New Ways

The beginning of this school year presented me with a very interesting situation; a situation I'm relatively familiar with thanks to my military background. I moved into an area where I knew nobody, the closest I am to anyone I knew before being a part of Penn State is a three and a half hour drive south to Winchester VA. So what do you do when you're in a situation you don't know? You adapt!

However, the prospect of adaption is incredibly hard to realize sometimes. In science adaption let's species survive, in sports it leads to victory, in life it leads to success. Overall good adaptions lead to good results. But what makes adaption so difficult? I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I can be extremely stubborn sometimes and it's not good most of the time. I know I've explained this before but perseverance is good to a point. Once it hinders you or results in injury it's no longer a good thing. So that's when you adapt to the situation and make do with what is available.

In a lot of sports you face other teams, compete against different styles, and the match-ups can make a huge difference between people. Take ping pong for example. Now I know most of us out there take ping pong lightly and see it as a recreational activity, but there is a lot that may go into it at a time. Certain people also have different play styles. There is a few different grip types but the two popular ones are shake-hands (the one most of you probably use naturally) and pencil (you hold the paddle like a pencil -- a lot of eastern players use this style). Each one has a different advantage in power, spin, and ease. As you play you may find yourself against someone who spins the ball more or likes to play extremely fast, in any case you want to be able to adapt and learn new tricks to win in any case, because, let's face it, we all like to win.

In gymnastics the story is a little more self determined. We adjust our routines, or what skills we are going to do according to how we are feeling that day. When you're sick or injured or the equipment is shady you do less. When you find yourself half way through a meet and your on your butt and you just threw the competition out the window, you tend to be a little more stupid and throw skills you don't have consistent or haven't done in say a month or so. If you pull off those tricks your stupidity doesn't feel nearly as stupid. It's really an adaption of the mind at that point, because you want to keep your head screwed on.

You rarely adjust to the competition because your competition is mainly yourself. If scoring is top priority, watered down sets, simplification, and consistency are your best friends. Otherwise we just go, avoiding the pesky little things like broken toes and whatever. Either way you look at it if you find yourself somewhere where you can't adapt, you can find yourself in trouble.

Being able to adapt makes life much more fun. It opens new roads, leads to success, and can keep your toes straight and sturdy!


Being as this is my final post on life lessons brought to you by the sport of Gymnastics I'll leave with my favorite quote attached to this sport.

"I do this sport for two reasons. One) I love it, and Two) So I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want."

Rolling Madness

As you walk through the dining halls looking for a table to fit more than six people, your life can suddenly become a rather frustrating one. Especially when you find an eight person table, but one person has chosen to sit in the middle of the table...

Now I'm going to say something rather cliche, but the goal in these situations is to not get mad.

Last week I wrote on the idea that you should find the small things in life that are enjoyable and cherish them. This idea kind of goes the same way. You can't enjoy the little things, or the big things for that matter, if you're drowning in anger.

In gymnastics this becomes increasingly important as you get better and better. The better you get the more you have to focus on. The little details add up and if something is off someone is bound to notice... and point it out... every time... That's the madness of this sport. You might begin to lose focus on your success and soon enough you're a hell of a lot better than you were the year before, but you feel like you've gone backwards. It's a weird feeling, but it happens.

It happens a lot when you are coming off an injury. Will you ever get back to where you were? Can you do some of the stuff you used to be able to do? These questions run through your brain like the roadrunner. Pretend you're Wylie Coyote. You can't ever catch them to get an answer, though in most cases the answer is yes and you're worrying for nothing. For myself I always got angry when I couldn't fix a small problem in an hour. I'd just keep doing the same thing for hours, until my coach had to force me to stop. I'm just stubborn. I'd also get mad every time I hurt myself which was a lot. I'm honestly not sure why I didn't stop the sport, I guess I just enjoy it too much!

Originally I started taking the injuries as a test of devotion. It kept me motivated for a while, but eventually enough is enough. Sophomore year of high school I had to get three screws put in my knee, and I wasn't a happy camper. It took me out for an entire season and on top of that I wasn't sure if my tumbling would bounce back. When you're hurt you can still be productive though. Once I accepted the break forced on me, I realized this was a time to relax, get stronger, and just enjoy myself at the gym. After that I came back faster than was thought. It was supposed to take me between nine and twelve months to bounce back, but it would only take around five or six. Something weird happens when you stay positive, your ability to heal can spike, and a lot can fall into place, that you wouldn't have recognized if you had been struggling in the quicksand that is anger.

