One of my most lucid memories of my childhood concluded to injury. Being that beginning of my plight, I faced many negative emotions. At the age that I was, thirteen to be specific, I believed that this was the lowest moment of my life. Or to go back: It was March 19th, 2011. Just like any normal day of the week, I was at the place where I spent 90% of my life. I was at gymnastics practice. Our practice had started at four o’clock in the afternoon and usually ended around eight o’clock if it was a good day. My team and I had been working consistently that day because our state competition was only two weeks away. We had been working so hard during practice that my coach decided to give us “free time”, which meant that we could practice new skills that were required for higher levels. For any gymnast to hear the two words “free time” is like waking up to a house filled with Christmas presents. Or so I thought. …show more content…
We only had a select few of skills because we were on one of my least favorite events, the balance beam. One of my teammates, Sophie, who I had been extremely close with during the year had thought of a skill for both of us to try. She chose a front tuck dismount. We ran to our favorite balance beams and began to mentally prepare how we would do it. A front tuck, being one of the easiest skills to do, I thought to myself just go for it. And if you don’t stick it, then do it again. Sophie had started doing it and landed it each time so I knew that I was going to land it
Success is not given, it is earned. Waking up for a 5am skating practice is nobody’s ideal Wednesday morning, especially for a hormonal teenager like myself. However, satisfaction of landing a new jump or learning a new spin does not come from letting our ‘wants’ buyout our dreams. “By the time we’d finished, we were amazed at how much the book had taught us: about ourselves.” I don’t always succeed, nor do I always expect to. Throughout all the morning practices and late night workouts, failure is something I have learned from. I remember giving up on myself countless times after falling on a jump or not turning my edges properly, as if I had ‘writer's-block,’ feeling completely numb. Nevertheless, succeeding was the easy part, it was learning to grow into the 6 year old singing, confident, child again, and defeating the numbness. I have learned, along the way, people are going to try to undercut your success or take credit for your hard work. However, it is the end product that matters. It will be I who knows how to complete a program, or I who knows how to work hard. Staying focused as the athlete I am, not letting people side track me, builds the confidence to know ‘I finished the
“We aren’t the weeds in the crack of life. We’re the strong, amazing flowers that found a way to grow in the challenging conditions.” (McElvaney, 1057) The book entitled “Spirit Unbroken: Abby’s Story,” offers a perspective on child abuse providing a positive outlook on a tragic situation. Even in the best of circumstances, however, victims of abuse can see the effects of the trauma for the rest of their life. For each individual person affected by this form of trauma, the reactions can vary. The same type of abuse in two different people can have very different outcomes – one could be that of coping, and the other a life of brokenness. Especially at impressionable ages, any form of abuse can be a hindrance in living a normal life. Children
Every so often we come face to face with life events that have lasting effects. When faced with
The first few weeks of practice were full of bad attitudes and laziness. As a sophomore, I, along with the other underclassman, kept my mouth shut and put effort into practices. It was t...
