by Lucia Franco
Hayden laughed and I felt myself loosening up. “I don’t think he means it in that sense. I think he just wants you to change your way of thinking to a safer route that will have a lasting effect. Think outside the box. He said similar things to Reagan from what I’m told. And I only know this because my sister told me one night. I’ve seen what he’s capable of, and it’s big things.”
I nodded, taking in what he said. Interesting that he worked with Reagan. A light breeze blew the unruly strands of hair that had fallen loose from my ponytail across my face and I pushed them aside.
Hayden grew serious. “Don’t be afraid to question things, but also trust your coach would never do anything to put you at risk. He can be Captain Dick Head when he wants to be, but have a little faith in what he’s capable of doing. You wouldn’t be here if he didn’t think you could do it.”
I sighed and took another sip of my coffee. His encouraging words helped. So much was up in the air, I wasn’t sure what to think. I wanted so much in so little time. “You’re right.”
He ate the last bite of his sandwich and rubbed his hands together. “When do you work with him again?”
I shrugged, looking around. “I have no idea. I guess when he has time. But God, Hayden. The silence was so strange. He was up close and stretching me and shit.” Hayden smiled, his blue eyes twinkling, and I found myself smiling in return. Oddly, his presence unruffled my feathers. “I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Do I say anything? What did Holly do when she did this?”
“Holly didn’t have to do any extra conditioning.” My shoulders dropped, along with my self-confidence. Hayden sat up taller. “She didn’t have to do what you’re doing because we’ve been at this gym for many years, since we were kids, so she’s already accustomed to its ways.”
I pursed my lips together. He had a point.
“Why don’t you ask Reagan how her sessions went? She worked with him for a while.”
“I have a sinking suspicion she doesn’t like me, so no.”
Hayden looked toward the sky as if he was lost in thought. “Listen,” he said, leaning forward and looking me square in the eyes. “Don’t stress about the small shit. It won’t mean anything in the end. Focus on what’s important, the big picture. Your love of gymnastics. Just do you and you’ll be okay.”
Taking a deep breath, I expelled it and smiled. “I think that’s exactly what I need to do.”
Kova sighed, dragging a tired hand down his face. Doubling my hours and adapting to a new coach proved to be much more daunting than I expected. I’d been to hell since starting this new journey.
And stayed there.
No matter how much I tried, no matter how much effort I put into training, it was never enough for Kova. He could at least give me a little credit so I knew he saw my effort.
“Adrianna,” he said, curling the r. “Why are you holding the bar like that? What the hell did they teach you at that damn gym?” He mumbled to himself in what sounded almost like disgust. My brows bunched together. Every day he had something negative to say. At first I tried to ignore his little comments, but the more he said them, the more aggravated I became. My old gym wasn’t shit. It was good, I just outgrew it.
Kova jumped off the blue spotting box and grabbed my wrist, pulling me to the lower bar. “Hang on here.”
Confused, I looked at him. “I don’t understand.”
One brow arched perfectly. I hated when he did that. “What do you not get? Hang on to the bar and pick your feet up. Now.”
Shaking my head, I obliged, as always, and looked past my arm up at him. My knees were bent, scraping the mat while I waited for him to speak. Coach shook his head, looking dumbfounded at my hands.
I was beyond puzzled.
“Are you not gripping the bar correctly?” he questioned.
“What?”
Kova touched my fingers to answer my question. “You are resting your fingers on your grips, not gripping the actual bar correctly. It is incredible you can even hang on. Do your wrists hurt?”
I stood and let go of the bar, rubbing my wrists. I learned to block out the pain long ago.
“All the time.” In fact, I could use some Motrin right now.
“You are barely holding the bar.”
Mystified, he took my wrist into his hands and began removing my dowel grip by unwinding the Velcro. The grips helped execute high velocity maneuvers during swings that were followed by releasing and catching the bar.
Kova held the slightly tattered grip in front of his face. “This is dangerous, you need new grips. I trust you have more?”
“Yes.” Of course I had more grips. I just liked this pair because they were worn in.
“Good. You should know better than to use this.” He dropped it to the floor, along with the worn out wrist guards before moving onto the tape.
“There is no need for so much tape,” he said, more to himself than to me. “No one even does this anymore. Then again, if you were doing it right, you would not need this.”
As much I loved removing the tape after a long, rigorous bar training, I wasn’t very happy about it coming off since I still had practice time left on this apparatus. It took time to cut the holes and place my fingers through them properly. There were layers upon layers of athletic tape to protect my hands from rips and tears. He pulled off each strand until my hand was bare.
Turning my wrist over to inspect it, Kova hissed at the sight before him. His fingers gently ran over my tender flesh, like feathers dancing erotically over me. Even though I used pre-wrap to prevent the adhesive from sticking to me, my skin was still as bright as a tomato with indentations and outlines. I wrapped it tightly every time, and once my wristbands were on, I wrapped more around them. I used an insane amount, but it got the job done. It helped to keep my wrists straight and locked to give me support. It’s what I’d always done in the past and no one had ever said anything.
