Gymnastics is a sport, but to my 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 year old self, it was the only religion I had ever believed in. Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci and Yelena Shaposhnikova were the goddesses and the gym was the temple. The Code of Points was the holy book and saluting the judges the prayers.
I did gymnastics for greater than half of my life. I quit the sport for good a few weeks ago. I have been away from the gym long enough to have distanced myself from the physical challenges of the sport and have allowed myself to examine the process by which I came to the decision to leave the sport I'd been doing for more than 8 years.
I was never the best gymnast, but I never completely stunk, either. Except for a wobbly first meet or two each season, I was never out of my depth competing against other girls in my level. A rocky last compulsory season was probably the first major setback I'd ever had with the sport, and even then, I pulled my scores up to par with other seasons by the end. Most importantly, I looked forward to doing skills in the gym every day. I looked forward to nothing more than meets. I looked forward to spending time with my teammates and my great coach and the lovely community at my gym.
After the aforementioned rocky season, I moved two states north, here in North Carolina. Within two weeks, my mom was driving me around to gym after gym. We visited three or four, including the prestigious and lovely Sonshine Gymnastics in Holly Springs, but it was a lovely little team in a dingy old gym in Apex that caught my heart. The equipment was worn and familiar, the practices were a style more similar to what I was used to, and the coaches I met taught me so much in the first hours I was there. There I quickly became woven into a pattern of sticky summer practices with a team that would eventual become some of my best friends in the world, and eventually, the first optional team of the then nonexistent Peak Gymnastics Academy.
Back to the tragedy of how I fell out of love. The skills got hard really fast. I had a sort of buffer year in competing Prep Op Platinum, a watered down level 7. That year went fabulously. I got scores I not necessarily wanted but felt were justified. I medaled at meets I didn't expect to, and actually put up a fight against others at the big competitions. All was fine and well, and I finished the season well. I got my giants within days of finishing and worked hard on beam for my back walkover back handspring series. Then, the whole Apex Gymnastics logistics meltdown happened.
For months we were guests in a gym that wasn't our own, a facility that wasn't ours, equipment that was foreign and, with the clear knowledge that we were to be gone soon, remained feeling foreign. I lost skills as fast as I had gained them. My form suffered and as a result of gymnastics being such a mental sport, my ability to chuck things without hesitation also suffered. Skills I'd already competed at Apex, even back in Georgia, became a challenge because I didn't want to do them and I didn't think I could.
We got to Peak Gymnastics with only about two weeks of practice before the first meet of the season. Unprepared and unconfident, forced to compete skills I had rushed to gain back on the newer equipment, I stepped into the massive meet and performed poorly, to the say the least. One illegitimate place on the podium: a fourth place medal, when the previous year, I'd gotten two silvers, two bronzes, AND a fourth.
Measly scores all seasons were only partially a contributor to my lessening of passion to the sport. My teammates advanced faster than me, and some skills I just felt were way out of my ability as a gymnast. I became more fearful of the things I was training and less excited to try things. Apprehension increased faster than bravery could train to catch up. The coach who used to push me pushed me less because I pushed myself less. I lost the ability to block out heat and exhaustion to practice efficiently and was conscious of very hot springtime practices. Ultimately, it came down to the realization that I preferred to stay home and edit videos for a few more minuted than get to practice on time to realize at last that my days as a gymnast were numbered.
My teammates and I talked some, and some more. After our last meet of the season, the one closest to my age left. There, I decided that the result of my application to a school that would determine my fate. It'd either give me an easy out or give me incentive to keep working so my commitment to the sport would buff up my college application. I loved my team too much to flat out quit. Going from seeing a group of girls who were practically family 15 hours a week to once every month or two or more was a practically unfathomable thought (though you'd think 9 moved later I'd be used to it).
When I got accepted into the academically prestigious boarding school, I vowed to stay in as long as I could, until the beginning of the next school year, when I'd have to move away from home. Two days later, I went to practice in my street clothes and said my goodbyes.
