Finding Our Balance

by Lauren Hopkins

  But now, back to square one. Training in the gym resumes as if nothing is different, the American Open feels like it didn’t even happen, and we have bigger goals to attack.

  “This week is all about the three C’s,” Natasha goes on. “Consistency, control, and…competitivity. Is that a word? Competitiveness? Being competitive. I know we just competed five seconds ago, but nationals are three weeks away. Only twelve will continue on in the hopes of becoming America’s next top…gymnast to compete at Olympic Trials.”

  Oh my God, this is the weirdest pre-practice speech we’ve ever had. I’m guessing Natasha had several long hours of nothing but margaritas and Tyra Banks on her day off.

  “The cutoff is twelve athletes? I thought it was a score cutoff.” Ruby butts in.

  “Yes, twelve total, unless Vera changes her mind but I doubt any of you will have a hard time making it. If you hit, that is, which is why we’re going to work these routines to death so you’re hitting them every single time without wobbling or falling.”

  Sergei steps in with a list. “I have the results from the Open, and based on how other girls are doing, you ladies would probably make the cutoff if it was six. But it’s close. If I had to guess, I’d say the lowest all-around score we’ll see making it in is probably around 57. At this rate you’d each need to fall twice to score that low, so we’re not worried, but at the same time we want you in the top half of the top twelve. Just to be safe.”

  I feel a little more confident knowing this, and I know I can make top six even with Ruby and Emerson in the all-around. But it’s gonna be close. I’ll definitely be borderline in that group.

  “Okay, Emerson, go with your coach, Ruby…just go through routines with Polina, and Polina, do something like…have her start over if she makes a mistake or something, you know what to do. Amalia, you’re my special project.”

  Natasha smiles and I grimace. This is going to be a killer workout.

  “So, we know your problem,” she starts. “Adrenaline. You have too much of it in competition, and that’s hard to prepare for. Even if I bring in the rec kids to watch you, it’s not the same as doing this live in front of a huge crowd on national TV. I don’t want to tell you to under-rotate your tumbling in practice with the hopes of your adrenaline carrying you through in competition because it’s dumb to rely on adrenaline alone. What if you’re not feeling it? You’re screwed.”

  I have no idea where this is going. I yawn without thinking. I miss my bed. And my fruit bouquet.

  “Basically, we’re going to prepare for the worst. We’re going to over-rotate everything so your body can get used to how that feels and we’re going to train your body to find the landing even if you do come in with a bit too much power. Make sense?”

  “So I’m just going to be doing my passes but with too much power?”

  “Yes. We’ll use the tumble track into the pit at first so you don’t wreck your legs on landings…your body and muscle memory will still get the sense of how it feels to be over-rotated so you’ll be able to recognize it mid-pass. Then we’ll try a few on the floor, doing it how it’s supposed to be done and then giving yourself a bit too much power so you pick up on the difference. You might not be able to stick an over-rotated pass, but we’ll at least get them to the point where you won’t stumble them back either. Controlled lunge is the name of the game.”

  I actually like this idea. A lot. The last thing I want to do at nationals is stumble back so far I sit the pass and count a fall.

  “What about the Amanar?” I ask. “Should I practice over-rotating that as well?”

  She thinks for a moment. “I feel like that was more of a fluke. Like you knew you were about to win the meet and so you tried to go out with a bang. I’m not as worried. You’re usually solid there and I don’t want to mess with a good thing.”

  She totally knows I looked at the scores before doing vault, and I hadn’t thought of it before but now it makes perfect sense. Looking at the rankings between rotations, seeing myself in first place, wanting the win – that’s a hundred percent why I went in too hard.

  “So, no more counting our chickens before they hatch,” she adds knowingly, a small smile on her lips. “And besides, your score on vault was still decent. Your floor score in comparison is pretty abysmal. If we clean up your landings there it’s going to add close to a point.”

  I run over to the tumble track and bounce a little before getting into place. We try a double back first because it’s the easiest for me, and I don’t even have to really give it any extra power; the trampoline does it for me, and I feel myself rotating past the point where I’m supposed to land. If I were going onto a mat instead of in the pit, I’d be on my back right now begging for ice.

  We repeat this drill a few times, until I have a decent awareness of my over-rotated body position in the air. Then we move to the floor. “Push harder than you normally would, and then slow your rotation on the second flip,” Natasha yells from the other side of the springy square. “Make sense?”

  “Yep.” Deep breath, then I go. I give myself way too much of a punch off the floor out of the back handspring, can tell in the air that it’s too much, and then try to curb it, but I curb too much and end up with my chest down and a step forward, which is probably worse deduction-wise than taking the steps back. If you under-rotate a pass, it shows the judges you don’t have enough power to do the skill, which also adds killer deductions.

