I fidget a bit in line, shuffling back and forth from foot to foot. My iPod’s in my bag and I don’t feel like taking it out now, just minutes before we walk out, but I wish I had the music to distract me from the announcer’s lame jokes.
Finally, I see the lights dim and then fade to black. Neon lights and billowing smoke turn the arena into a rave, and the walk-out music starts. I jump up and down to get pumped for the crowd, something that actually helps with how I compete, and then before I know it, my group is marching up to the floor podium.
“Starting on beam is Ruby Spencer from Malkina Gold Medal Academy!”
The crowd roars. Everyone’s dying for her big all-around comeback after coming up short last year.
“Leah Manning from South Florida Gymnastics Academy! Amalia Blanchard from Malkina Gold Medal Academy!”
I get cheers. They’re more than just the polite applause Leah got, but nowhere near Ruby’s, of course. I step forward, wave, turn around, wave, and step back into line.
“Emerson Bedford from Vanyushkin Gymnastics!”
The crowd straight up goes out of their minds for Emerson. Definitely the biggest welcome thus far. I mean, once you win two world titles in a row, that’s kind of what you can expect.
“Kaitlin Abrams from Sawyer Burke Athletics! And Caroline Lockwood from the Gymnastics Academy of Houston!”
More appreciative applause for Caroline, but Kaitlin’s reaction is thunderous. She’s a local kid and has been hyped pretty heavily leading up to nationals even though she’s not really Olympic caliber. Still, any recognition is good recognition. With the crowd that intense for her every move, she’s bound to have one of her best meets ever.
The last group to come out is the Windy City club. With five athletes at nationals, they take up the whole lineup and look like a small army with everyone in matching warm-ups.
A local high school a cappella group does the national anthem, and we stand with our right hands on our hearts, the left behind us, fists clenched at the smalls of our backs. The second it ends, we get the signal to go to our first events for the touch warm-up and my heart flutters.
“This is it,” Emerson whispers behind me as we march over. Even she sounds like a healthy mix of excited and jittery, instead of her usual unfazed blasé cool kid mode.
I reach behind me and squeeze her hand. “Kick ass,” I whisper back.
***
“Eye of the Tiger” blares in my ears the second I finish my touch warm-up. I’m in the corner of the arena, facing the wall and jogging in place to the world’s best fight song, trying to keep my energy where it needs to be. I can’t help letting this music remind me of the montage Jack made, which helps in my motivation. Look what I already fought for and accomplished! Now it’s time to do more.
Ruby’s up on beam now. I can’t watch, but I’ll know how she does based on the crowd’s collective reaction. So far it’s all cheers and applause and then I know she’s hit her dismount when they go wild.
When Leah mounts, I make my way back to my bag, toss my iPod in, and close my eyes. Now is the time for visualizing my routine, going over every skill and body position and hand motion so I can see the routine, be the routine before actually doing it. Sounds silly, but it helps me more than anything.
I gather from the crowd’s groans that Leah has fallen, and then I wait for the applause that tells me she’s finished. I climb the podium and stand perfectly still, not wanting to give away a hint of nervous energy while I wait for her score to come up. Even though I’m full of it. I just take deep breaths instead, going back to a couple hours earlier, standing at the top of the Garden with the whole world at my feet.
Finally. Her score flashes above, the judges take a moment to gather themselves, and I finally get the green light. I smile, I salute, I pause. The two seconds I use before mounting beam are crucial to my success. Inhale, exhale, beat, and then I give myself a bounce on the springboard before pushing up into my press mount.
It’s an intricate mount, though not worth much at all, so some call it a waste of time. Most girls just hop onto the beam, taking a split second before moving onto their more difficult skills, but I love it. It’s slow and elegant, giving me brownie points with the judges, who love seeing a bit of artistry. It also gives me time to ease into the routine, getting a feel for the beam before doing anything more difficult.
I press up into a handstand, finishing with my legs in a split, and then rotate my torso 90 degrees so I’m facing the length of the beam. Staying in the split, I touch my front foot to the beam and give my back leg a bit of a push so that my split becomes an over-split, my legs now at about 210 degrees instead of 180. I then do a forward roll onto my back, cross my right leg over the left, bring the right back into a split again – at this point I’m just showing off my hard-earned flexibility – and then bring the right leg forward again so I’m straddling the beam. The crowd gasps and applauds.
Now for the hard part.
