Where it begins...1

Now we are going waaaaay back here. When I was first ever introduced to gymnastics I was only three years old. So obviously I didn't know anything about it. My mother told me as i started growing up why she put me in gymnastics. As she says "you would try to do flips on your bed." So this is how I started my gymnastics journey. I started at a small place called Little Russels Gym. It was an middle aged lady that had gymnastics in her basement but with all the proper equipment. By the age of 4 I could do I forward roll on the beam. In case your wondering what a beam is, it is about 5 inches wide and you don't only have to walk on it but you also have to preform other skills. Ohh and I don't want to forget to mention that this object is off the ground the lowest are floor beams but the ones you preform on are roughly about 2 feet off the ground and then you go up from there as you get older.

This was my first show in gymnastics ever and I was super nervous. That was something I never grew out of unfortunately. Along with this being my first show as you can see in the picture I had no teacher around helping me. All of my routines preformed at this gym were completely by yourself I mean unless you where new and still learning the basics. As time went on I got better and better for my age. The year later when I was 5 years old I was working on my cartwheel on the beam and a back handspring on floor. Unfortunately I do not have picture of me doing my back handspring but boy do I wish I did. But my cartwheel on the other hand I do happen to have. Yes, it is in the same leotard that I am wearing doing my forward roll in the picture above. That's only because I didn't grow much.My time at Little Russels had to end shortly after I started learning these tougher skills. Simply because the girls in the gym said I wouldn't be able yo fit my running skills that I had to learn next in the little space I had.

Where it all begins.. part 2

My mother was super excited once I started learning what she called "big girl skills" as was I. Except when there was a little mistake that happen. My mother thought that I could do my back handspring all by myself which she may have been corrected but I didn't think so. With this she decided to spot me and her being my mother I trusted her like anyother 6 year old does and this is what happened. She said "I have you just go", so when I went I jumped right back onto my head. From that moment on after I cried a little I never bent my arms in a back handspring EVER AGAIN. I learned the hard way but guess what it was a quick lesson. I eventually went to a different gym the called Baystate Gymnastics Academy. This is where i stayed for many years but I had many other options. When I was six and a half, right before going to Baystate my mother took me to a gym called Paramount Gym in Seekonk I'm pretty sure. This was a very competitive gym and I was only really good at two of the four events. I got evaluated and they said the same thing I was really good at two but just okay on the others. Before going to that gym my mom told me that they suggested I go to another gym to train to be an individual competitor. Apparently, I was really advanced for my age and all the gyms wanted me. One day my mom got a call from some gym and they wanted me to leave school, and go train for the Olympics.

 My mom had sat me down to see how I felt about it and I said "No" looking back at it now I wish I would've said yes. I told my mom I wanted to do regular gymnastics and stay with my friends. Instead of her making me go, I got to stay with my friends. Even until this day I wonder what my life had been like if I would've said yes. How much different would my life had been? Well I will never know. But the one and only thing that stuck with my for all the years I had was that no matter how big the expectation was or how difficult the skill was as long as it was broken down into pieces and I never gave up I always achieved my goal. Oh wait one last thing, gymnastics IS A SPORT for some reason boys don't agree I just needed to make it clear!

Middle School Part 1

Oh the times when we made some friends, made some enemies, but most of all where we started to make all our memories. Back in middle school I did 3 sports it helped keep me out of trouble. Of course I did gymnastics and I also did cheer leading. Neither of which where for my school. They where outside of school activities. This is where I got to travel all over with my gymnastics team. I was in 6th grade the first time I wasn't on the baby team and actually got to go away with the rest of the team. So it was a very exciting year. I got to go travel to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indianapolis. The biggest competition was in Indianapolis we had to have special passes to be able to walk onto the floor. One of the coolest things I remember from being there was that there was a place called "Ohop" it was the "Original House of Pancakes" and let me tell you those pancakes melted right in your mouth. It was heavenly I couldn't believe it. On the other hand my team went against 25 other teams if I can remember correctly.

