Finding Our Balance
Lauren Hopkins
Cover art by Sarah Hopkins
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2015 Lauren Hopkins
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Thursday, April 14, 2016
113 Days Left
“Team pressure sets! In your training groups! Everyone hits or no one hits! Repeat!”
I’m gulping down water after a warm-up that felt like a Navy SEAL boot camp. I would kill for an ice bath and ibuprofen right about now, but the day’s not even close to over. When I glance over my shoulder, the other 29 girls at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Training Center are already lined up across the floor at attention. “Everyone hits or no one hits,” they yell in unison. Lined up from smallest to tallest, arms at their sides, they look like soldiers ready to march into battle.
That’s kind of how this place feels. Like a war zone. And we’re about to tear each other to pieces.
Vera Malkina, the national team head coach, looks over at me disapprovingly. She’s pushing 70, but is still athletic enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see her whip out a floor routine and kick my ass while doing it. I suck at floor.
Confession – I’m terrified of her. But I’m also obsessed. When I was in middle school I spent basically all of my free time looking up her old routines on YouTube. As a gymnast, Vera competed at four Olympic Games in a row – first with the Soviet Union and then with the United States – before retiring to become a coach. She opened a gym in Wisconsin with her husband, and they coached their own daughter Natasha – now my personal coach – to six Olympic medals of her own.
They are gymnastics royalty. I’ve been training at Natasha’s gym, the Malkina Gold Medal Academy, for four years and this is my third invite to the training center, but I’ll never stop feeling like a giggly six-year-old in Vera’s presence.
“Hurry up, get in line!” Vera bellows as everyone scrambles out of their warm-ups and over to the six balance beams. The practice beams are regulation height, but one end of the row faces a big foam pit where we land dismounts, giving our ankles and knees a break.
The training rotation groups form, but I’m clueless, like I’ve just crawled out of a deep and drooly nap. I try to remember where I'm supposed to go, and when that doesn’t work, I pretend to be busy with my hair, winding my honey brown ponytail into a neat bun at the top of my head while secretly eyeing the teams forming.
Finally, dead center, there’s my group – three tiny juniors who look nauseous with fear and then Maddy Zhang, the 2015 world champion on vault.
“You’re going last,” Maddy says I as I jog over. “You better not fall, or we all have to go again.”
I roll my eyes. I’ve only been at “the farm” – what everyone calls the training center, partly because it’s a working Wisconsin dairy farm but mostly because the press likes to compare it to old Soviet collective farms where life was so brutal not everyone survived – for less than 72 hours but I’m pretty much over the attitudes.
The juniors steadily make their way through their routines. Not bad, but easy, I can’t help thinking. Level 10 acro and basic leaps and turns, but hey, at least no one falls.
Maddy’s older and her routine is a lot more difficult, though she has absolutely zero grace or flow to her movements, making her look like a drunk toddler as she goes from skill to skill. Still, her dismount is one of the hardest in the world – an arabian double front, same as mine. Even though she only lands it into the pit, I know her punch off the end of the beam and the quick rotation of her flips are more than good enough for her to land it on a hard surface.
Maddy actually squeals and claps for herself before climbing out of the pit. I make a face, but inside I’m freaking out. I know she’s been working super hard on this routine and it’s one of the most difficult sets in the country, but beam’s my thing, so yeah, I’m anxious. If by some miracle I do make it to the Olympics, it’ll be for this event.
As I wait for Maddy to get over herself so I can have my turn, I notice Vera’s eyes are glued on me from across the gym. No pressure.
Natasha signals for me to start. I give the springboard a good bounce before going into my press handstand mount, biting the inside of my cheek because it focuses me. That, and repeating the name of each skill rhythmically in my head as I do them. Concentrating on a beat keeps my mind from wandering, and before long, I’m so zen, the world melts completely away and I can do anything.
“Back-hand-SPRING-back-hand-SPRING-lay-OUT,” my brain punches out each piece, emphasizing the last syllable of each skill as I land them. “Dou-ble-TURN, side-aer-i-AL-o-no-DI, sheep-JUMP-Yang-BO…”
From start to finish, it’s perfect – clean form, fluid connections, and most importantly, zero wobbles. I know the dismount won’t be a problem, especially with the safety of landing in the pit, but I don’t dare change my ritual. I close my eyes, inhale deeply, picture myself finishing perfectly, exhale, open my eyes, and then do it for real.
No one applauds, because that’s not how things are done at the farm. But the gym is dead silent, and I know I’ve made an impression. I let myself sink into the foam blocks for a second to hide my smile before pulling myself out and dusting off the chalk.
