Gymnastics

By Tianna Meghani

Today I am sharing a story about my friend who is addicted to gymnastics. She performs artistic gymnastics. Her name is Scarlet and she competes in the national level. On a Saturday evening Scarlet and I went to see a gymnastic competition for boys as we were invited by her friends. There were 4 teams competing. Her friends were in Team 3 and their names were Hudson, Bryson and Kayden.

The main event they were competing was the pommel horse. I observed that it is basically a padded beam on two legs and has metal handles. The skills Hudson was performing was single leg swing to scissors and circles and flairs. He ended with a clean dismount. He scored 8.6 out of 10 for the marvelous routine. There were other events where we saw them compete which were floor, vault, rings, parallel bars, horizontal bar. In floor Bryson did tumbling passes and flips like a full twist, a half twist, a double Arabian etc. He also did straddle jumps and round offs. He got a 9.5 out of 10 for his clean passes. I was so pleased as he gave a lead to his team. The floor was of 12m×12 m and the duration to perform the floor exercise was 50 to 70 seconds, I observed. The next event was vault where they did skills like 1 vault entries, 3 front handsprings with saltos, 5 yurchenkos etc. Kayden did 5 yurchenkos and got a perfect ten on his score. In still rings they did swings to handstands and dismounts. A boy named Jake was awesome at rings and was Hudson, Bryson and Kayden’s biggest competitor. He was in Team 4. He got a 9.98 and was mocking others. In the parallel bars the most basic combination was a kip to a moi and straighten into a peach which is what Jake’s teammate did at such a big competition and got a 6.4 and he got an earful from his coach. On the high bar there were skills like handstands, giants and swing to a dismount and Hudson did that and scored an 8.76 out ten. Their team came second place and they were proud of themselves.

On Sunday it was Scarlet’s competition and she wore a beautiful costume made up of Spandex and they competed on 4 events which were floor, beam, bars and vault. There were 5 teams and Scarlet was in Team 1. Beam is basically a thin long brown cuboid with legs and it proves how flexible you are and how much balance do you have which was what I saw. A difficult routine is walking front and back on your toes and do flips like Ariel’s, front tucks, back tucks and then do a slow press handstand connecting to a back handspring and a straddle jump to a dismount which was what Scarlet did and scored a 9.99. The duration for a beam routine in maximum 90 seconds. The uneven bars are made up of steel frame. You can do skills like a kip connecting to a handstand, go to the high bar, giants and a dismount. Scarlet’s teammate scored a perfect 10 on mastering this routine. Vault is the same as Men’s gymnastics with the same skills and I saw a really flexible girl called Jasmine do it. Floor is also almost the same as Men’s gymnastics and the area is same too. You can do splits, needles scissor kicks etc. Scarlet’s team won and got a trophy and it was the happiest day of her life.

This weekend I was really inspired to perform gymnastics and also I learnt that we should always support our friends and believe in ourselves. If we work hard, have patience and perseverance then we will definitely progress. If we want to achieve something, then we have to work hard, be prompt and remain motivated.

By Tianna Meghani