Even though gymnastics is extremely dangerous and you're prone to injury, a whole bunch of people still do it. You have to be a little crazy I guess to keep walking into the building where you can knock yourself out or break anything in your body. We do learn useful things though. Being able to let something, whether a comment or a missed turn, roll off your shoulder can let you focus on the little pockets of joy during practice, or the dining hall for that matter. Every day is a new day, the past has past, there's no point in worrying about it after the fact.


Background: Gymnastics is an indoor sport for reasons regarding equipment and minimizing distractions for the athletes. I can't imagine swinging on high bar when a bug flys right into my ear. That'd be so weird. However there are a few meets held outside. One hosted by the Chicago Park District, is held on the beach. It's designed as a fun meet with competitors from age 7-30 and plenty of sun!

Question of the Day: "How many bones have you broken/fractured?" Ok this one is weird because in one way I don't know. Documented in hospitals I've had around seven I believe. Counting the undocumented and repeats, it's roughly 20. I've broken every toe except my big toes atleast once (mainly due to those evilly designed things called stairs) and I stress fractured both forearms twice each. I can know move on crutches faster than I normally walk.

Skill of the Day: Cassina. I'm sure plenty of you have seen this in the Olympics. It's one of the hardest skills to do on high bar, but anyone you talk to insists that it's easier with the twist than without it

.                     

It's the Small Things In Life

Perfectionism is undoubtedly one of the largest part of this sport, as it is with many others in other areas. In a recent interview with Kohei Uchimura, the best gymnast in the world, he stated that he wouldn't quit until everything was perfect. He is 28, 2 years past the supposed prime for male gymnasts. I'm pretty sure he will be competing in the next Olympics, and then possibly the one after that. He's crazy, but the best.

For many, perfectionism leads pessimism. One of the hardest things to do in the sport of gymnastics is staying positive. As I am pretty sure I've said before, one bad move can lead to one bad day, one day leads to a bad week, then a bad month, and pretty soon your whole season has gone down the toilet. In order to keep the light on in the room of darkness every little thing helps. From the simple compliment from your coach to that one time you win a small game to when you just have a turn that feels right among all the other crappy ones. Another hard thing about looking for those little things is the simple act of going after something small happens. You say "I can do it again" and wind up just having another crappy turn. You learn when to stop so you end on a good note over time.

Just like any generic time when your having a bad time you should always look for the positive instead of dwelling on the negative. It's hard but that one pick me up can be the difference between a good grade on an exam, a good night, or even one's life. Find the little things that make you happy and capitalize on them! It makes life a lot more enjoyable.

I know this one was short but it's honestly probably one of the most important one;s to me, purely because it's one that I'm constantly trying to do.s


Background: There used to be three other events that were a part of the gymnastics world: Rope (in rhythmic gymnastics), Rope climbing, and the Swinging Rings. Rope was like all other rhythmic events only with a rope, rope climbing was a question of speed, and swinging rings were similar to still rings, but, you guessed it, swinging!

Question of the Day: Why don't you come hang out with us more? Throughout high school my schedule was: wake up, school, an hour to get home, eat, and get to gym, then gym for anywhere between 3-5 hours, what ever extra time was waiting for my sister to finish, then it was home by 9pm, eat, homework, sleep. It was fun.

Skill of the Day: Pak Salto. This skill is very common among elite women gymnasts as it is an "easy" transition from the high bar to the low bar.

Getting There

No matter how you slice it, nobody "gets lucky" and makes the Olympics. This post doesn't really have an explicit lesson because I thought I'd talk simply about how one gets to the Olympics.

Most exceptional gymnasts start training before they start learning. That is, they start gymnastics before they start school. In turn instead of school being priority, sometimes gym is. Plenty of elite gymnasts are or were actually home schooled. Many start at the age of 3-5. They never burn out and quit (which is a fairly regular phenomenon within this sport), and grow up to become elite gymnasts.

At the stage of college is when things become messy. I can recount a number of times I've asked someone why they quit before the end of high school, and if they were exceptional gymnasts the most common answer in distinctly, "I got bored." 

Now, I know it is wrong of me, but I get this urge to hit people like this. Gymnastics is a sport where repetition is everything, but the variety and scope it entails is incredibly large. One consensus among most gymnasts is that the sport of gymnastics is actually 6-in-1 for males and 4-and-1 for females. Each event is tied to the next, yet it is distinctly different in so many other ways. This is why we have event competitions instead of purley an all-around competition! And there's always a new skill to work! It's like track and field. You can't consider jumping, throwing, and running the same sport. It may be under the same name, but they are distinctly different competitions, and in some cases combined to form new competition styles.

