Parents Bittersweet 1st L8 meet

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gym law mom

Proud Parent
Well, the 1st L8 meet is over and done with. How my gymmie got through it, I have no idea. This will be a pretty long story. We got a call midweek that one of gymmie's grandparents had passed away. Pulled her out of school early that day, didn't even think of practice. We are about 2,000 miles away from family, so not much we could do right away except lend support on the phone. Gymmie asked me later that night about the meet. I told her it was totally up to her and nobody would be upset if she didn't compete. She decided she really wanted to. Arranged for her to practice with one of the other teams. I think for her, being in the gym was a way for her to keep her life as normal as possible right now.
So, Friday am we headed off for the meet. Got about 20 minutes from home and heard a pop and then wooosh. Left rear tire blew. My child has every phone number of every person she has ever met on her cell phone. Once I peeled her off the roof of the car screaming "we're going to be late, I'm going to miss warm up" she called a teammate who was just leaving home and they pulled over to pick her up and get her to the meet. DH and I finished with the TEMPORARY spare and made it closer to the meet and pulled in at one of those discount tire places to get a real tire put on.

Ok, by the time we got to the meet, they were on the 2nd rotation. Oh yeah, the team started on beam. This meet is very nice with the warm up gym, split the gyms into flight A and B. We were in the 2nd group and old gym was in the 1st----uuuggghhhh---not sure how gymmie would do with seeing the old coach.
Beam: scored a 7.85. Did her bwo and said she was really crooked so didn't throw the bhs---walked forward on the beam and actually did the series, but didn't get credit. Then fell trying to go too big on her switch leap.
Floor: DH and I were waving like idiots when they came in(just wanted to let her know we were there). She went up 1st and got a 8.925. She just put the full back in one tumbling pass 3 days before the meet(had been doing a 1/2) and she just nailed it. Some confusion with the judges thinking this one dance move was a cartwheel or something and she put her hand down too soon. Dinged her .5 for a fall, so the score could have been up in the 9.4s.
Vault: Been having some back soreness which only bothers her on the run. At last practice HC said not to chance a bad tsuk and do a fhs. Told her at this time of the season she'd probably outscore many of the girls trying tsuks. Only a 9.0 SV though. 1st vault looked pretty good---2nd vault was better than any I think she did as a L7. Got a 8.7. HC was right, some scary looking tsuk attempts and some plain ugly tsuks--most ended up sitting down on them.
Bars: Ok, the baile had disappeared about 2 wks ago. She found it sometime late last week. We had already had 3 girls fall(that shoot to hs can be VERY costly) and one coach told gymmie, "you got to start cleaning up this mess." She hit it. Came close to losing it on the clear hip to hs, but muscled it out and ended with a clean routine(ok, giants were a little archy). Got a 9.15
So, she placed 10th on vault(they only went out 10 places) and 8th on bars(only .25 from 1st--really tight scoring). AA was 34.625 I think--didn't place.
She was very pleased with how she did, knows what to improve on and qualified for states(as did every girl on her team except 1). Team took 3rd overall---old gym didn't even place.
I have never been prouder of her. How she found the inner strength to go out and do this meet, let alone actually do some pretty decent routines is beyond me.
I know this was really long, so if you read it all, or even parts, thanks.
 
Congrats to your dd on pulling through! Being able to focus and compete when in the midst of unusual circumstances is a sign of a true competitor! What an emotionally difficult week for all of you.
 
What a great job she did. With so much going around in her head she still managed to pull it all together really well. 3rd overall for the team is wonderful, that is a great reward. I love that she came out of this with a positive attitude.

How was the ex gym thing? That must be quite a tough thing for a gymmie to deal with.

Sorry to hear of your families loss, that is never easy. As for the tire blow out, glad you were all fine and that your gymmie saved her own day.
 
What a great job she did. With so much going around in her head she still managed to pull it all together really well. 3rd overall for the team is wonderful, that is a great reward. I love that she came out of this with a positive attitude.

How was the ex gym thing? That must be quite a tough thing for a gymmie to deal with.

Sorry to hear of your families loss, that is never easy. As for the tire blow out, glad you were all fine and that your gymmie saved her own day.

As for the old gym issue, I don't know if she just tried to ignore it or had so much else playing in her head she gave it little notice. Said 1 or 2 of their girls gave her "the nasty look" since the girls passed each other going to/from the competition gym and we had the same rotation as they did---just in the 2nd group. They had finished when our girls were doing bars, so gymmie said she knew they were watching, but she was more focused on getting a good score for the team. Her old gym struggled all meet and she did say to herself once she landed her flyaway---"take that." Team awards went out 6 places(I think there were 9 gyms in that session) and old gym couldn't even manage 6th place. Walked down to the floor to hug gymmie after awards and saw girls from the old gym. They looked shocked and defeated. I'm sure they'll be working their butts off since "losing" to the poor stepsister gym(us) will be hard to swallow.

Thanks for all the good thoughts.
 
So sorry for your loss. I'm glad your DD was able to pull her stuff together and had a decent meet. You should be proud of her! I can just imagine my own DD during the whole flat tire drama, I had to chuckle at the vision of peeling your DD off the roof! I actually ahd that very same scene a few yrs ago, when it was just the 2 of us at Nationals in FL with NO ONE around. Thank God I had the coach's cell # that day!
 
wow, what a great meet in light of rough circumstances. I am so sorry to hear of your loss - sounds like DD has a great head on her shoulders. For a first L8 meet, I think it is terrific.

We are still trying to get that 33.5 .. but we made it a whole lot closer today.

When is her next meet?
 
Congrats to your dd on doing so well during such an emotional time! Bummer about the flat tire too. An 8.7 on vault on a FHS is unbelieveable!!!! Definitely not a bad start to her level 8 season. GL at the next meet.
 
wow, what a great meet in light of rough circumstances. I am so sorry to hear of your loss - sounds like DD has a great head on her shoulders. For a first L8 meet, I think it is terrific.

We are still trying to get that 33.5 .. but we made it a whole lot closer today.

When is her next meet?

Next meet is another big invitational---last weekend of Jan.
 
For all she had to juggle mentally/emotionally, she still did awesome. Wow on bars and vault! Congrats to her for qualifying for states and 3rd place team!
 
GLM, I'm sorry to hear of your loss. Wow, L8 sure sounds tough from reading all the meet reports. Great report, I felt like I was there with you. All the best to you and your family.
 

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