Vera is staring at me, and she looks…angry? No. Inquisitive. Curious. Her eyes narrow, her lips purse, and she takes a second to gather her thoughts before slapping her hand on her clipboard.
“Every group except the team at beam D had falls,” she announces in her Russian accent, still thick despite her thirty years in the U.S. “Terrible. Disastrous. Do you expect to win Olympic gold if you can’t hit your events? What are you waiting for? Get started, full routines! Beam D, you can practice dismounts, ten each.”
“What a great prize,” Maddy scowls from the mat, where she sits casually in a split.
We line up again and do dismount after dismount. Vera’s eyes are on me for every last one.
***
“Four full beam sets. Four. Because of that idiot junior Sarah Flannery. How did she even get an invite? Vera’s on crack.”
I pick out Emerson Bedford’s voice from across the room. My eyes scan the dining hall until I spot the tall (shut up, 5’3” is tall in our world), rail-thin, 18-year-old blonde in front of the serving trays, wrinkling her nose at tonight’s dinner of rubbery grilled chicken and soggy vegetables.
“Uhhh, Sarah didn’t need an invite? She was the junior champion last year?”
That would be my best friend and training partner Ruby Spencer, who at 19 is a little older than your average elite gymnast. Ruby was a former junior star pegged to win the 2012 Olympic all-around gold medal until she tore her Achilles just months before the Games.
After three years of toying with a comeback, she returned to competition last summer, but she wasn’t mentally ready. The press called her “tragic” and “washed-up” so naturally, she decided to get revenge by getting in the best shape of her life. Typical Ruby.
“It’s so cute when Emerson bitches about girls who weren’t even born when she was starting level four,” Ruby, a dead-ringer for Misty Copeland with her mocha skin and long dark hair, says to me, but loudly enough for everyone in the state of Wisconsin to hear. “Oh, did I say cute? I meant mind-blowingly obnoxious.”
I laugh, but stop when Emerson glances my way. Emerson is a spoiled, selfish, entitled snob, but she also won nationals four years in a row, is a back-to-back world all-around champion, has a Gatorade sponsorship, and went to her prom last year with the guy who quit One Direction. I can’t stand her, but up until a year ago, I worshipped her. Like, posters from Gymnastics Insider magazine covered my bedroom wall from floor to ceiling. Bitch or not, I kind of want her approval.
“You were shockingly really good,” Emerson says, making her way over to our table with Maddy, her sidekick.
It somehow sounds more like a threat than a compliment, but I’ll take what I can get. I almost choke on my water, something Emerson definitely notices, smirking her trademark half-smile that somehow looks condescending and friendly at the same time.
“My coach said your start value on beam is like, a 6.9 or something. That’s like, China-good. What’s your name?”
“Amalia. Blanchard.” I don’t even bother asking Emerson’s name, and Emerson doesn’t bother offering. We both know I already know.
“You know we have the same beam dismount, right?”
“Actually,” I start, and I take a split second to debate telling her, but my mouth is moving faster than my brain, “this is really funny but when I decided to go elite, we were trying to figure out what my upgrades would be and I said I didn’t care as long as I got to do a Patterson dismount because that’s what you did. That’s why I also do the press mount, and the Onodi…my coach totally didn’t think I’d be able to hit a routine that hard, but I wanted to because of you, so I worked really hard and it’s finally coming together…”
Ruby snorts laughing, cutting my word vomit short. My face is 50 shades of hot pink, which I’m not embarrassed to know is Emerson’s favorite color. I definitely went too far. Emerson smirks again, and I know she’s totally unfazed by people losing their minds in her presence.
“That’s so cute,” she says, like she’s talking to a three-year-old messing up the alphabet. “Can’t wait to see your full routines in verification.” Again, it sounds like a threat.
“Yeah, can’t wait,” Maddy echoes as the two head to the TV lounge to eat – forbidden, unless you’re Emerson and can do whatever you want.
Ruby is still laughing.
“You literally freaked out,” she spits out between giggles. “Look at me. I have tears coming out of my eyes!”
I want to stab myself with a fork. “Do you think she hates me?”
“Mal, I’ve known Emerson for like, six years. She definitely hates you. She hates everyone who’s not her.”
“Whatever, I don’t care, but seriously, do you think I creeped her out?”
“You definitely creeped her out. You sounded like a rescue dog trying to get adopted.”
“You’re the worst.” But I start to laugh because I know she’s right.
“Whatever,” she says, picking up our trays. “She probably forgot about your entire existence the second she walked away, so don’t sweat it. And if she does hate you, you can always hang my posters on your walls and copy my routines and obsess over me. Now let’s watch Teen Moms and be thankful our lives are at least somewhat under control.”