Kova held my wrist in his hand while he laced his long fingers through mine with his other hand. His palm kissed mine, his long fingers draping over my knuckles. Our hands locked together for a moment before he tenderly pulled on my knuckles, squeezing them as he did. He repeated the gesture and my heart skipped a beat at his skilled touch. God, it felt good. Incredibly good. My hands were overworked and dried out, they ached on a daily basis, but the feel of him massaging my fingers was heavenly and I almost sighed out loud. My entire body relaxed and I almost prayed he wouldn’t stop.
There wasn’t a part on my body that wasn’t sore on a continual basis since I started at World Cup. I ached in places I didn’t even know possible. A full body massage was something I needed to consider after this.
Glancing up from our entwined fingers, I found Kova observing me. I couldn’t decipher what he was thinking as he stared down through thick lashes, his eyes unwavering. I focused on his lips, the fullness that begged me to wonder how soft they would feel pressed to mine. Heat rose to my cheeks and I flushed before him. His hand was much larger than mine, his fingers showing dexterity. He knew exactly how to manipulate my wrist and how to stretch my hand out gently, but with force, pulling on my fingers and then rotating my wrist, making it feel damn near euphoric.
Carefully, he bent my palm back, working it out in circles, flexing it. I stepped closer to him and my fingers curled around his fisted knuckles, lightly holding on to him. His presence dominated the air surrounding us. Why that made my heart race faster, I wasn’t sure. Taking a chance, I naturally added a little more weight to my fingers so I could feel him move under my touch.
There was a slight pop and I swallowed, hiding the twinge of pain.
“Did that hurt?” he asked.
“A little bit, but it’s nothing I’m not used to.”
“Pushing through the pain is a sure fire way to sustain an injury.”
Kova moved my hand to the side, but this time, he held my elbow so I couldn’t bend my arm. His fingers pressed into my skin. I dipped to ease some of the pressure,
but he shook his head.
“You are straining your wrists hanging the way you do. Since you are not gripping the bar properly, all your weight is balancing here.” He shook my wrist with his thumb and forefinger. “It makes complete sense now why you use so much tape, you are trying to avoid excess movement. If we do not train you the correct way to hold the bar, you will retire much sooner than you want. Just another bad habit I need to break you of.”
“Of course I’m gripping the bar properly. How else would I hold on?”
He shook his head. “You do not understand. You are holding on, but not completely. It is like a lazy hold, you are resting your fingers on the dowel instead of gripping it. When you swing and pivot around the bar, you are pulling and tugging on the ligaments inside your wrists, and the bones are under a lot more stress than needed. We need to rectify this fast.”
Coach removed my other grip and tape and worked out my left wrist just as he did with my right. He was gentle with me, his face softening to concern as he worked.
After a few more minutes of tending to my sore muscles, Coach said, “Get back up there.”
I reached down for my grips but he stepped on them.
“I need my grips.”
“You will do it without them.”
My mouth popped open in shock. “But, I’ll get rips.”
He shrugged like it was nothing. “Then you will learn real fast how to grip the bar correctly. Trust me, you will perform better in the long run.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Never, had I ever, heard of a coach training like this. No one took away a gymnast’s protective gear.
No one except Coach Kova.
His mesmerizing eyes bore into mine, his features turning hard, showing me just how little he was kidding. I got the impression he was going to enjoy the pain he knew I was about to endure. The only thing I could figure was he learned it from his previous coaches in Russia.
I was starting to understand just how unconventional Russian coaching could be.
“Look at my face, Adrianna. Does it look like I am kidding? I do not care if it takes you hours and your hands are bleeding. You will grip that bar the right way,” he emphasized the word with a sneer.
In that moment, I’d come to the conclusion Coach Kova was a closet lunatic. It was the only plausible explanation for his ridiculous training techniques. My hands were about to take a serious beating.
I shook my head in utter disbelief and walked to the chalk bowl. “Am I allowed to use chalk, Coach?” I asked in a heightened voice. He was being such a dick.
When he dipped his chin, I picked up a bottle of honey laying at my feet and squeezed a pile onto my palm, then smashed my hands together to help spread the sticky substance. Honey would create friction and a rough grip on the bars. Since Kova was already under my skin and I was sweating, I applied a hefty amount of powdered chalk next. A sweaty bar could cause me to slip and seeing as I wasn’t allowed to use my grips, I didn’t want to take a chance. I even used a chunky broken piece of chalk and ran it roughly across the back of my knuckles where the honey clumped together and then said a little prayer.
Clenching my jaw, I stood in front of the bar locking eyes with Kova. I stared hard, letting him see my irritation, not giving two fucks whether he liked it or not.
He pointed to me. “That look in your eyes? That is what I want to see. That is the kind of digging deep and pulling from within I was talking about when you first came here,” he added, building a fire within me. “That is what I want to see!” As much as I hated him at the moment, I knew he was right. He was only trying to show me the correct way.
