A Gymnast's story

[gymdog]

Some of the comments that were left on her blog (and apparently making their way over here) are truly disgusting. I wonder how many are parents too (which disgusts me even more) seeing as I know many girls who feel pretty similarly to her, so I can't really imagine leaving those comments as a gymnast. Even if they are, it's only a matter of time.

Also - she's VERY good at gymnastics. So the comments about her "failing", etc, are absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Linsul]

I'm absolutely amazed that this child is complaining about all of this. She never had to be a part of any of it. It was her and her parents choice for her to participate in elite group. Also, it was their choice for her to quit or not.
Every parent has absolute authority over their children. Perhaps her parents didn't want her to quit. They were going through troubles of their own, so maybe they thought it would keep her out of trouble, who knows? The child crying on the sofa holding her stuffed animal left alone speaks volumes about her parents.

Clearly someone has forgotten what it means to be a child around authority figures. Gymnasts may be mature for their age, driven, and even perfection obsessed, but they still relate to adults differently than a fellow adult would. This is not some 30-something whiner that keeps their job and pretends they're powerless to act. It's a blizzard of juvenile emotion, practically otherworldly physical ability, and complicated by factors beyond her control. Also most likely the belief that gymnastics as a gymnast somehow defined her.

You know what speaks volumes about her parents? That they were honest and that even she agrees that they listened to her. I think forcing her out or into another gym just would've been more upheaval. Parents don't tend to throw out the book when things get tough on the family front, I think we can all agree that as little change as possible in other areas is generally the way to go...until it's not. When she was done, she was done, and she gets to be involved and workout in a way that keeps her fulfilled and happy. I think it's awesome she learned how to incorporate gym into her life in a meaningful way.

The fact that she kept on after elite group for years and she still is doing gymnastics probably means she still likes gym. There are a lot of coaches and gyms out there. Change or quit for heavens sakes, it's too expensive.
I'm glad she is writing about this for her own healing. She obviously needs to.

Yeah. People who quit still like gym. This is a super common phenomenon. I did a backhandspring on the trampoline tonight at work, doesn't mean I want to put on a leo and chase medals. There are plenty of documented therapeutic uses for writing without acting like the universe is pointing at this one athletes blog. Get over yourself.

 

[LMV]

Thank you for posting the link to this blog. I have saved the link to read it later and then perhaps share it with our daughter who just survived her first L9 meet.

 

[Mariainlv]

What a brave young soul to share this openly! Seriously, anyone who would bash her here, or on her blog? You are a poor excuse for a person. How do you arrive at a place where its OK to denigrate children? Unexcusable.

As far as bashing mom/dad? Please walk a mile in their shoes before you become the all knowing wonder. Were they perfect? probably not, as we imperfect humans rarely are. What IS clear is that they loved their child and did what they thought was right. In my eyes (granted I dont know them IRL) they did a pretty good job, if their daughter is any example.

 

[gymmomntc2e6]

I am also bookmarking this blog. She has the courage and the talent to write about her experience and she can be an inspiration not only to other gymnasts, but anyone who excells in their sport or other activity. Nevermind that last comment, she is an inspiration to everyone. Not many have the courage to 'retire' when they get to that level, after all they put into it. So much emotion involved. So much time and $ spent. Kudo's for her to saying 'enough is enough' when it was.

She is in no way a failure. I think the failure would have been to continue on when her heart was not in it. That is just dishonest with herself, her family & her coaches. She can now move on the the next phase of her life. Whatever that is I have no doubt she will be successful. I am happy for her that she is again finding joy that was lost in the sport that she obviously loves.

Oh, and good job Mom & Dad. It seems you have an amazing daughter.

 

[Tumblequeensmom]

Coach Molly, you put that more diplomatically than I could. I was wondering if this person registered for this particular reason, especially after reading comments on Courtney's blog which made me .

I also feel that Blaster1 has an ulterior motive for posting here and now. Coach Molly, you posted a very eloquent response and I have nothing to add.

