Mom2Brats
Proud Parent
I guess we've had "big fish in a little pond syndrome." This was only Allison's 5th meet, as she only did 3 at L4 and now two at L5. So for all the one's we've been to have been in North Dakota and had mostly North Dakota teams with a few Minnesota teams here and there. Our team has always placed, but they don't do individual places in ND. Just ribbons for how well they scored.
This last weekend we went to the Winter Challenge in Minneapolis. It was our first "big meet" 90 girls in our session alone. They did two age groups (7-10 and 11 and up) and individual placements out to 12th place for each age group. Admittedly the weather was bad and about half our team didn't make it anyway. But the only one who place was an older girl who's moving to L6 after this meet. No one else placed. Allison was devastated, she's used to being close to the top and I think she secretly was hoping for one of the trophies that they had for individuals, since this would have been her only chance to get an individual trophy. It also was the longest meet I've been to. Not fun since we brought the whole family out. Oh, well.
Bars: this is her favorite event and she's usually strong but this last week she suddenly gained a bunch of power in her kip and hasn't learned to control it yet. At practice Tuesday she did her kip and then casted all the way to handstand before she freaked out. So at the meet, her routine was gorgeous, straight arm kip on low bar, everything looked nice, connected, straight arm kip on high bar, nice back hip circle, going into her undershoot and she went way too far, almost did a giant around the bar, freaked out and dropped down so that she couldn't get back up high enough for her taps swings. Score: 6.7 but her coach has been really good about helping her through that, telling her that he'd rather have her have too much power and try hard than to be timid and telling her that their goal for the season is to get her to a 9 on bars.
Beam: She hates beam. She does fine in practice but shakes like a leaf in competition. Last week she fell off after her cartwheel. This week she looked shaky, but held her own, stayed on, and then fell on the dismount! She was so mad at herself! Score: 7.3
At this point, we looked down and my husband asked where she went and I said, 'probably to go cry somewhere private.' He didn't think she'd be that upset but the HC came out and sat in the stands for a bit after that and I asked him how she was doing. He said she was fine and not upset but afterwards she told me that she left because she was afraid that she would start crying in public. See, I know my kid!!
Floor: Nice, I thought it looked good but don't know all the little deductions they take off for. Score 8.2, which was the highest on her team but still lower than last week.
Vault: The timing was so awkward on this one! Her whole team went, then all the other girls that were in their rotation, and then she went. So she was the last one of the whole meet and not even with the rest of her team mates. Still, vault looked good to me anyway. Score: 8.15, same as last week and the judges seemed to be scoring lower overall so I think she was happy.
She got in the car in tears and said that she never wanted to go to cities again (she's been looking forward to this for months). Of course, we're moving this summer, so she won't but I'm wondering how she's going to do in Las Vegas. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, it's all ND meets for the rest of the season.
This last weekend we went to the Winter Challenge in Minneapolis. It was our first "big meet" 90 girls in our session alone. They did two age groups (7-10 and 11 and up) and individual placements out to 12th place for each age group. Admittedly the weather was bad and about half our team didn't make it anyway. But the only one who place was an older girl who's moving to L6 after this meet. No one else placed. Allison was devastated, she's used to being close to the top and I think she secretly was hoping for one of the trophies that they had for individuals, since this would have been her only chance to get an individual trophy. It also was the longest meet I've been to. Not fun since we brought the whole family out. Oh, well.
Bars: this is her favorite event and she's usually strong but this last week she suddenly gained a bunch of power in her kip and hasn't learned to control it yet. At practice Tuesday she did her kip and then casted all the way to handstand before she freaked out. So at the meet, her routine was gorgeous, straight arm kip on low bar, everything looked nice, connected, straight arm kip on high bar, nice back hip circle, going into her undershoot and she went way too far, almost did a giant around the bar, freaked out and dropped down so that she couldn't get back up high enough for her taps swings. Score: 6.7 but her coach has been really good about helping her through that, telling her that he'd rather have her have too much power and try hard than to be timid and telling her that their goal for the season is to get her to a 9 on bars.
Beam: She hates beam. She does fine in practice but shakes like a leaf in competition. Last week she fell off after her cartwheel. This week she looked shaky, but held her own, stayed on, and then fell on the dismount! She was so mad at herself! Score: 7.3
At this point, we looked down and my husband asked where she went and I said, 'probably to go cry somewhere private.' He didn't think she'd be that upset but the HC came out and sat in the stands for a bit after that and I asked him how she was doing. He said she was fine and not upset but afterwards she told me that she left because she was afraid that she would start crying in public. See, I know my kid!!
Floor: Nice, I thought it looked good but don't know all the little deductions they take off for. Score 8.2, which was the highest on her team but still lower than last week.
Vault: The timing was so awkward on this one! Her whole team went, then all the other girls that were in their rotation, and then she went. So she was the last one of the whole meet and not even with the rest of her team mates. Still, vault looked good to me anyway. Score: 8.15, same as last week and the judges seemed to be scoring lower overall so I think she was happy.
She got in the car in tears and said that she never wanted to go to cities again (she's been looking forward to this for months). Of course, we're moving this summer, so she won't but I'm wondering how she's going to do in Las Vegas. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, it's all ND meets for the rest of the season.
My daughters team goes to all the surrounding states so that girls get a feel for different teams, and judges. In the long run, it helps them adapt and tighten up some skills. If we only stayed in MS, then she would always be judged by the same MS judges and be against the same girls. Tell her that it will help in the long run!