My team got 2nd place the first place team was from Alaska. I remember us saying that "they only won because they had to practice a lot to stay warm." 

Middle School Part 2

This was a great year and I loved traveling. Actually, at our Pennsylvania meet I had fractured my big toe in three different spots. I did this one week before the meet. I was so upset I thought I was gonna let my team down because I was the person who would stick the landings on the vault. They ended up letting me compete and I poured my heart into every event because I was fortunate enough to participate. One thing that my coaches told me still makes me laugh to this day. They said "Abby what do you do if you toe starts bleeding?" I turned to them and said "I keep going and smile" they said "that's how we know your dedicated to your team. They were so scared for me to do the events because in case you didn't know gymnastics is a sport that you need to be on your toes for and like I said before I had fractured my big toe so they were just a little concerned

Overall, the first year I had with the travel team was awesome and I still remember a decent amount considering it was about  ummmm nine to ten years ago.

High School part 1

Okay, here we go lets go back to my freshman of high school. This is where my gymnastics career had to come to an end, but not completely. Starting my freshman year of high school I decided I wanted to be a cheer leader. Now.... I have been a cheer leader before but I haven't gotten to that yet. One of the main reasons I chose to cheer in high school was because even though it wasn't gymnastics it had gymnastics in it. So there I was a freshman cheerleader in high school, some could call it a dream, some could call it not a sport but, to me it was the starting of my many memories. The best part about being on the cheer team that I didn't know about was we actually had to take gymnastics classes at Bays State which couldn't have been any better. I got to go back and see all of my friends and coaches and do the sport I loved.

High school part 2

The only part about being a cheerleader that I had to get used to was not tumbling on a spring floor because as much as I didn't think it helped me, it really did. I loved to cheer in high school, unfortunately I had a terrible coach for the next season so I left. What's even worse than that was she was the coach for the next two years so, I only got to cheer my freshman year and my senior year. In my opinion those are the best years of high school that's when you make most of your memories. Throughout the years I would go watch the games and still talk to the girls on the team so it wasn't so bad, I still watched them grow. During my senior year the school had hired a new coach, I absolutely LOVED her. She was one of the best coaches I had in my cheering life. At times she was very strict but if you listened she loved you and everything was great.

 She did pick favorites and that caused a little bit of a mess on the team but people got over it. I was honored and became captain my senior year. If I could go back and do it all over again I would. I only know a few of the girls on the team now because I've been out of high school for almost three years but I still go watch them compete. The best thing about being a captain was being looked up to by not only the underclassmen but by the coaches as well. At the end of my senior year I had a freshman girl come up to me on one of my last days of school, this girl brought tears to my eye and made me feel like I did my job as a captain. She told me that I was "the best captain she had ever had for any sport and I was easy to talk to and I didn't treat the freshman with disrespect just because they where freshman. I gave everyone a chance to talk and most of all when making corrections to certain things I wasn't mean and snappy about it, I explained what was wrong and how to fix it. And that I was someone she looked up to." With this being said I went back to there first competition of football season to surprise the girls. This one girl was so excited to see me it brought tears to her eyes. I will never forget her or my experience of cheer leading throughout high school. Most of all it makes me happy to think that if I didn't stop gymnastics to try something new would this have happened? Would I have made these decisions? Most importantly if I had kept with gymnastics would I now be teaching it?

Coaching part 1

Well seeing how I don't do gymnastics as much as I use to I'll start with the most recent things and go backwards throughout my blogs. I work at a gym called Bay State Gymnastics Academy and I have been apart of there staff for almost two years, but I have been with them for over 16 years. Being a coach in my eyes is just as much fun as doing gymnastics. I enjoy helping the kids achieve new skills that they could never do, watching them get super excited and knowing they could've never done it if it wasn't for me is just great. It's like watching other people open the presents you got them on Christmas and seeing there reactions.

Not only am I teaching them how to do tricks I'm teaching them life lessons about confidence and self discipline.