Finding Our Balance

by Lauren Hopkins

  As if that’s not enough, she immediately transitions right down to the low bar, releasing her hands pretty much the second she catches the Ray half. She flips her body upside down to face the low bar, and then goes for another half twist before blindly catching. Just ridiculous. No one else in the world does either of these skills on their own let alone connected, and I know the crowd is going to explode when they see her do it.

  Normally I don’t watch routines, but this is my best friend, and she’s doing something so unbelievably fierce, I know I can’t miss it.

  She starts out well, catching her Church release skill without a single problem, and the crowd applauds politely. Then comes the combination out of nowhere…she catches the Ray half, releases, does the straddleback half, and expertly grasps the low bar, causing the crowd to actually gasp, totally shocked.

  The arena erupts into thunderous applause, but it doesn’t faze Ruby, who continues nailing big skill after big skill before sticking her dismount, a double layout with a full twist. Again, monster applause, and it’s 100% deserved.

  “Yes!” Ruby screams after her salute, fist pumping before jumping off the podium and running into Natasha’s arms for a hug. Natasha is beaming. She has no notes, no corrections, which is super rare. I hold up my hands for a double high five from Ruby, who looks like she just won a billion dollars in the lottery. I’m bananas proud of her.

  The celebration doesn’t last long; only Elise and Madison are left to compete before we have to head over to beam, and we need to use this time to mark our routines. I take a bite of the banana I keep in a Ziploc bag for a little energy boost, and find some space off to the side where I can throw my leaps and practice my acro series.

  I don’t want to see my bars score, but I’m dying to see Ruby’s, and I know it flashes when I hear the crowd go berserk. I make myself finish my routine choreo, not wanting to break my focus, and then glance up.

  15.4, and on her “worst” event. Holy crap. She is going to dominate this summer.

  ***

  On beam, I know my routine is nearly perfect but I don’t get excited until I feel my feet plant firmly on the mat. My chest is angled a tiny bit down, which will be a deduction, but it’s one of the hardest dismounts in the world and I stuck it, so I’ll let that slide even if the judges won’t.

  More hugs from Team MGMA before the focus shifts back to Ruby. I get nervous for her here, and glance down at my nails when she’s about to land her more difficult skills, but she looks great. There are pretty, fluid beam workers, and then there are the girls who are super aggressive and attack the beam like it just tried to steal their wallet. Somehow, Ruby is both.

  The arena goes wild again when she lands her dismount, and multiple cameramen track her as she leaves the podium to high five everyone in our rotation group.

  Emerson is the only one not celebrating. She sits in a middle split, listening to music and fiddling with her phone, trying to ignore Ruby’s rekindled fame. It’s gotta suck for her; Ruby’s two “weak” events are actually pretty awesome, especially in their public debuts. Emerson is basically old news now. Sure, she has her world titles, but her floor – while gorgeous and difficult – isn’t the type of routine that gets people on their feet, and vault goes by so quickly, most people miss it, especially with four events happening all at once.

  With three more beam routines to go in this rotation, I need to keep my muscles warm so my flexibility looks good on floor. My tumbling may never be anything amazing, but as long as my leaps don’t get deducted, I’m happy.

  “Good job,” Emerson says, not looking up as I slide into a split.

  I point my toes, flex, and point them again, harder the second time. “Thanks.”

  “Nervous about floor?”

  “No? I haven’t really been nervous all day.”

  “Well, good luck.”

  “Thanks, you too.”

  Great convo. Still in a split, I bend my back knee so that my toes are pointing up and lean back as far as I can until my toes graze my forehead. The switch ring in its true form…looks good on paper but throw it in the middle of a fast-paced routine, and most girls don’t get halfway to the correct position. Always good to give my muscles a reminder of how it’s supposed to look beforehand.

  Finally, Amaya finishes things up for our group on beam. She looks okay from what I can see – no falls at least – but has downgraded some skills since I last saw her do this event. Not good.

  When the rotation officially ends, we march over to floor, salute to the judges, and begin our touch warm-up. We each chuck one pass at a time, and when we’re not tumbling, we’re working leaps and choreography off to the side.

  My passes are fine, except I think with the added adrenaline from the competition, I’m getting a little bit more bounce than usual and stumble back a few steps on each.

  “Get it out of your system now!” Natasha yells-slash-threatens before we’re forced off the podium moments later.

  The competition order shifts up with each rotation, so I was fourth on bars, third on beam, and now second here. Not enough time to work myself into a full-blown panic attack over my mistakes in the warm-up, thankfully. I linger off to the side, jumping up and down to shake off the jitters and keep my mind off of everything.

  When it’s my turn I give myself one last bounce to jostle the nerves out, smile to the judges as I salute, and then slip into my opening pose. The music begins and I’m easily able to forget how rattled I was moments earlier.

