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.

A Balancing Act

Ever eaten so much you couldn't move after? How about laughed so hard you peed yourself? Or even study so much your brain turned to mush? Everything has a limit, and that includes yourself

No one is invincible, or a bottomless pit like Pac-Man. To be able to recognize when your body is at its physical or mental limit is a skill that can really improve one's life. You want to be able to study enough to retain the information, but not too much as your brain stops working. It's a little like drinking. The social idea is that the more you drink the happier you get, but that is not true. There is a peek to how relaxed you get and then after that the depression part of alcohol sets in and it only goes downhill.

Regarding gymnastics, and many other physically demanding aspects of life, pain threshold and bodily limits are HUGE! When you work out you want to push yourself far enough that you break down a little and your body heals and gets stronger, however, when you pass that thin line that is your limit, it results in injury.

After you pass that line is when pain may or may not set in. That is when it gets tricky. Those of you out there that can take getting hit by a bus, like a cool summer breeze, props. Those of you who think getting poked is like hitting your thumb with a hammer, you must have incredible sensory receptors. In any case, judging what’s harmful is important. Being harmful and painful are two different things. Pain is meant to tell your body, “Stop, I’m going to break.” Becoming tolerant to pain can be seen as "weakness leaving the body," but really you could just be becoming more prone to unrealized injury.

Story Time!

Life as a gymnast hurts. The splits are painful, strength runs your body into a wall, and then when you're just a few degrees off of something on, say high bar, you get a face full of metal. It hurts. I'd like to think I came into the sport with a little more pain tolerance than the average kid. This could be due to the fact that my younger sister would take my plastic golf clubs and beat me when we were younger, but I'm probably wrong. In any case, by the time sophomore year of high school rolled around my body was at a breaking point. Keep in mind everything in your body is connected. The year previously I had pain throughout my lower back and hip that had ceased to disappear. Sometimes, we aren't given the option to stop, even when we know something is bad for us, and my coach wasn't one to budge. December 5, 2012 the growth plate on my tibia snapped off and I had three screws put in a week later. It wasn't on anything difficult or strenuous, my body just broke. I had tolerated the pain for a year and a half, and finally it just -- snapped!

Now I am fully aware that this completely contradicts my post on perseverance, but you need both. It's the balancing act of the two that is the most difficult task. Push through, but don't put yourself in a position where you have to backtrack because of ignorance.

Gymnastics Fact: 1) Men's Artistic Gymnastics 2) Women's Artistic Gymnastics 3) Rhythmic Gymnastics and 4) Tramp-o-line and Tumbling (T&T). Men's and Women's artistic gymnastics are the branches most people know about. Rhythmic gymnastics is the style that involves balls, ribbons, and hoops. T&T is possibly the most unknown branch of the sport and it purely involves jumping tramp-o-line, using a tumble-trek (a long strip that is similar to a tramp-o-line, a mini-tramp (self-explanatory), and pure tumbling.

"Random question gymnasts get" of the day: Can you do the splits? The answer is yes, but not in jeans or khaki shorts (they'd probably rip).

Skill of the day: "Tak full." It's difficult to explain this one accurately in words so you should just watch.

Human Nature

This lesson is not a lesson you learn in a day, week, month, or maybe even a year. However we all know this to be true by the time we get serious about anything.

As small children, we never think about doing one thing, and if you did, all the more respect to you. For the majority of us, we bounced from one activity to the next, all the while trying to find something we would enjoy for more than a week. Most of us would do the summer or fall seasons of soccer, little league, or peewee. The most consistent part of the year was going to school. School was probably the most influential factor in learning this lesson for most people, but for those of us who were also dedicated to one sport for long time periods, or those who were home schooled, the lesson might have come earlier.

For myself it was a mix of my different gymnastics teams, and my groups of friends in school that drove home the fact that, those you surround yourself affect you and certain aspects of your life.
In gymnastics, and other aspects of life, your motivation, work ethic, and honor are greatly affected by those whom you surround yourself with. Friends who work hard, stay honest, and keep you accountable affect you positively. They further emphasize good traits by actively performing them and unintentionally making some of those around them self-conscious of their actions, especially the bad ones. In gymnastics, if you have a motivated team you keep up with your workouts and consequently get faster, stronger, and better at the sport. I wouldn't be at the level I am today without my teams. I wouldn't have had the motivation to push through the rough days where all I wanted to do was take a nap, or eat. Friends who are not that invested in the activity or program you are a part of, have no respect for it, or don't care enough to stay honest, typically have a negative impact on you. You no longer have a need to stay honest or motivated.