The required flight series is something I get out of the way at the very beginning. I do a back handspring, another back handspring, and then a layout landed on two feet, one of the more difficult series, so I’m rewarded well with bonus points. I cross my right hand over the left and exhale sharply before springing backwards, and it’s smooth sailing. My legs are straight, I’m perfectly aligned with the beam, I’m quick, and I hit the final skill with a clean body position and a satisfying smack of my feet against the equipment, not moving a centimeter. I smile.
My switch ring leap is about as good as it’s ever going to be; I can practically feel my back foot grazing my forehead, the leg is so perfectly extended. After that comes the easy sissone to split jump, which one day I’ll hope to connect to the switch ring just for fun, but for now they’re fine on their own.
A little bit of arm choreography helps me get back to an end of the beam, and now it’s time for the side aerial to Onodi, the latter skill also known as a back handspring with a half twist. It’s super clean and the connection is so fluid, there’s no way the judges can argue their way out of crediting it. For the required turn, I compete a double spin with my leg held out in front of me horizontally, one of the hardest turns one can do on beam, and I make it look as effortless as a basic pirouette.
More little choreo bits, and then another killer connection. I first do a sheep jump, where my body bends backwards, making the letter C in the air. The skill is made especially difficult by the fact that I can’t see the beam for my landing considering my head is arched all the way back, but it’s never a problem for me. As soon as I land, I rebound right up into what’s called a Yang Bo, basically a fancy split jump but with my back once again arched back and my head dropping behind me so I can’t spot the beam and have to land blindly. Even so, I hit it expertly.
Lots of pieces of my routine get oohs and applause from the crowd, but it’s the big standing arabian right into a Korbut, where I flip backwards but grab the beam with my hands and then straddle it, that makes them actually gasp. I bounce right back up on two feet, hands still on the beam, and then raise one leg into a split just to show off my flexibility once again.
There’s one final series of choreo as I make my way to the end of the beam again, and then it’s the pièce de resistance. The dismount. The most difficult beam dismount in the world.
Again, my right hand goes over the left, and I put my right foot forward to prepare for the roundoff. I hear the ding of the timer signaling that I only have ten seconds left, but that doesn’t faze me. I visualize for a moment, exhale sharply, and then hit the round-off back handspring into the arabian double front.
I hit the mat hard and try to steady myself without moving. I don’t hop or take a large step, thankfully, but I do have a little small step over to the side to steady myself. A tenth off, max. No big deal.
The crowd erupts with my landing, and I can tell I’ve impressed a lot of people. It’s one of my better efforts, and if I hit all of the connections to the judges’ liki
ng, I should get somewhere between a 7.0 and a 7.3 start value. It’s an impossibly difficult routine, and no one in the country comes close to matching it.
A smile overtakes my face, I salute to the judges, and hop off of the podium into Natasha’s outstretched arms. She has tears in her eyes.
It takes everything in me to not look at my score, but I don’t want to jinx myself. Like tapping my fingers for the first 180 seconds on an airplane, I now firmly believe that I hold the power to my success by following my own made-up rules, especially after what happened at the Open. Maybe it’s silly, but if someone’s ahead of me or if I get a low score, I’d rather be blissfully unaware so I can finish the competition in peace rather than with a chip on my shoulder or with an over-inflated ego. Neither is a good thing in this sport.
Ruby gives me a hug and a double high-five when I return to the chairs. “Unbelievable, Mal,” she gushes. “I want to be you when I grow up. You are a national beam savior.”
I thank her, still a little out of breath. Ruby hands me the cup of Gatorade she poured for me mid-routine, and I gulp it down, grateful for the electrolytes. When I see the judges hand the score runner the sheet of paper with my outcome, I close my eyes and put my head down. And I keep it down for the rest of the rotation, not wanting a single distraction to break my flow.
I know I got off to a tremendous start, and if I can just hit the rest of my routines with no problems, I can finish this meet the way I began it – on fire.
***
Sometimes I feel like I’m in another world. This is never more pronounced than when I’m at a competition surrounded by thousands of people and still manage to retreat into the zone. Earbuds in, eyes closed, and I could be anywhere – school, my bed, Antarctica – all I have to do is picture it and reality disappears.
I hit floor with no major stumbles, and going up first on vault was great for me. I had no wait time at all between warm-ups and actually competing, which meant no opportunity to let the anxiety build. Everything happened so fast, and then when I was done, I had a million hours to get my grips on for bars. Bonus.
Now I’m in the opposite predicament. I’m the last to go up for bars, which means a huge stretch of time between warm-ups and competing, and plenty of time to get fidgety. Which is why I shut out the world completely.
With the volume on my iPod at its maximum level, I can’t hear a thing beyond my music. With my eyes closed, I don’t see anything in front of me.