 

[3stars]

Thank you for sharing the link! I too have bookmarked it to see what else she has to say in the future. I'm going to try to stick to my policy of trying not to feed the trolls and only say she addressed why she stuck with (at least up to the point she has written about) - she identified herself as a gymnast. We've had several conversations around here about how our kids (or the gymnasts themselves who are here on the board) tend to think of themselves as a gymnast in the black and white and their other interests and areas of their lives are the shades of gray.

 

[Susan Katz Keating]

Thank you, everyone, for the comments and observations. If you have read the archives on Courtney's blog, you will see that gymnastics brought both joy and pain. The family situation, too, played a huge role in everything. For a long time, the one stabilizing factor was... gymnastics. And yes, I often had "the talk" with Courtney. Any suggestion of quitting or of switching gyms brought emphatic assurance that yes, she loved it and wanted to continue. In retrospect, I would say that putting a 10 year old into Elite training is a mistake. At the time, though, I felt as if it were my obligation to allow my daughter to use her gift. Without placing any blame on coaches, I can tell you that the coaches have a lot of sway. The message I heard was, "Your child has a world class gift, and this is how you develop the gift." I am proud of Courtney for her courage in writing this blog. Neither of us thought it would bring the response that it did. I was angry to see other parents write in, anonymously, with brutal put-downs and sarcasm. I even had a fair idea of who some of these people are. These are the same parents who will drop comments in the gym about other girls' height, weight, bra size, you-name-it. To the parents just starting out, all I can say is, "welcome to competitive gymnastics." The higher you ascend, the more you have to ignore.

 

[gymjoy]

I have been turning over my thoughts about this thread and the blog for the past couple of days.
Courtney is a talented girl, both in gymnastics as well as in her ability to express her feeling in her writing in a mature and honest way. Both of these things take a lot of bravery. Kudos for her for persevering in these things and having such a positive outlook, as well as being able to move on a make gymnastics a part of her life on her terms. She has a bright future.

(I feel I need to preface the following statements with a note about them being my personal feelings, and that they in no way meant to disparage Courtney, her blog, her journey in gymnastics, or the hard choices she made.)

My worry, which is a problem I have with all confessional blogs and memoirs, is that her readers will think that this is how all gymnast, especially elite level gymnast, live their lives - in pain, fear and overwhelming sadness, which were the feelings which initially struck me while reading her post. I read her blog, as many of you here probably have, with sympathy and even empathy with her family. This is such a tough sport, physically and emotionally. Then to add any difficult family situations to it would just make it, well, more difficult. But, this is not the story of all high level, elite training gymnast. It is the story of one of those gymnast. One who choose a direction that took her out of competitive gymnast for personal reasons. While we can learn something from Courtney and her family's journey, we should not think that this is the way all gymnast feel or live.

While I do not condone the abrasive and abusive commenters, I think they might be confusing Courtney's journey and feelings with their own, and that makes them uncomfortable and angry, either because it strikes to close to home or because it is very alien to them. Perhaps they are jealous of her talents. Unfortunately, the anonymous nature of making comments allows them to blurt out their thoughts with out examining them, or using common courtesy. Too bad for them...

 

[gymdog]

While we can learn something from Courtney and her family's journey, we should not think that this is the way all gymnast feel or live.

Maybe. More than some people seem to realize though, particularly after a certain age. It's great to say little kids love it but she hasn't said she did anything but love it at those levels and ages. She made her comments about specific times and specific situations. Nor has she said she hates gymnastics or thinks kids shouldn't do it. She's made it very open and obvious that she remains involved with gymnastics by coaching and would have liked to have competed in high school gymnastics her senior year. If anyone is reading into this that she thinks gymnastics is wrong and hates it, then they are willfully interpreting something that is not really there.

While I do not condone the abrasive and abusive commenters, I think they might be confusing Courtney's journey and feelings with their own, and that makes them uncomfortable and angry, either because it strikes to close to home or because it is very alien to them. Perhaps they are jealous of her talents. Unfortunately, the anonymous nature of making comments allows them to blurt out their thoughts with out examining them, or using common courtesy. Too bad for them...