Prior to placing fourth, I had a strong inconceivable drive to win. I worked to my fullest potential every day in practice and when I wasn’t there it was all I could think about. Although, proceeding my fourth place win, my mind was far away from cheer. I complained about having to attend practices and I relied on my current skills to carry me through the season. I reminded myself there’s always tomorrow to console my consciences after a bad practice. In March of 2015 there would be no “tomorrow” after performing the worst routine of the season. My team placed twenty-fourth in the state of Illinois. I was devastated and angry but I had no one to blame this shameful defeat on but myself. Getting twenty-fourth place was due to laziness and a lack of dedication to my
In 2014 I was determined to make the high school soccer team. Every day at 8 am at the beginning of a dreadfully hot August morning, I would get to the turf fields for 4 hours and participate in “hell week”. After a long week, I made the JV team. I was never put into the game and felt like my hard work was put to no use. My sophomore year rolled around and I tried extra hard to impress the coaches. Anything and everything was a competition to make it to the top. By the end of the week, we all gathered around the paper that had names of the players who made it. I didn’t make the team. After tears and telling myself to move on, I went to the field hockey tryouts. I knew nothing about the sport and was terrified that soccer wasn’t my go-to
Went home and replayed the day in my head. My warmup and my quad had flaws within them. For weeks before this day, I had led myself to believe that I was better than I really was. Vanity, arrogance, and disappointment were just a handful of emotions that were wreaking havoc in my mind. It made me want to quit. It extinguished my inner fire an passion for this activity. After that day, I had accepted my failure, and wanted no part in my
The experiences of persons who, in the course of accidents or severe injury or illness, came very close to physical
You walk into the room and feel a warm gust of air greet you at the door. The smell of cleaner fills your nose as your shoes squeak along the freshly mopped mats. The clock strikes 3:30 and the coach blows his whistle that seems to penetrate your ears with a piercing screech. Your body aches and your mind tells you to leave and quit. On the other hand, your heart tells you to go on. Through all the pain, your heart always seems to whisper to you, “This will make you great. This extra day of pain will make the difference.” Even though practice makes your bones ache, your joints grind, your skin bleed, and your body swell; there is a greater hardship to come.
Setting goals can help you accomplish tasks that don’t happen by chance. They are very important, as is courage, friendship, and commitment. When I started the project of doing a front tuck, not a single lesson that could be learned from this was that I was going to hurt myself. But when we started this paper, I looked deeper, and found many lessons that I could take from it, and realized that almost anything can have a lesson in it if you search deep enough. So I chose to take the lessons that I learned from this, and use them in my
In 2017, I finally competed level 7 and I have most of my skills for level 8 for this upcoming season in 2018. Since beginning with Arizona Sunrays Gymnastics, I felt inspired to be involved with the sport on many other levels. I became a certified coach for United States American Gymnastics (USAG) association and have worked many Saturdays training young girls. I received a certification for cardiopulmonary resuscitation or better known as CPR certification and I have taken health and safety courses to improve my knowledge in my sport. I have watched a variety of all different body compositions achieve and struggle with this sport.
I used to be an obsessively compulsive and hyperactive person before this incident – and now I was calm, emotionless and fearless of death, which was sure to come. This is a really unusual entrance into the teen years of life. This was soon followed by depression, loneliness and inability to think clearly. Now, I was unable to think clearly and would fall into a lot of problems that would haunt me soon. My ‘wisdom’ was left in form of a memory only.
When 12 years old came around, nothing could’ve primed me for the amount of devastation that was to submerge my happy little world. Two months after my birthday, I received word that my renowned and dearly loved, Uncle Dean, had been killed in an unfortunate automobile accident. Crushed, yet filled with a strange numbness, I became withdrawn and dwindled in disbelief. “How could this be?” I would repeat those words of this question over and over to myself, as if it were some magical mantra that could resurrect my deceased best ally. I began taking in the gravity of what this all meant: no more “piggy-back” rides, no more wrestling matches, no more late-night video game contests, ultimately no more fun with Uncle Dean, ever. I never got a opportunity to say good-bye.
On the day my father died, I remember walking home from school with my cousin on a November fall day, feeling the falling leaves dropping off the trees, hitting my cold bare face. Walking into the house, I could feel the tension and knew that something had happened by the look on my grandmother’s face. As I started to head to the refrigerator, my mother told me to come, and she said that we were going to take a trip to the hospital.
Some memories are best forgotten, but it takes courage to go through them. Often, I wish to forget the day when I almost lost my parents in a tragic car accident. As my world came crumbling down, I prayed and hoped that the nightmare would soon end. I endlessly fought the sense of helplessness, isolation and fear of the uncertainty. I was 19 and clueless. Nevertheless, I sailed through these dreadful days and welcomed my parents home after six long months. In the months that followed my parent’s return, I juggled between taking care of my parents, graduating college and adjusting to my new job. Almost 10 years later, this dark phase still has a phenomenal impact on me. Perhaps, because this specific experience transformed me into a grateful,