  Once upon a time, I was so bad at performing on floor – not tumbling, necessarily, but expressing myself and engaging with the crowd, what’s referred to as “artistry” in the gym world – my coach had to choreograph emotions for me. No joke. I felt like a sociopath. But with a few years of practice, I’ve been able to “feeeeeeel the music!” – as Polina would scream at me – a bit better. I’m still not a natural performer but at least I don’t look like I have no soul behind my eyes.

  First up, double arabian, and I take a step forward instead of sticking. Not terrible but not great, either. I nail my triple full in the second pass, and then finish up with a double pike and a double tuck, both of which are fine, no big mistakes. But they’re also not stuck – I stepped back twice on both. For such easy passes, they should be stuck every time.

  When I come off, Natasha gives me a big hug and hands me a cold bottle of water as we walk off to the side for her notes.

  “I’m sure you already know your landings were sloppy,” she starts. “Except the triple. That was gold. I’ll give it to you this time because it’s your first time competing this routine on a podium in front of a crowd, but you have to learn to tame it, okay?”

  I nod, still out of breath.

  “Good job connecting with the crowd, though. There was one moment in your choreo where you heard applause and actually gave a genuine smile with a little head nod, and that was a little detail that comes across so huge…especially to the judges. Your dance elements were mostly on point, good extension on leaps, but I saw some little deductions there. We’ll work on it. Your landings weren’t terrible but you know that’s what sticks out in their minds, so it kind of negates the good stuff you did. But overall, I’m happy.”

  Phew. “Thanks.” She rubs my back a bit and then leaves me to recover.

  Only vault left, and it’s basically impossible for me to mess this up on a grand scale. At least I’m going to come out of this day alive, and with a pretty decent all-around score, if I had to guess.

  Ruby, done for the day, comes over to congratulate me and we watch the rest of the rotation together from our seats on the sidelines. On floor, Emerson looks good but not her best. Nothing really bad, but it’s not a standout routine, either. When you’re not doing all four events it can be super difficult to stay in the zone all meet, so with her hour of doing nothing, it’s no wonder she’s not on her game.

  Emerson is the last to go. Ruby, who doesn’t like to see her own scores in a competition
but loves checking out everyone else, glances up.

  “Have you seen the standings yet?” she asks casually as we pick up our bags and get ready to walk on to the final rotation.

  “No. Why? Don’t tell me.”

  She smiles and stands behind me in our little line. “I won’t.” But her smile says it all. I never do this. There’s so much else to focus on, but my most difficult work is behind me at this point and I seriously can’t help myself. My eyes dart up to the big screen hanging from the center of the arena and see the list of the top eight ranked going into the final rotation.

  43.5. I’m in the lead by one tenth. I try to play it cool, but I can’t force my smile away and march over to vault looking like the happiest ventriloquist dummy in the whole world.

  ***

  “This is it,” Natasha whispers, hands on my shoulders after the quick touch warm-up before vault. “It’s been a great day so far, so keep that momentum going and finish it up strong. You’ve done this vault a million times, you know what you need to do. Consider it practice. You got this.”

  I close my eyes and inhale, hold my breath for a second, and then exhale deeply. The little bell dings, signaling the end of warm-ups and the start of competition. I climb back onto the podium, wait for the signal, smile, salute, and get into position.

  My sprint is on point. I hit the table with the power I need, and then twist as fast as I possibly can, my form immaculate. I can feel the landing approaching, and I realize right as my feet hit the mat that I came in with a little too much power and twisted a little too hard.

  My body wants to keep rotating beyond the 2.5 twists but I’m no longer in the air, so that’s obviously a problem. I manage to stop myself before I over-rotate too much, but I land facing slightly to my right, and have to cross my left foot over the right to steady myself. And then my right foot steps out to the side and over the line. One-tenth penalty. Damn.

  Salute, smile, and exit the podium. All on autopilot.

  Natasha comes in for a hug but it’s a “good job” hug, not “you just killed it at your first major elite competition” hug. Had I nailed this vault, she would have run up and whisked me off the ground the way she did at level 10 nationals last year.

  “What happened?” she asks.

  “Nothing…adrenaline?” I respond, out of breath.

  “It’s okay, it was fine. It was a very strong vault, control aside. Landings are clearly your biggest problem when you get excited, and we need to harness that, okay? As soon as we get home, that’s what we need to work on.”

  I feel a lump come into my throat. I know I had a great meet and I can’t let minor mistakes ruin it, but the feeling of not having a perfect meet because I got a little too excited pisses me off. I’m not really upset about the couple of steps, but I am a little bummed about having it go so well, making everyone rally for me, and then not following through.

  My smile stays glued to my face as I hug and/or high five the rest of the girls in my rotation. I finally sit back, drain my water bottle, and wait for the score to flash.