Maybe. My thought is that they're parents who don't want to hear what she has to say as they shell out for the privates they think will get their kid to where she got. You'll notice plenty of gymnasts have commented, and agreed with her, or even if they commented peripherally about comments they didn't disagree. I can recognize even some of the anonymous commenters as friends based on their anecdotes, and I assure you they are not liars. So if people want to sit there and say they are lying, then that's too bad, and I hope they never have to deal with some of things she writes about. But of course, if they do high level gymnastics as a teenager, they probably will.

I find it really irritating when people brush off how you feel and act like it could never happen to their kid. They are usually wrong. I am just going to come right out and go there. No one is going to sail smoothly through a gymnastics career like this. If your kids make it that far they WILL have problems and they WILL be devastated at some point and they will have difficulty coming to terms with it. That DOESN'T MEAN they should have never done gymnastics, or gymnastics is worthless or wrong, or they didn't get anything out of it. That is confusing two different things and emotions are never wrong, they just are. When you devote that much of yourself to something it is bound to come at an emotional cost, particularly when you have other elements at play like coaching. And it is not like these kinds of gyms don't exist. I am kind of annoyed that so many people are brushing off her problems because of problems in her family, like that invalidates what she says. In my opinion in her writing she has been clear about delineating those two things.

One of her stories reminded me of one of mine. I started competing in gymnastics late. But when this happened, I was about a L5/6 skill level, but went to a recreational gym. Still I was doing ro bhs and ro bhs bt, vaulting, conditioning, etc. Anyway, I fell and hurt myself, and injury I later recognized as a torn muscle because I did it again when I was 13 or so. But I was afraid to tell anyone, so I went to gymnastics anyway, and did my best. My coach asked me a couple of times if something was wrong because I was moving slowly and wincing, but I somehow managed to tumble, and (the worst) do conditioning like V-ups and candlestick jump ups where I directly had to stretch the areas surrounding the tear. It was excruciating. I remember I would go home and take a bath and it would hurt so much whenever I moved in the tub. I would dread saying the pledge at school because you had to stand up and sit down quickly and that hurt to the point of dizziness. This went on for weeks before I told my mom, who is a completely sane and normal person who would never be mad at me for getting hurt and had never in any way communicated such an idea to me. Though sadly I have seen parents who probably would get mad. But anyway, that's irrelevant to my story because my parents are sane. I have no idea what I was thinking. She probably doesn't even realize this one time (she would remember the second because I had to miss a big meet and was devastated). The second time, I was old enough not to be stupid and I have no idea how I faked it at all the first time, it was such a painful injury I basically refused to do anything, lol.

But my point is when a kid is young they have crazy ideas and it is hard for them to advocate for themselves or understand an event in the context of reality...which is that if you're young and you're hurt you shouldn't go to gymnastics because gymnastics is not very important in the grand scheme of things. But you blow it out of proportion in your feeble young mind. That is why, knowing what I know, I wouldn't want my 10 year old in some training situations. It takes a special coach, I think, to be able to work with athletes developmentally before they mature, and I would want to see some sign of that, and would probably prefer them to stay with other 10 year olds even if that means competing L7 or 8 while training other skills. I go back and forth on whether I'd even want my kids in gymnastics. I have some reservations. But nothing in life is perfect and I suppose if they wanted to do it, I'd let them do it.

 

[gymgurl]

I LOVE THIS BLOG!!!!!! SERIOUSLY!!! Susan, your daughter is one amazing girl who has an amazing gift for writing and obviously gymnastics I have been checking the blog daily to make sure i haven't missed an entry She is one amazing kid and sounds like she got a lot out of gymnastics

 

[LMV]

I have now read through Courtney’s blog. I’m a little wary to bring this up with our daughter and don’t think this is something that is age appropriate for her to read right now [more because of some of the posted comments that are displayed at the end of the posts than the actual postings]. However, I have to say it increases my gymnastic reservations because as I’m reading I’m seeing a lot of common themes with our daughter and I think we probably do need to address those themes in some sense

Our daughter is also a bars girl. It is her favorite event and perhaps her favorite thing in life. I’m not sure her identity is completely wrapped up in gymnastics [we very much do not want that] but I also think that gymnastics has been her consistent thing through the past traumas of life. We’re actively trying to expose her to other things because we think it’s important that she has these opportunities [and we sense she didn‘t before]. If she happens to find a greater passion for one of these activities then I won’t upset although this isn’t my true goal in encouraging her to broaden her horizons some.