Those who stick with it, the dedicated and talented, are the few who stand out. Talent can only take one so far. Some even deferred college for later years, if not down right declining until a later date. Plenty move on to good jobs and respected universities, but there are also a fair amount who remain in the sport. Once you're in gymnastics for long enough to make that level of ability the sport has unquestionably become part of you and there's no escaping that.

For many gymnastics was there life, and not only was it theirs but also their families. You find many Olympians who have family ties to the sport, whether through past success's or gym ownership. Rarely is one not tied to the sport through familial ties. Nastia Liukin's father was an Olympic gymnast for the Soviet Union and co-owner of a gym called WOGA, one of the nation's best. Paul Hamm's father was a diver (a sport many gymnasts go into for purposes from scholarships to still wanting to slip and twist without as much joint pain) and even made them equipment to train on. His twin brother, a co-Olympian in the same year, and his sister competed for the University of Iowa. And these are only two accounts of popular, Olympic gymnasts.

Ultimately many Olympic gymnasts show exceptional talent young, are surrounded by support that is both experienced and strong, begin upper level competitions by the time high school roles around, and then show extreme dedication. This isn't to say those who didn't make the Olympics, didn't have this, or did, simply that these are the trends. 

Not getting hurt helps as well...

Gymnastics Background: Although our equipment has generally been the same, slight differences have occurred. There are accounts of balance acts (like for balance beam) being performed in the 1800's on tree trunks! The high bar is metal, while women's bars are wood. Floors are becoming more and more springy. Even our vault table changed completely. The vault used to look like the pommel horse (minus the handles of course) for almost 200 years, but as vaults became increasingly more difficult it turned into a much more square piece of equipment.

            Previously                                                       Now

        

Question of the Day: Do you were tights? They aren't technically tights... They are annoying as hell, and most of us don't appreciate having to wear our uniforms, but we do it anyway. It's for the show!

Skill of the day: a backhandspring layout stepout. She's seven...

What Was I Doing?

"Think about what your going to say before you say it."

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who heard this saying from their parents a plethora of times. Even so, I still struggle to execute this simple rule. Even more general is the idea that you should know what you are going to do before you do it.

In gymnastics this is probably one of the top five rules of the sport, next to respect your coach and don't eat the pit foam (four year-olds have weird tendencies). This is simply because you can DIE. Imagine for a second you're rock climbing. Every step and hand placement you take is careful and thought through to ensure you don't fall. Now say you stopped thinking and just started going. The odds of you putting your foot or hand on an unstable spot is pretty high. Then you fall, Then you're hurt. It's pretty much the exact same thing in gymnastics. If you aren't positive in what you're doing on any given turn you open the door for injury.

Commitment is one of the most taxing, but most required things in this sport. I know for a fact that if you aren't committed to something in one turn you can wind up changing your mind and either scaring, or hurting yourself.  I have had too many weeks where I was forced to walk like a little duckling because I accidentally pulled something, like a hamstring or my groin, while tumbling. I couldn't even walk like a grown duck, I still tripped over air enough to impress any cartoon.

Not even solely in regards to injury is this principle important. For gymnasts, our competition is one of skill and execution. When you fall in a routine it's like watching your self walk over you to go hand the gold medal to some stranger, unless they fall in which they pass it on. In some competitions it's an endless game of pass until someone can control themselves. If you are not thinking of exactly what you are going to do in the moment you are doing, most of the time it doesn't end well. Planning ahead is something all gymnasts do. We have to get ready for the next skill, but in turn we wind up missing the one we are supposed to be performing. It's the equivalent to studying for the test on material you haven't covered in class. You'll be ready for it! But only after you fail the test on what you were learning about. Even just in life if you don't think about what you're doing or what's going on around you in the moment you could miss something important - like that piece of gum or dog crap we've all stepped in at some time.

In the end the lesson is don't think too far into the future, don't concentrate on the past, think and feel in the present, because that's what determines what will come next: progressing to the next stage or getting stuck, a game of pass or being able to hold on to that medal.


Gymnastics Background: Currently there are eleven colleges with D1 gymnastics teams. There are 21 schools total who have competitive teams when including D1, club, and the EIGL branches.

Question of the day: Oddly enough one of the most frequent questions I get is "Can you do a backflip?" I'll let you answer that one.

Skill of the Day: Azarian cross, one of the toughest skills on rings.

Accept It.

With this being the fifth post I figure I should explain my tagline. "A road that does not lead to Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo."

Sometimes life puts obstacles in your way and you persevere. Other times you wait for until you can do it without repercussions. Other times you just aren't meant to go that way. For all little gymnasts the goal is the Olympic Games; who doesn't want to go halfway across the world to show they're the best in the world? But for some of us accident-prone, over-striving, constantly hurt people, that goal is a little difficult. Once you pass 10 broken bones among other problems you realize this. 