  “Good job,” Natasha says. “We’ll find that happy medium.”

  “My thing is like…this is easy because I’m planning to give myself too much rotation so I know before I go that I’m going to stop myself. I don’t think mid-competition it’s going to be easy to realize in the split second I’m in the air that I’m rotated too far back.”

  “Right, but based on how you did this weekend, the adrenaline is probably going to carry you over so you’ll still be able to plan for it. We’ll have to take it as the day comes. If you’re warming up with too much power we’ll have some idea what to expect in competition and we can go from there.”

  It’s a decent plan, but still not fine-tuned enough for my need to have everything planned and ready to go exactly as it needs to be done in the meet. I almost feel like she has no idea what to do with me and is just grasping at straws until she can figure it out.

  I try the pass again, give too much, pull back, and land it straight up. Not stuck, but I’m not over- or under-rotated. I just take a little steadying step back into a lunge, which used to be an acceptable way to land your passes. I yearn for those good old days.

  “Better!” is my feedback. “Again!” is my command. I groan internally, but accept my fate, because no matter how much this kills my ankles and exhausts my muscles, nothing will destroy me as much as finishing behind Maddy again.

  ***

  “For homework tonight, copy down all key terms for the section – the section, not just the last chapter – and be prepared for team vocabulary Jeopardy tomorrow. If you don’t do the work, you’re only letting your team down! Trust me, you won’t want to lose this reward.”

  Ugh, I don’t have time for this. There are over a hundred terms in this section about World War I and I have a math test tomorrow. Oh, and I’m trying to make the Olympic team, which I’d say is a little more important than history class Jeopardy. The first day back at school after a competition is always a pain in the ass, but with being Natasha’s “special project” at this morning’s practice, I am pretty over everything.

  I slam my book perhaps a little too hard when the bell rings, and one of my inbred d-bag classmates decides now is his opportunity to shoot me when I’m down.

  “Hey Shoulders,” he says. Cool. Observational humor. On point. Saturday Night Live is going to be calling for you any day now. I mean, sure, my shoulders are larger than average due to the fact that I use their muscles to hurl my body around a million hours a week? I can probably bench press your whole family and you wish you had even a tenth of
the muscle that I do.

  Except I say none of this out loud. Instead, my face explodes into a hot pink mess as I try to gather my belongings without dropping anything or falling over. Because whenever I’m confronted, I somehow turn into Mr. Magoo.

  I duck under his arm, which is poised aggressively against the door frame. He laughs at this, and for some reason, some girls who literally didn’t even see what happened laugh along with him. I loathe girls.

  “Don’t run away from me,” he says with a half grin and a swagger only rock stars and prepubescent high school boys who think they’re more important than they’ll ever be have. “I need to ask you to junior prom.”

  Well, consider me blindsided. The girls begin whispering angrily, their day clearly ruined by watching my bad fortune turn to “good,” if you can call this good.

  “Why do you want to go to the prom with me?” I ask, truly curious.

  “I heard you telling Emma Kaufmann that you weren’t going. I was planning on going with my buddies, didn’t want any girl drama, but I felt bad that no one asked you.”

  “That’s very romantic,” I grunt, shifting the weight of my backpack to one of my ginormous attention-grabbing nickname-inducing man shoulders and turning on one foot to walk away from this weird situation.

  “Wait,” he yells. “It’s not like you have anything better to do Saturday night. This is like, the best offer you’re gonna get.”

  I turn back and smile insanely, to the point where I think I legitimately terrify him. “Bro, sorry, but I’m gonna have to turn you down,” I start. “I do have plans this weekend, actually. On Saturday I will be in the gym for seven hours sweating and bleeding and crying and making my shoulders even bigger than they are right now, if you can imagine that. And every second of agony and misery will be a billion percent more preferable than spending two hours at a lame high school dance with you.”

  Point for the nerd. Those who were still following our little spectacle look stunned but also angry, as if they’re mad that I dare rise beyond my place in the universe to give back what I’m just supposed to take. I kinda wish my life was a 90s movie so they would take my side and slow clap.

  I hear the jock moron whose name I honestly don’t even know yell out “bitch!” as I turn my back to head down the hallway and out the door. Without turning I yell, “you’re mistaken, I’m not your mom,” right back, just as I see my own mom waiting to pick me up for the gym, something she tries to do at least once a week because otherwise I’d basically never see her.

  “That seemed unpleasant.”

  “It’s high school, Mom. It’s supposed to be unpleasant.”