I sense that there is a bit of difference in gym culture in our daughter’s gym in comparison to where she was before and perhaps also in comparison to where Courtney trained. I’d like to think that will make a difference but perhaps that is naïveté on my part. Even in her gym I do worry about her competing L9 this year. We would have liked to see her do a full year of L8. She is the youngest kid in her training group by at least three years and although the girls are perfectly kind to her and include her in anything gymnastics related the age gap probably precludes them really being best friends.

I think her coaches want to do what is best for her and they don’t yell, or ridicule. I'm not always sure they really understand all that she has been through as it is relevant to the gymnastics decisions we're making. We're working very hard on improving that situation with her head coach [who I do think wants to be her advocate he just needs a little more guidance in how to best do that]. I also think their expectations are geared more to her having a successful optionals and perhaps college career. We would not want more than that for her honestly and I’m not sure that even she has any elite aspirations for herself. I’ve read on this forum about kids having Olympic dreams but I’ve never heard that from our daughter. She wants to be able to swing bars. She has certain skills she is working towards mastery and others she wants to be ready to try. She has goals but they don’t seem to be tied to making world/Olympic team or even qualifying as an elite.

Gymdog,
I also read your last post with interest and concern. I don’t want to put you on the spot or be critical and I really don’t want to tell you you’re wrong. However, your anecdote about training through a major injury without acknowledging it really concerns me. Our daughter just turned 11 so she is around the same age and I would not want doing her this in general. I specifically would not want her doing this because with her medical history of rhabdomyolysis it could have significant long term consequences. Do you think this was just an immaturity/age developmental issue? Or is this somehow specific to gymnastics?

I realize that all of our brains are wired slightly differently and some people are better or worse at being in touch with their body, listening to their body and general self care. Our oldest daughter is very good at all of this [and her dad and I probably would not have allowed her to return to sports when we did if she wasn’t or would have probably monitored much more closely]. I didn’t have that same sense with our foster daughter. I also think the long standing physical abuse probably have made it very difficult for her to be good with some of these things even if her brain was well wired for this originally. For this reason we were very cautious with training hours and we watched her practices with the intent of looking for subtle signs of fatigue and discomfort that should us to pull back the reins some. Her pediatrician also trended electrolytes and CK with her return to the gym, over time, and any training increases. We’ve also really stressed to her that pain needs to be a warning sign and that we need to her to heed it or gymnastics will not be possible at all. I’m not suggesting that the casual gym parent should be doing all of this. We came up with this plan because we knew about her abuse/medical history and because she seemed to really really want to go back to gymnastics. I’ve been wary about this since the beginning but now reading your post I wonder if we’re taking too much risk here.

If you [or other gymnasts or coaches] have any further insight you would like to share, I would love to hear it. Thank you!

 

[tumblerK]

Gymnasts always work out in some amount of pain. If you stopped training every time something hurt a little you would never practice at all, be it a rip, sore calf muscles, or a stubbed toe. If you want to know if your DD is in pain, ask her.

 

[gymdog]

I honestly don't have any idea what I was thinking. I'm sure it was immaturity. Like I said, there was no reason for me to believe my mother would be mad at me, and she wasn't.

I think in your situation your daughter is still pretty young (but I was a bit younger when that happened. Maybe 9) so it will be important to monitor closely and stress to her that she needs to tell you things so you will help you. Also stress that the earlier she tells you and the earlier she can help, the more it likely it is that she will NOT have to miss much gymnastics, while if something becomes more serious, she'll have to miss MORE gymnastics. Some younger kids are afraid because they want it to just go away and be able to do gymnastics, but they don't really understand they are actually making more of a problem. Some older girls are afraid of this too but at that point they generally have a grasp on what they're doing and are weighing the what-if analysis in some sense.