When I was eight and visiting family in Alabama, we went to a speedway to watch some kind of race, a demolition derby, which is where a bunch of drivers bring their cars onto the track with the sole purpose of smashing them.
Being the obnoxiously anxious person I am, I somehow got it in my head that people were going to die doing this. In front of me. I screamed over the noise that I wanted to go home, but everyone else was having so much fun. My dad turned to me and said, “pretend you’re not here.”
It was the best advice I ever received. He gave me his iPod and his giant noise-cancelling headphones and then told me to close my eyes. “Pretend you’re on the beach,” he said, putting on my favorite Beatles album. “Everything will be fine.”
I thought it was magic. I had to open my eyes a few seconds after closing them because I figured my dad really found a way to transport people through thin air, like in Harry Potter or something. I was almost shocked to see the cars crashing in front of me, like I really expected to find myself actually sitting on a towel surrounded by water and sand.
Half a lifetime later I still believe in the magic. Okay, maybe not literally, but it still totally works.
Five girls compete before me. Natasha promised she’d tap my shoulder when I’m on deck so I can do a bit of warming up before it’s my turn. Everything goes pretty quickly, even with judging, so I know I’ll only have about 15 minutes or so of peace.
I’m not even thinking when I’m in this zone. I don’t know how to meditate but I’m assuming this is the stage of enlightenment any Buddhist would die to reach.
Eventually I feel Natasha’s hand gently rest on my back. I open my eyes and push back the headphones.
“Ready?” she asks.
I nod, put my iPod away, tug off my jacket, and stretch my shoulders before following her to the corner of the arena for a brief pep talk.
“You got this, Mal,” she starts, her hands on my shoulders while she looks directly into my eyes. “Everything to this point has been some of your best work. All you have to do now is finish it. That’s it. Just one clean routine, nothing fancy, and you’re home free.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Got it.”
“Just remember to keep your legs tight and toes pointed. The little things are what will set you apart. Hit your handstands. That’s all.”
I nod again, loosen and then tighten my grips, and look over at the bars, where Leah is finishing up.
“Go get ‘em,” Natasha says, lifting her hands from my shoulders for high fives. I grin, slap them, and jog over to the podium. As soon as Leah salutes, I run up and begin chalking up while I wait for her score. I only have a minute or so, maybe two if there’s something questionable and the judges need to deliberate, but I have my process down to a science and am ready to go no matter what.
I get into position to mount and wait for the green light. When it flashes, I smile, salute, and then stare down the low bar as if I’m about to enter a boxing ring, just me against the apparatus.
A single deep breath, a clap of my hands, and then we’re off.
***
I hear the crowd roar before my feet even plant firmly on the mat and it’s hard not to smile.
I wait a half second in my position to gauge whether I’ll need to take a step for balance, but it’s totally unnecessary. I stuck the double front.
After holding the position for a moment, really feeling what it’s like to stick your dismount on your final event at national championships, a grin spreads from ear to ear before I turn to my right to salute the judges. I turn back toward the crowd, give them a wave, and then jump from the podium into Natasha’s arms.
“You did it!” she screams. “You totally freaking did it.”
Emerson, Ruby, Polina, and Sergei are all waiting to congratulate me as I reach our little sitting area. Two cameras are in my face as I give them all hugs. They want my reaction to my score, but I won’t give it to them. I won’t look until everyone in the arena is done.
The excitement dies down and I get back to routine, neatly wrapping my grips and storing them in my grip bag, putting my warm-ups back on, and then leaning back in one of the padded folding chairs to enjoy a much-deserved granola bar and Gatorade.
We still have a few routines left on beam and floor before all scores will be in. Natasha comes over and gives me a few little corrections on bars, but I can barely pay attention. I try to remember, but it’s stuff she always tells me anyway…don’t rush, hold the handstand before moving to the next skill, extend your toe point through your whole foot…someday I’ll make all of this happen at once.
Ruby sits by me after the camera crew disappears, moving on to torment others who actually are looking at the scoreboard.
“How do you feel?” she asks. “I watched pretty much all of your routines and you were awesome, no joke.”
“I feel amazing.” It’s not an exaggeration in the slightest. “I didn’t think it was possible for a meet to go as smoothly as today went.”
“I’ve seen your scores. I think you’ll be very happy with things.”
I playfully punch her arm. “Don’t tell me anything else! Not everyone’s done yet.”
“The people who matter are done,” she shrugs. “No one left to go can change the outcome. I’ve done the math.”
Finding Our Balance Page 23