is from three years ago when my team went to Idaho for a competition. This is still a favorite picture of mine. These two teammates and I love photography, and during this trip we took many creative handstand pictures. We had just finished competing and were on our way to dinner, but took about an hour getting back to the car in what should have taken about ten minutes. We took some detours because we kept thinking of more pictures to take, and when our parents finally thought we were out of ideas and were about one minute away from the car, I came up with a great one. So I gave my mom the instructions on exactly how to take the picture, and we three girls ran into the parking garage. I took the first level, Sam R. the next, and Sam B. the third. We each made sure we were in front of the window, but next to the stairs so they were not in our way. We counted to three and did a handstand, hoping our parents got the picture from outside the parking garage. 

All of these pictures are just a few from my many handstands, and there is no doubt I will have many more handstand pictures in the future. 

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.