I don't think the answer is to make anyone quit gymnastics. I'm just saying be aware and don't want for a child to advocate for themselves. They don't understand enough yet to know when that is appropriate or how to go about it. You have to ask your child and remind them what to do when something happens. And they still might not do it so the parents and coaches need to watch for signs and back off when they see signs of recurring injuries and burn-out (mine was not a recurring injury. It did happen again but then luckily, not after that. I don't have very many recurring injuries which is unusual for how long I did gymnastics).

But this is what I think is concerning with so many kids doing so much training from such a young age. There is such an expectation of perfection in compulsories today. Even when I did compulsories the routine standards were generally lower in my state. I'm sure more competitive places like TX or CA were different, but here we have really seen an increase in competitiveness, in my opinion. But when I was younger, generally the focus was on getting the basic skills. You would not do 15 L4 routines if you did not have a kip, for example. If a girl had pretty form and flexibility, but couldn't do kips and handsprings, that was generally not as valued. When I was younger I went 4 hours a week, until I was 11, and moved to a competitive program. Even doing just 4 hours a week I got L5/6/7 skills. Now I am expected to teach kids as young as 6 and 7 complex (in my opinion) routines. There is never enough time, because we are always trying to just learn these routines. We can't spend enough time (in my opinion) learning kips and casts and swings, and how to tumble, and do other basics. Many gyms in my state have level 4s and 5s traveling out of state for meets! so you better get results...the parents are spending a fortune. Then we have all this drama. I wish we had more informal competition for younger gymnasts and spent more time in the developmental stages working on skills. Without stressing them so much. Of course they get burned out. It is almost too much for me as an adult.

And I don't think it is fair to ask people to commit so much when the child are 7 years old or whatever. That is what is driving a lot of the drama at gyms. Of course the parents are overinvested - it is being blown way out of proportion from the top down! How could we even possibly expect them to do otherwise in some cases? These are just little kids. you don't know for sure yet. I know girls who did beautiful compulsory routines and then couldn't get giants. And I know girls who were the only ones to never win anything when they started competing who later became international elites.

And gym culture means a LOT. Some places have a toxic environment and they encourage competition among the parents pushing privates and staying on the good as a means to move up. They are not emphasizing team spirit and using this sport as a medium for growth. And the children always lose out because they can pick up on it and even if they are friends they are worried too much about this kind of drama and politics over gymnastics. And again they don't understand it's not their fault in most cases.

Gymnastics gets really hard in the last few years. And since a lot of intense personalities tend towards certain problems, that comes to a head too. Usually I would say around college age most girls feel differently about it. It's sort of easier for them to own it themselves. And sometimes they get away from certain situations. Not always, but I know a lot of people who were unhappy in high school that were happier a few years down the road. But again it doesn't mean they never got anything out of gymnastics or shouldn't have done it. You can not like something while you love it and all that. it's complex.

 

[gymdog]

Also, I disagree about always being in pain. I would call some things (like a rip) discomfort which is not really the same thing. Some level of tolerance for discomfort is obviously necessary for any strenuous physical activity. I am not advocating babying the kids beyond a reasonable point.

Personally I can do gymnastics, even now, without much pain. That is probably partially luck, but it is also possible and worth considering that the fact that I did such limited hours until a relatively late age compared to a lot of the girls I trained with (many of whom can't do gymnastics without pain now) may have something to do with it. I am not running a clinical study here. But I don't think parents should accept anything just because a coach said it. If it goes against common sense...well common sense applies in gymnastics too.

Mostly I am just saying people should not come in with the attitude "this is not going to happen to me or my kid." That's a dangerous attitude to take. It is important for everyone, parents, coaches, to be vigilant here and not just say "this happens to other people who bad parents or bad coaches or girls who are bad gymnasts, babies, failures." Regardless of what we are talking about legitimate psychological problems can really strike anyone when the right conditions are in place. Sometimes no one is directly to blame. It is just a combination of factors. Early intervention is important and making sure the girls are coached to be aware of their options and can take time off when need be. No one should ever be "not allowed" to take time off or quit when it gets to a certain point of being done.