I Had Choices
“Do you want to go elite?” my coach asked me.
What? I had never thought about that for real. I mean, of course it would be cool to say “I’m an elite,” but I never actually thought it was an option.
“Ummm… do I have to decide now?” I asked nervously. I thought I knew the answer, but I really had to think about this.
“No, but the sooner the better. If you want to go elite, then we need to get started now.”
“I’ll decide by the end of this week,” I answered.
All week I pondered the question my coach had asked me. I watched the 1988 Olympics VHS that my mom and dad had gotten me for Christmas for inspiration. Man, those girls were so good. Between the two of them, Daniella Silivas and Elena Shushunova received four perfect 10’s in the all-around competition alone. I couldn’t help but think that if I went elite, I would be expected to perform like them. My stomach flipped.
Then I watched beam. NO ONE WOBBLED. My palms started to sweat. I had my own personal love-hate relationship with the event; I loved to practice, and I was really good in the gym. But put me on a beam in a meet, and let’s just say that I didn’t look like any of those girls.
Part of the competition that I always fast-forwarded, but forced myself to watch this time, was the compulsory competition. I always thought it was boring; everyone did the same thing. It wasn’t as boring this time. Instead, it made me really nervous. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go through that!
The next day, I went into the gym and asked my coach, “If I go elite, I’ll have to do compulsories, right?”
“Yes.”
My mind replayed an elite clinic I attended earlier that year. Fouettés on beam and slip grips on bars — no thanks! And if I wanted to perfect them, I’d have to spend all my time concentrating on those skills, rather than working the bigger skills I wanted to achieve.
In compulsories, each gymnast is required to perform certain skills. When I was in Level 7 compulsories, I couldn’t stick a back walkover on beam to save my life — even in practice! Nor could I dance the way the judges wanted me to. Hmmm.
I went through practice working on improving my Level 10 skillset, thinking how great it was to NOT have to do compulsory gymnastics anymore.
I went home and talked to my parents. “What do you guys think?” I asked.
“It’s up to you,” they both said. Big help.
I went into the gym the next day at practice, still pondering, but getting closer to my decision. “If I stay Level 10, there aren’t any restrictions on the skills I can do, right?”
“Nope; none.” Hmmm.
I went home pretty sure I made up my mind. But what would my coach say? Would he be disappointed? What about my parents? Would they think I wasn’t ambitious enough? Shouldn’t I want to go elite?
I decided that I couldn’t care about those things. I had to choose what I wanted to do.
I came in to the gym the next day and told my coach with conviction, “I’ve made up my mind. I will not be going elite. I don’t want to do compulsories ever again, and if I’m not restricted in the skills I can do in Level 10, then I just want to keep getting better.”
“Are you sure?” my coach asked.
“Yes,” I said definitively.
“Okay, you’ve got it,” he said.
I was worried that he might want me to go elite so he could say he had an elite athlete. I was worried that my parents would want me to go elite to say that their daughter was an elite gymnast. The best thing all of them did for me was not inject their opinions about what they thought I should do; the best thing they did for me was to guide me to decide on my own, and allow me to stand by my decision, and to help me know that it was the right one.
From that point on, there was no question; I knew I had made the right choice. But what I am forever grateful for is that I had the opportunity and the ability to choose.
In the program I’m developing, I provide information and tools to help guide gymnasts do what is best for them individually. I was so fortunate to have some of these tools, and over the years I’ve developed even more; I want to share them with all gymnasts…