I mean for a gymnast who started late, and has been broken himself enough to lose over two years of training, a fifth of all my training years (yes, I have done the math...), I think I've done OK for myself. The moment I realized my childhood dream was a little too far in the distance, and I wasn't going to have the ample time to make it, It may sound like I gave up, but I'm still training and putting myself in harms way so I don't think I've completely given up yet. I have accepted the outcome where it doesn't become a reality though because my circumstances over the years didn't permit major success. I swear, every time I got hurt again it was like God saying, "stop it, this isn't for you." I thought it was a test of determination, but if it is, it has yet to end so... I think it was supposed to be a stop sign... oh well!

In life you need to learn how to take signals. I did not. You also need to accept what happens in life and move on. What happens, happens, it's already occurred and you can't change it so move on. It's in the past and nothing can be done to prevent it (unless you can time travel) so there's no point in stressing over it. This is possibly one of the most valuable lessons my experience as a gymnast has taught me and that I can pass on. To have stress after something occurs that you cannot do anything about is wasted energy. To learn how to let it roll off your shoulder, motivate you to improve, and continue living without stress is monumentally important to a good life. No stress, no mess!

In the end, the road I led in this sport didn't and won't pass by or end in an Olympic Games, but I love it anyways so what's the point in worrying about it.

Gymnastics background: Gymnastics became a sport officially in 1862, and was performed in the Olympics first in 1896 by men. In 1928 it was first introduced in the Olympics on the women's side.

Question of the Day: Can you put your leg behind your head? Yes, I have heard this one before, even though it's closer to some yoga pose I believe. Yes I can, but it is extremely uncomfortable.

Skill of the Day: Yurchenko 3/2. This vault with an extra full 360 twist is extremely popular among elite gymnasts(mostly women), because it's competitive yet very doable.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This worldwide view among almost all, if not all, cultures carries over even into the realm of gymnastics. Even though your elder is not your parent, or generic older relative, the principle remains the same. Respect your elders, and those with more experience than you.

They kill you. They save your life. They can tear you down, or pick you up. And they can be scary as hell, or the best person you know. Coaches are a mysterious breed. After doing gymnastics in three different gyms, I've experienced a plethora of coaches. As a little one I had a fun-loving, energetic coach at first. I remember wanting to remain at the same level for the purpose of having him coach me. When I moved up, my new coach scared me out of the sport. When I got back into the sport three years later my new coach was amazing. He could make you feel inferior just by looking at you, but he was probably the single most important coach I have had, because he encouraged me to get back into the sport while building up my passion for it. My next coach, my most recent coach, was the coach that pushed my basic development past its limitations. Every coach had his special purpose in my development and had different styles, but all of them instilled discipline within me.

Respect comes through many different mediums. You can develop it through admiration, fear, or just acceptance. Admiration allows you to develop your own feeling of respect towards the other person personally. Fear is a way others instill respect for themselves in you, and acceptance is the way of being taught you should respect those above you. Any way you cut it, respect is something of importance in our culture. Most of the time if you do not respect your elders it ends up in some sort of punishment. But if you do respect them, they typically return the action, and you may find a mutual ground and great relationship.

Repercussions of not respecting your elders include negative feelings toward you, loss of interest in you, and punishment after punishment. This is true in many situations. At home your parents ground you, in the gym, your coach makes you do extra strength or flat out kicks you out of the gym. Advantages of respecting your elders include a your elder enjoying your presence, being more willing to help you, and an eventual relationship that has mutual respect and little negativity, if any. In the end it is always better to respect your elders than not, especially when planning for the future. It's always good to have a good relationship with someone who could help you out later down the line, whether it's giving you a job, or teaching you something, or something else.


Gymnastics Background: The scoring system in gymnastics is now quite elaborate. We no longer use a 10.0 system, which many people understood. Now the system takes into account skill difficulty and the execution of those skills. It's fairer for the athletes, but much more confusing for spectators. Skills are sorted by difficulty using letters. Points for skills start at 0.1 points and go up by tenth (ie an A skill is worth 0.1, a B is worth a 0.2, and so on). On top of that we also have element groups which each add 0.5 points to your starting score of a 10.0. That's the general aspects of our now, unreasonably complex, scoring system.

Question of the Day: How much can you bench? I don't know. All our strength is body weight so we don't know anything about strength involving weights over 20 pounds(:

Skill of the Day: So since I talked about coaches I feel like instead of a skill I'd show a coach saving a little one. Honestly, this probably kept the kid from quitting out of fear, and kept him from getting hurt.