lessons from a 21-year-old "gymnast"

first, I must ask you to please forgive me for the plethora of gymnastics-related posts. I know no one cares, and I truly am sorry, really, I am, but I am so excited to actively pursue what has always been my first passion in life (first only to writing...I discovered gymnastics when I was five, so before I knew how to write, you know).

well...that was a ramble-y paragraph, was it not? My mind is absolute mush at the moment. Three hours of working out + training, plus communications law readings and papers...yep (I consider this class a sign from the gods above that I should never ever ever go to law school). Oh and also, I am running on like two hours of sleep. Basically, right now is not my finest hour, but the words are just pouring out of me, so there -- I shall write this post.

so on to the actual post, right?

lessons from a 21-year-old "gymnast"

{I went on such a long tangent over there that I figured I might as well write the title down again, lest you all forget what I was talking about in the first place}

muscle memory is a powerful, powerful thing. Seriously. It's like I never left gymnastics. My body and my mind just know what to do -- it's just that I'm not quite in the right shape to execute things safely. Like at all. But that's okay. It comes with time and lots of hard work, I think.

your center of gravity shifts when you are no longer an 80 lb. 4'9" 14-year-old and you've gone through puberty/have boobs (sort of). At which point, muscle memory can go screw itself, because everything you remember is not quite as you remembered it...

4 inches? The beam's got nothing on me. Okay, not quite, but I'm surprised with how comfortable I feel doing some pretty basic stuff (jumps, turns) and not-so-basic (double stag ring jump, back foot touching my head and nearly knocking me out on several occasions) stuff on beam. I always loved beam best. Love it, love it, love it. Can't get enough of it.

...now tumbling on the beam? That's probably going to be a different story. I am praying to the gym gods that I get my tumbling back easily.

bars suck. Which is no new discovery. I also hated them as a 14-year-old, and as a 13-year-old, and as a 12-year-old, etc etc.

but bars suck even more when you have soft non-gymnast hands. Which is going to be a problem. Reason no. 349344594 why I should have never quit.

my biggest fear in life is still splitting the beam. I have no idea who that child is in that video but I just want to tell her that it gets better.

just kidding, my biggest fear in life is bailing on a back twist and landing on my head. And here's this video for comic relief/the drama factor (because my blog is very dramatic and all).

I'm happier than I've been in a long time.