  15.4.

  The crowd cheers, and I grin, though I’m not thrilled. 15.4 is terrific in this crazy bizarre scoring system we have now. Anything above a 15 on most events would make you one of the best in the world, but on vault a 15.4 is below average if you’re doing an Amanar. Vault is where gymnasts tend to get the least amount of deductions, because it goes by so quickly and there’s so little to it…how badly can you possibly screw it up? Even girls with falls can manage an execution in the 8.0 range.

  With a 6.3 start value and a penalty off for the step out, it means my execution is a 9.2. It’s good, but the best in the world on this vault are getting 9.6 or 9.7 execution. Those few tenths are everything, especially when I look up at the rankings after Maddy Zhang finishes floor.

  She must’ve had an incredible routine, finishing with a 15.6 to end her meet with a 59.0. I’m right behind her with a 58.9. One tenth separates us, which means had I hit my vault, I definitely would have won.

  Winning isn’t everything to me, I guess, but the thing is that I know I won’t beat Ruby or Emerson when they do the all-around at the next couple of meets. This was basically my one shot to get that all-around gold, and I blew it, which stings. Sure, I blasted past the nationals qualifying score by over five points, so that’s something to celebrate? I guess.

  I bite my nails watching the last few routines, hoping no one breaches my score, and after Irina Borovskaya finishes things off on floor, it’s settled. First place, Maddy Zhang with a 59.0, second place, drum roll, me with a 58.9, and third place, Charlotte Kessler with a 58.7.

  In the next few spots I spot Zara Morgan in fourth, and then 2015 worlds alternate Bailey Dawson in fifth, and world bars medalist Irina Borovskaya in sixth. Zara, a shy gymnast about my age, was elite last year, but only a junior, so it’s kind of cool that she and I are the two newbies beating last year’s golden girls. Well, silver girls. They only got the silver team medal at worlds. Yes, only silver. I feel your pain, ladies.

  “Congratulations!” Ruby comes running up for a big hug. Emerson, who got a 15.9 on her Amanar, trails behind her and also hugs me. “You were amazing.”

  “Thanks guys, though I have to admit I feel like I blew it.”

  “Please, it’s so close at the top right now the rankings don’t even matter. You’re all equally fantastic, so don’t let the color of your medal determine how you think you did,” Ruby advises.

  “Yeah, you guys in the top three were within three tenths of each other,” Emerson adds, somewhat surprisingly not rubbing it in. “If this competition happened again tomorrow, your spots could be completely swapped around.”

  “Thanks. Deep down I get it, but I’m probably going to be bummed for a tiny bit. Silver is the worst.”

  “You are allowed to wallow for the rest of today, and then tomorrow it’s back to fighting,” Ruby says, grabbing my shoulders and staring me in the eyes, mildly creepy but it works when she has to talk her teammates off of cliffs. “Use it as motivation for being better next time.”

  “One time I got silver and my mom custom made a t-shirt that said ‘Only Second Best.’ That was motivation enough for me,” Emerson adds with a friendly pat on the back.

  The medalists are waved over to the floor podium for the ceremony, and Natasha is already right in front with her camera, beating all of the reporters for the best spot. The 16 or so bars of music they have playing for us repeats over and over while we listen to short speeches from various people connected to the meet and I can see Natasha impatiently stomping her feet to the rhythm, which makes me smile.

  Finally, the medals come out, awarded by Vera, who shakes our hands and then places them over our heads. Her skin is papery thin but her grip is like an arm wrestler’s. I would love to see her forearm muscles.

  I lean in for a brief hug. Vera then grabs my face in both hands and whispers, “You surprised me. You are a great competitor.” I pull back, stunned, and she smiles, adding, “It’s only up the hill from here” before moving on to her next victim.

  Suddenly silver doesn’t seem so bad.

  Monday, May 16, 2016

  81 days left

  “And then there were 22,” Natasha beams.

  That’s how many of us qualified to nationals. Of the 31 at the American Open, nine didn’t reach the qualifying score of 54. You think I was being dramatic about tenths? One girl, Leah Manning, qualified by the skin of her teeth with a 54.1 and is probably on her knees thanking Nadia for remembering to keep her toes pointed or not wobbling more than she did. Then there’s poor Danielle McIntyre with a 53.9, missing out by a tenth and most likely cursing Satan for that tiny step on a dismount or not hitting a handstand quite right on bars.

  Having Sunday off after traveling and the stress of training and competing felt like a blessing from the gods. It’s not like I can kick back and eat chocolate cake for every meal, but my parents got me a little fruit bouquet and I’m not gon
na pretend I didn’t eat pretty much everything in it while watching an entire season of 30 Rock, Jack working away on his laptop at my side.