Right now I'm working out with the club gymnastics team and it has proven to be a test. We do not currently have a coach and right now everyone is in the process of coming off of break. People are still being lazy and without a coach we have to keep ourselves accountable, and continue to workout to get better. It is always easier with a leader who is solid in their resolve. Since I'm missing that now I'm having to rely on myself and my new teammates. Specifically, me and my friend Laith have a mutualistic relationship, where we have mutual dependence on each other to keep our motivation, work ethic, and honesty from disappearing.

By human nature we want to fit in with those around us. Consequently we copy those around us, whether it is their actions, attitudes, or aspirations. Some are good, some bad, some worse than others. The ultimate goal is to find that just-right-fit where you have others push you in a positive direction while being able to keep your identity from changing.


Alright so today's "basics of gymnastics" is a little of its history. Beginning in Ancient Greece, gymnastics actually was used as a way of training their soldiers. They took part in running, jumping, and tumbling like exercises, as well as strenuous strength activities to tone and discipline their bodies.

"Random question gymnast's get" of the day: Can you do that thing where you hold yourself on the rings with your arms straight out? Yes. It's called an Iron Cross, or just cross, and I can do it. Girls do not do rings though so don't ask any female gymnasts, most of them can't. But I'm sure there are some who can.

Skill of the day: Thomas. This is a 1 1/2 flipping, 1 1/2 twisting tumbling skill that you roll out of. It is in the process of being banned as it is one of the more dangerous skills in the sport. This is due to the fact that you are basically putting yourself in the situation of landing on your head, and breaking your neck.

Keep up!

Alright! I got my answer, not that I wasn't really expecting it... So from now on I'll be writing about a gymnast's life. The blog title, "Flip Lane," is in honor of what this road represents, and while driving down it we'll always pass a lesson!.

To begin I'll tell you two of my favorite quotes and they pretty much sum up the sport.
"God supplies the talent, we must put forth the effort." and "OWW!!!"

Now most high level gymnasts carry around the story that they have been doing gymnastics for 15+ years. I, myself, have only done this sport for the better part of 10 years. Starting at the young, tender age of four my mother introduced me to the sport in a girls rec class. It's not your average start. My mother wanted me to try out the sport, but the gym we went to was lacking the sport's male counterpart. Because I was so young they allowed me to join in some preschool and recreational classes.

At the age of five my family moved from where my story began, Oklahoma, to Illinois. Here was where I picked up men's gymnastics. At a gym, just outside of St. Louis, called World Class Gymnastics I enjoyed two years of gymnastics and then hated my final year. Scary coaches and scary skills will do that to a cowardly eight year old.

After a three year break on the other side of the globe, in Japan, I took the sport back up. It was one week into our new Alaskan lives that I started back up. I found my passion for the sport again and have been going ever since.

In all reality, the name of the game in this sport is perseverance. This is the first lesson we'll be passing.

When people talk about perseverance they normally mean to push through some sort of adversity. Whether it's social, mental, physical, or any other aspect of life, we all have had to persevere at some point. When you're younger you don't realize you persevere,but non-the-less you've done it most of your life We academically persevere to make it through school. When we get hurt we persevere and keep on living. We don't give up. I don't know if it's natural for us, as human beings, to give up. On small things, maybe, things with no major impact on our lives we have no problem letting go, we're lazy a lot of the time too, but when it comes to things that directly affect us and threaten our life or lifestyle, we don't give. Especially not as a whole. Individually people may give, but when a threat arises to a community or group, someone's if not everyone exhibits perseverance to get through the situation.

Now, in gymnastics, most of our perseverance is in the mental and physical form. A lot of gymnastics is running into mental walls, either you can't figure out how to position and move your body or are so scared you want to piss yourself. The other times you break down your body somehow. Torn muscles, ligaments, ACLs, and broken bones are an inevitable part of the sport. An any case we heal up, break out the wrecking ball, and crash through the walls. It's like driving through construction zones on the highway, slow moving in some sections, fully stopped at others, but in any case, you get through it. To be successful you can't be stopped and left in the dust, you have to keep up. That's one of the first lessons a gymnast learns.


Now to cap off my first blog post on life lesson brought to you by the sport of gymnastics I'll introduce some of the basics of gymnastics.

Men's gymnastics consists of six events: Floor Exercise, Pommel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, Parallel Bars and High Bar. Women's gymnastics has four events: Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam, and Floor. The order in which I have listed these events is referred to as the Olympic Order in the gymnastics world. In most meets and all international competitions, events are competed in this order as to keep the system organized.

 "Random question gymnasts get" of the day: do guys the Balance Beam? Simple answer; no, the pain could surmount to unbearable amounts.

Skill of the day: Magyar. (most skills are named after the first person to create and internationally compete a skill)