***
My entire body melts into the mattress at lights out. It’s springy and hard and probably a hundred years old, but it feels like a pool of feathers to my battered and exhausted muscles. Everything hurts and I’m dying. But as desperate as I am to relax, my mind is absolutely not letting me.
At 15, I should be spending my nights sneaking out of the house through my bedroom window, sexting my crush, cyber bullying my classmates…that’s how teenagers behave, right? I’m secretly, like, forty. I seriously can’t even picture what normal people my own age do with their lives.
I’m not a normal 15-year-old. I am an elite athlete who eats, breathes, and sleeps gymnastics, with every ounce of energy and focus spent trying to reach my goal of making it to the Olympics. I wake up, work out, go to school, work out, do homework, and go to bed. On the weekends, swap school with sitting in an ice bath and binge-watching entire TV seasons. What a life.
But aside from the whole “one of the best gymnasts in the country” thing, my life is painfully average. I have great parents with good jobs who own a three-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood just outside of Seattle. I get good grades, my friends are fantastic, I’ve never had a boyfriend, and no one has ever peer pressured me into doing drugs. Not even cigarettes! Fifth grade health class was a lie.
I started gymnastics when I was four. Back then my coaches at the YMCA didn’t even want me to compete, because even though I picked up on skills quickly, the second I had to show my stuff in front of parents or other kids, I froze. So I was a rec kid, basically there to play on the trampoline a few times a week, something my parents loved because I’d pass out from exhaustion the second I got home.
Eventually, one of the coaches said they might as well add me to the level 4 competition roster. Chalk it up to a slow year. At seven, most of the kids starting out at that level were a year younger than me, but I had all of the required skills down, and my parents thought performing in front of a crowd would help me build confidence. I was terrible at first, falling at almost every meet, but I picked up on skills faster than anyone and moved up quickly through the levels.
I’m still a nervous wreck at competitions, but with my little mind games I can trick myself into hitting my routines even if my heart feels like it’s being strangled to death. At ten, I won my division of level 9 national championships, and that’s when my YMCA coaches told me to move on. I was the most advanced gymnast they’d ever had and they didn’t want me to hold me back. They helped me find the Malkina Gold Medal Academy, aka MGMA, aka where I now spend 98% of my time.
It’s been almost five years since the move, and Natasha has taken me to levels I never thought possible. When it came time to make the decision to go elite – the hella intense level that puts you on track to go to the Olympics – I didn’t think I had what it took, but Natasha believed in me. Cheesy, but true.
Okay, so I failed at qualifying last year. Failed? More like fell apart entirely when tasked with performing insane levels of difficulty for the first time. But what can you do? Push it to the back of your mind. Work harder. Get better. Everyone here thinks I only got invited to the farm this year because my coach is Vera’s daughter, but I’ve worked my butt off. I know I deserve to be here. And tomorrow’s my time to prove it.
Friday, April 15, 2016
112 Days Left
It’s verification day. I scream into my towel while waiting for the shower water to heat up.
Verification…it’s like a competition, but in a training gym at the farm in front of the other gymnasts, their coaches, and the national team staff instead of in a giant arena in front of thousands of people and broadcast on network television.
Yet somehow, verification is scarier.
Vera watches us at competitions, but with so much going on at once, her focus isn’t as laser-sharp as it is when we compete one at a time at the farm. Also, crowds cheering and the general noise in an arena is basically like white noise for gymnasts, helping us stay in the zone. The silence at the farm makes 90 seconds on beam feel endless.
It’s all part of Vera’s evil genius, I know. Vera uses the time at the farm to weed out those who can’t hack it under the most intense pressure imaginable. What better way to do this than expect you to perform mistake-free with the best gymnasts and coaches in the country silently judging you?
After a hot shower and a breakfast of yogurt, granola, and fruit, Natasha brings me and Ruby into the gym for a little meeting before warm-ups.
“Trust me,” she starts. “I know my mother. I know what she’s looking for. If you want to make the Olympic team, you have to hit today. The Open, nationals, trials…none of them mean a thing if you lose your cool at verification. You have the skills. You have the talent. You have the mental game. If you’re ner
vous, pretend you’re not. Body language is key. Don’t let the competition know you’re nervous. Make them think this is just a preschool rec class to you. It’s child’s play. You’re above it all. If you do decide to make a mistake, fight like hell. Even if you can’t save it, show that you’re a fighter. And yes, I get it. You’re under a ton of pressure, everyone’s watching…but think of it as practice. Your biggest enemy here is your own mind, so shut it off, focus on your rhythm, and hit your routines. And have fun.”
Finding Our Balance Page 1