G-to-the-Nastics

Haven't done a gymnastics post yet this year!!! I love my cutie-head's. =)

This is my 5th year as the assistant coach of the team. I CANNOT belive it's been that long!

Some that don't know about gymnastics may not know what a gymnastics coach does. Let me tell ya:

*Alot of our job is to spot the girls on new moves. Some times we spot them on moves they can already do. Don't get me started... anywho, I have risked my life (and Adie when she was a fetus last year) trying to save the girls from a bad fall. Our head coach is the best at this. She will throw her body down under the girls to try to break a fall.

* Many-a-times I have had a girl on beam in tears telling me all about her boyfriend that just broke up with her. So being a counselor is also on the list.

*I have held a barf bag on a trip to a meet. I was about 2 seconds away from having the girl puke in my cupped hands until a girl from the back gave up a bag of Ritz chips so that her teammate could barf in it. This was after I was yelling at her to "GIVE ME THE BAG!" Oh yes, she was contimplating giving me the BBQ or Sour Cream & Onion. They wanted to make sure they gave the least favorite of the chips since it was being used as a barf sacrifice.

*We give up our shoes, bra's and anything else that the girls forget at a meet.

* I am a negotiator. You could say that gymnastics is kinda a head sport. (Rebekah, are you reading this?) Yeah, it takes a ton of strength and balance to perfect the sport but man are some of our girls mental cases! So I negotiate a lot of the practice. I won't mention any names but ALLISON can sure tell you of how I've negotiated with her.

Me: "Either try the valdez on beam or give me 50 push-ups."
She picked the push-ups. 150 of them. At least she'll be strong when she finally decides to throw it!

* You gotta know how to laugh. (Especially at the right times) There are some ridiculously HILARIOUS falls in gymnastics. But the key is to see if the girl is okay, then you may laugh your hiney off. We have one girl on the team this year that is the master at falling ungracefully. Last meet she feel amazingly hilarious on all 4 events. I love ya, Jen! Let's just not kill ourselves, K?

*I also braid a lot of hair. Braided ribbons throughout the french braid, did 4 on one head and met them all in the middle, gave girls chinese eyes because they were so tight.. yeah, braiding hair is a coaching must.

And what does my Adie girl and daddy do during a meet?

This was just after she danced in the stands to all the opponent's floor routines. The girl has gymnastics in her blood. I'm sure I"m a little bias, though. Watch her be a master at chess playing or something...