I swung into a kip then used my feet to stand on the low bar, jumping to the high bar. Chalk dust floated in the air, and I closed my eyes for a brief second and held my breath. The amount of chalk I inhaled on a daily basis couldn’t be good for my health.
“Legs together!” he yelled as I did a pike kip and moved into a handstand. They fucking were together!
Of course, I didn’t actually say that.
A free hip circle into a handstand, I took a deep breath and swung down to do a Gienger, a release with a half twist flying over the bar in a slight pike position, my legs bent at my hips so I was in an L position. Coming back to a handstand, I swung again, this time into a blind change right before moving into a straddle back. I grasped the bar harder than I normally did out of fear of falling, the burn began to resonate through my skin with all the twisting and releasing I’d already done. Kind of like when you wore a pair of high heels for the first time and the back of your feet weren’t used to the friction. It was that kind of burn.
The tips of my fingers weren’t used to holding and sliding against the bar this way. I’d have blisters by the end of this ludicrous form of training for sure.
A toe shoot to high bar, to a handstand pirouette. Giant to another pirouette and I reversed my grip. My Jaeger was coming up next, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Coach move to spot me. Even though it was normal for coaches to step in, fear streamed through my belly for a split second because there was always a chance anything could happen. My heart jumped into my throat as I mentally prepared for the fast paced bar release. It was now or never. And as much as I loved doing it, it terrified me each time.
Releasing the bar, it ricocheted loudly as I flipped up and forward into a pike position, the muscles in my hamstrings pulled tight while I reached for the high bar. This move would’ve been easier if I did it in a straddle position, but I liked the challenge of the pike.
You know, to make my life harder than it already was.
At least I’d get a bonus point for added difficulty.
Coming down, I gripped the bar as tight as possible, my palms began to really burn. I clutched it so forcefully the chalk had worn off and I wished for my grips, cursing Kova to hell at the same time. My bare skin rolled and pulled against the bar, but it hadn’t ripped yet. It’d blister first before it actually tore open. The pain was like road rash, your hands grinding down on asphalt as you slid across the ground. All I had left were a few more releases and then the dismount. I was good to go.
Once I landed, I looked back at Coach, unable to stop the smug grin on my face. Bars was all about hitting handstands and perfect lines, and it felt like mine were on point. Surprisingly, the routine was actually really good. I had more control than usual. I did my release moves well and landed my full-in dismount, a full-twisting double back tuck.
My smile faltered after mood-killer Coach looked at me. He stood there stone-faced and expressionless.
“I think I actually perform better without my grips,” I said confidently, and rubbed my hands roughly together, trying to ease the sting.
He shrugged, unimpressed. “We will see how you feel about that after you do it ten, fifteen more times.”
I was stunned into silence.
He pointed with his head. “Back up. And Adrianna?”
I looked up in the middle of coating my hands with more chalk. “Yes?”
“Straighten your knees in your Jaeger. They were slightly bent when you reached for the bar. That is a deduction. You need to extend yourself, elongate your torso, and do not bend your arms.” He stepped to me and pressed my shoulders back, and used his hand as an example to lengthen my torso. “Everything you need is already inside here.” He tapped his temple. “Prove to me you want it.”
Tight lipped, I nodded. I had dug deep, and really did try. I’d worked my ass off to prove myself worthy.
“And point your toes. Flexed feet are ugly.”
I have ugly feet. Got it.
“Your elbows were bent in numerous places, it was sloppy looking. Tighten it up.”
There went my confidence. And here I thought I did well. Nevertheless, I sucked it up and didn’t say a word. Not like I could do or say much else anyway.
“Did you even spot?”
Of course I did.
“Hit your handstands in your cast.”
I swallowed back the climbing tears.
“You need to hold that handstand perfectly straight before swinging down in the overshoot. I have some drills you can do to get those lines. You want to test elite...” he muttered to himself before switching over to Russian.
I fucking hated the sight of Coach Kova right now.
WITH CHALK COVERING my thighs and hands, I performed my routine more than a dozen times before practicing the skills individually.
I asked for my grips—only for Kova to deny me. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped when he said no. I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t let me use them. He was beyond delusional. Surely he realized inflicting this kind of torture on my hands would render them useless tomorrow.
Unless he just didn’t care and expected me to train just as much.
Dear God, I prayed he wouldn’t.
I moved onto my dismount with Coach spotting to give me a tad bit more height.
“Tighten up.”
“Wrong!”
“Do it again.”
“No, no, no, stop doing that.”
“Just go for it! What are you waiting for?”
And when he was really fired up, he spat in Russian.
There was always something for him to gripe about. Kova was hardly satisfied, but today he acted like he was the one who slammed his shins on the bars. I was pretty sure there’d be a handful of black and blues blooming beneath my skin by morning. His entire focus had been on me at one point, perfecting my every move. He’d shown me numerous ways to correct my positions, his hands lingering a little longer each time, which I couldn’t help but notice. He had the rest of the team do conditioning in between working with Madeline. While I appreciated his keen eye and wouldn’t change a thing since he was making me better, in this moment, I despised it.