  “Why did he call you a bitch?”

  “Because I wouldn’t go to prom with him.” I spot my dad in the driver’s seat as we approach the car. Two parents on the same day?! At least he didn’t witness my outburst. Something tells me as a school principal, he wouldn’t be super pleased. “Hi, pops.”

  “He asked you to prom!? And you turned him down!?” My mom is seriously thrilled for me. Like, more thrilled that a guy deigned to speak to me than she’s ever been about any of my major gymnastics accomplishments.

  “Mom, he’s literally garbage. You’d want me to say yes to a guy who calls me a bitch because things didn’t go his way?! Also, I have gym all day Saturday. As if I’d have any time to make myself look presentable to other human beings afterwards. Besides, I’d rather be in an ice bath and in bed at 8 pm. That’s my choice,” I joke.

  “But prom, Amalia. I know, I know, I know. It doesn’t compare to the Olympics. Nothing does. But you know that’s not a given. Don’t you think you’ll have even the slightest regret about missing these normal high school milestones because you’re training all the time?”

  This conversation happens at least once a month. My mom is convinced that when I’m 30 I’ll look back on my life and be really upset that I missed out on crucial high school memories like washing cars in a bikini whilst sucking a lollipop in a Walmart parking lot or giving birth at a school dance and trying to hide my baby in a trash can.

  “It’s not like I’m sitting at home doing nothing. I’ll have other milestones and memories, and just because they’re different than normal high school memories doesn’t mean they don’t count.”

  “You’re so smart and grown-up,” my dad sighs. He’s mostly been mentally elsewhere for this conversation.

  “I trust you to make your own decisions here, but just don’t want you to feel like you have to give up every single quote-unquote normal activity just because of training,” my mom continues. “One night away won’t kill you.”

  “But I’d rather be in the gym, that’s the thing. I know plenty of girls who choose dances over training every now and then and that’s fine for them. It’s what they want. But I don’t want to do that stuff. It is the absolute least appealing thing to me, and besides, I’ve made it this far. The Olympics will be over in three months, and whether I make it or not, I’ll be able to catch up on everything I missed out on once they’re over.”

  “I’ll support your decisions, always, but just don’t want you getting your hopes up and then getting disappointed. It’s not that I don’t believe you can do it, but there’s just so many other girls with the same dream and it’s going to be really hard. Ruby was a sure shot four years ago and look what happened to her. Nothing is certain in this life, Amalia, so don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. That’s all I’m saying.”

  We ride in silence the rest of the way to the gym, but before I get out of the car, my dad clears his throat.

  “Mal, your mom and I have something to tell you. Remember before the Open when I told you I had a surprise?”

  This sounds serious, not like “we’re giving you a car.” My mind immediately goes to a crazy place. In the two seconds it takes before my dad begins speaking again, I’m already picturing myself at divorce court or standing next to someone’s deathbed.

  “I got a job offer,” he starts. “We’ve had funding problems in our district for years and I’m at a loss. There’s nothing I can do to help as principal. I’ve been trying to reach beyond my role and do something on a greater scale for a while now.”

  “Did you get a promotion?!”

  “I did get a new job, yes. As a superintendent.”

  “Dad, that’s amazing!”

  He glances nervously at his hands on the wheel. “In Mabton.”

  “What’s Mabton?”

  “It’s in South Central Washington. They’re desperate, so I’ll be transferring before the end of the month.”

  My heart stops. “That’s the middle of nowhere, dad. It’s like hours and hours away?! I can’t just leave my gym!”

  Dad clears his throat again, a nervous tell like my nail-biting before I compete. He gives my mom one of their shared looks where they somehow communicate telepathically and she continues speaking for him.

  “We are staying in Seattle,” she offers with a smile. “Just the two of us. Dad will visit on weekends, and after the summer, after the Olympics, we’ll figure out something a little more permanent.”

  “This is so unfair,” I pout. “Why can’t you just stick it out at your school until I go to college and then have a midlife crisis?”

  “Amalia, please, you’re being melodramatic,” he says firmly. “My entire career has revolved around your gymnastics. I’ve ignored too many opportunities, turned down jobs, made sacrifices no other parents make all for you and your sport and I’ve been more than happy to do it. But this is a once-in-a-lifetime job and I can’t pass it up. It’s about time you make a sacrifice for me.”

  I sit in silence for a minute, tears brimming in my eyes not so much because I’m upset about the news but more because I’m a crap sandwich of a person. The guilt I feel about my selfishness is blinding torture but I can’t handle admitting this to my parents. Instead, I paste on a smile.