The Little Gymnast

I was struggling to come up with a title for this post and then thought of a book, The Little Gymnast, that Emma recently pulled off the shelf, a book that I read back in the late 80's, when I was just beginning to love gymnastics myself...so a title was born :-)

A few routines from Emma's most recent gymnastics meet:


Her floor routine at the end of this video is probably the strongest routine of the day for her. I missed taping her vault because I was taking pictures for her coach at the time, and this was only the cell phone camera, and for some reason it shut off right near the end of her beam routine. So, my video is sub-par. Emma's beam was uncharacteristically wobbly {not even the harder elements either, it was all silly poses that caught her off guard} and she later told me as we watched the video that she was having a hard time concentrating. I am always so proud of how hard she works everyday in practice, and this routine was a tangible opportunity for me to point out to her how that pays off. She recognized she was having an "off day" but was able to hang in there, and without diligent preparation the outcome would have likely been quite different...and she knows that.


Certainly not the most important, but possibly one of the funnest parts of the meet was that Emma won every event and the all around. She had never done that before in any meet and she was surprised as they kept calling her up there in first place. I think her expression in this photo as she looks off the podium toward her teammates says it all. I love how Alyssa got to give her some of her awards. It was also Emma's first all around above 36 in level 5.

Once with a friend, and once when her coach asked her how she felt about her performance, she was very hesitant to share about how well she had done, she responded on both occasions by just saying the meet was "good," like winning was no big deal. And in a way, I'm glad is wasn't too big of a deal to her. She can't win every meet she enters, so if she's doing gymnastics just for the opportunity to win medals that would be pretty sad. I'm glad she understands and enjoys the work that goes into the sport and that she is a gracious competitor. Most of all, I want her to know just how proud we are of her and how hard she works and know that we celebrate her, whether she comes in 1st, 5th or last.