On March 23, 2016, I thought my life was over. It had been a long time coming of course, but once the day came, so did the realization of reality. I began to doubt everything I had worked so hard to figure out and the decisions I spent so long forming. Now, no one ever said it would be easy to leave gymnastics after 12 glorious years, but nobody warned me it could be this hard. Gymnastics had been my heart and soul since I was two years old. I lived, loved, and breathed gym all through preschool, grade school, and well into junior high. However, gymnastics did not come naturally to me. I was never the best in my class and learned very quickly that the Olympics were not in my future. Still, it was all I knew, and became my constant in an
In fourth grade I took gymnastics. I really like it, and had a lot of
“Gymnastics taught me everything- life lessons, responsibility and discipline and respect.” -Shawn Johnson (Former Olympic gymnast). In my interview with Franchesca Hutton-Lau I found this quote to prove very true to her. Franchesca Hutton-Lau, often called Frankee by her friends and teammates, has been a gymnast ever since she was five years old. In my interview with her, she enlightened me on her struggles, experiences, lessons, and successes which she’s taken from this treacherous sport. Chesca, as I call her, has a very different life from the average high school student.
...rried gymnastics popularity throughout the world. Gymnastics started out being a training tool for only men, to being an all guys sport around the world, to being one of the most popular Olympic girl sports in the world. Sometimes it only takes that one person to change the whole idea of one sport. Gymnastics is that sport that no one would have ever imagine that it would have only been used for guys at one point and now it is a girl based sport. It only takes one person to break out and do something different for everything to change.
I started gymnastics at the age of six and because of performing from an early age I became confident in being public. My motivation towards exercising has kept me on practicing a variety of sports for example ath...
After attending the speech given by Shawn Johnson, I feel motivated, encouraged, and determined. She stated that ever since she was a little girl she fell in love with the gym and always wanted to be a gymnast. She talked about all of her experiences through her young ages and growing up. The biggest experience that stuck out to me was she was in competition for competing for the gold medal, actually running against her own teammate. At this time, she was only 16 years old. This was such an incredible moment because she had so many thoughts running through her head and she had to pull herself together after looking at her school to where she was standing compared to everyone else and the score her teammate just scored. She said she was really
Winning states in wrestling is one of the best moments in my life. It was at this time in Flint Michigan at IMA arena the last match of the year was finally here. I locked eyes with my opponents, walked onto the mat, put on my ankle band on, and put my foot on the tape ready to start. We shook hands. The whistle blew, I locked arms with him and it began. Our arms were locked tight, so tight I could barely move. For a second I thought he might win. But then we broke up, and I tried to take a shot he blocked it, and our arms were locked up again. The whistle blew and the first period was over, and it was tied zero to zero.
The one thing that an athlete doesn’t want to hear is that they cannot play their favorite sport because of an injury they recently got. This actually happened to me when I injured my knee while lifting high amount of weight. After my lifting class I was walking perfectly and prepared to get through the rest of the day. Only an hour later I couldn’t walk with my right leg and had to limp through the rest of the day. Two hours after I was limping and trying not to cry from the sharp, acute sting in my right knee.
Everyday was a normal day, but this is a day I will never forget. Everyday I would go across the street to my friend Tyanna house, because she had a trampoline in her backyard. When it snowed in Clarksdale it didn’t snow as much as it would in another city. I woke up early on a snowy day to jump on the trampoline, because it was a lot of snow on the trampoline. We started making snowballs, and throwing them at each other. In her backyard Tyanna had two days. Her dog's names were Bullet and Lady. I threw so many snowballs at Lady, because she was the closest to the trampoline. She was running from them, because she was scared of the snowballs.
“Bye” I told my dad and brother. “Where are you going?” my dad asked me. “I have wrestling today, dad” I answered. “Alright, go ahead”. There was no school today (Friday) so we had wrestling practice at nine in the morning.
This weekend we did not have much planned. The only thing I had is a seven hour dance tryout for the Falconettes. At the dance tryout all we had to do is learn a dance and do jumps or leaps, the splits, and stretch a lot. I had to do this to see what team I got on for next year if I do it again. After my seven hour dance tryouts we had a campfire so I could sit under the stars and listen to the campfire crackle. When I was sitting at the fire I decided I definitely wanted a S’more. So I roasted a marshmallow over the fire until it was golden brown. The marshmallow I roasted what the size of like three normal marshmallows but we decided it was more fun to say it was the size of a baseball. The marshmallow was so gooey it was like glue all over
Gymnastics has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, it has become part of my identity and my appearance. Everything from “You’re that girl who can do a backflip!” or “Wow, you look like a gymnast.” I’ve learned to accept that this is how some people see me. A 5’ 2” girl with the muscles of a boy. Even though this
Once upon a time, I qualified for the Tae Kwon Do State Championships, to go to the Tae Kwon Do Junior Olympics in Orlando, Florida. It was my second year at the Jr. Olympics, and I was competing in two events. Sparring and forms. Forms has always been my favorite, partly because I was pretty good at doing them. Sparring was okay. I guess.
Gymnastics is a sport. You can compete it. When you see gymnastics on TV, you might think wow, that’s so cool. But life of a gymnast can not always be easy. You have to do conditioning (if you don’t know what that is, it’s what makes you stronger, push ups, sit ups and other stuff) and go through the pain of getting rips. Rips are when you go on a bar and get peeling skin on your hands.
I started gymnastics when I was about six years old, all the way until I was twelve. Unfortunately I had to stop abruptly, due to an injury in the growth plates in my wrists. I write this not in memory or in loss of the dedication I had for gymnastics, but as a celebration of all the things I learned and accomplished, both physically and mentally throughout this process.
I am forever grateful for the lessons I learnt, the people I met, the experience I gained and I now know what true love is. Gymnastics has made me into the person I am today. When something scares me I know how to conquer my fears, I know how to set goals, to deal with disappointment and I will always keep the leotards and tracksuits as memorabilia of a very special time in my life. I am not a quitter, I have left a