Old Gymnasts Never Die

The first Olympics I even vaguely remember was in 1984, with Mary Lou Retton in her long-sleeve American-Flag leotard. I didn't really know what I was watching, but I knew she was winning the hell out of it. I was 5 at the time and had been taking "gymnastics" for about a year--but at that age, it was little more than haphazard forward rolls down cheese-wedge mats and tentative tip-toeing across a beam that was practically flush with the floor. The goal of uneven bars was simply to hang from the lower one with your chubby fingers--and what I knew of "vault" was just jumping off the horse onto a pile of foam, after being physically placed by an adult (since a typical 4-year-old's weight was not significant enough to activate the basic physics of a spring board). Imagine my pleasant surprise when I discovered that actual gymnastics involved swinging and leaping and literally flying--sometimes rocketing--through the air. It was like Wonder Woman had just announced she'd be raffling off invisible jet-flying lessons at the un-airconditioned warehouse I had previously assumed was uniquely dedicated to rolling around on colorful barrel mats. Sure, not everyone would win the invisible jet lottery and actually get to fly. But just finding out where that airplane was parked gave me the closest thing to inspiration a 5-year-old can experience in a powder-blue leotard with matching tights and leg-warmers.

 The gym I attended was the only gig in town, run out of a large, tan, barn-shaped structure in a vacant field at the end of a long gravel driveway. The instructor for my preschool class was a fuzzy faceless female, the details of whom I could not recall now if paid and hypnotized with the goal of unearthing forgotten details. I had a range of teachers like her over the years, college students and former gymnasts making a little extra part-time cash by teaching on the side. But the joint-owners and permanent fixtures in the childhood memories of every would-be gymnast in town were Ben and Mark.

Ben was average height, while Mark was possibly half his size--not unlike the successively smaller components of those Russian doll sets that nest inside one another. From what I remember, Ben was largely responsible for training the competitive male gymnasts and Mark was in charge of basically everything else--the day-to-day form and function of the gym, teaching class after class after class of young kids until finally retiring to his office with the bumper sticker on the door that read, "Old gymnasts never die, they just can't remount in 30 seconds".

Ben would laugh and joke with the kids he didn't directly instruct, giving them silly nicknames and teasing them light-heartedly in passing--but was known to be considerably more formidable with his own gymnasts, regularly tearing them new (metaphorical) assholes for the types of things that young boys typically get yelled at for. As a sometimes-sheepish little girl, I was a actually kinda scared of Ben--but now, after seeing how my own two sons are naturally inclined to bounce off the walls without provocation, I can only imagine the short leash and volume level required to wrangle a group of boys you've exposed to a room full of pads and springs with the direct intention of cultivating and harnessing their strength, speed, trajectory, and fearlessness.

Mark was uniformly patient, kind, and good-natured with the constant influx of young girls and boys, ranging from abysmal to promising, that circulated through his daily gymnastics classes. Nevertheless, all the kids were well aware that Mark could practically blast you into the parking lot with the force of your name as he bellowed from clear across the gym if he caught you in the midst of general jack-assery--like playing in the chalkbox or attempting to climb the tower of extra mats piled like massive Minecraft blocks in the back corner.

For my second year of gymnastics, I retired the powder blue get-up I donned throughout my preschool stint of  beginner's classes in favor of a pale pink cap-sleeve leo (sans tights)--an unfortunate ensemble that matched my skin tone almost exactly and, looking back, probably allowed me to appear buck-ass-naked to the far-away casual observer. Regardless, I was amped and ready to take my pale-pink place on that shocking-blue spring floor every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for the next 3 years. I looked forward to every class, thoroughly enjoyed being there, and had no interest (or ability) in any other sport.

Mine was the last regular class of the day, and the competitive gymnasts would start strolling in for "Team" practice as my group was walking to their cars. My dad running late for pick-up meant more time for me to bask in the majesty of these mini-Mary Lous--whose tumbling passes were still a far-cry from Olympic caliber, but light-years ahead of the one or two back-handsprings I could cobble together on a good day. I'd loiter in the waiting room, jealous and awestruck, until I saw my dad's Pontiac sedan careening down the driveway through a cloud of gravel dust. "I got you a soda!" he'd proudly announce, which was consolation enough for me.

One Tuesday or Thursday evening, late in my third-grade year, Mark called me into his office as the rest of the class dismissed. I had neither messed around with the chalkbox nor attempted to climb the tower of spare mats--so his reasoning for this request was beyond me. Maybe he'd finally decided to charge extra for my late pick-up unless Daddy brought a soda for him, too and he was just giving me a heads-up to pass the new policy along? To my surprise, however, he just wanted to inquire why I hadn't been at Team Tryouts the previous weekend. Um...because...I hadn't considered there were "auditions" for such things? Maybe because I imagined that competitive gymnasts were all Communist robots imported from Eastern Bloc countries that arrived in coffin-sized boxes full of foam packing peanuts with a repertoire of routines pre-programmed? Or maybe because I was terribly unobservant and somehow missed the flyers all over the bulletin board while I was milling about waiting room all these weeks? Though I've long since forgotten what I must've said, I'll always remember this instance of Mark doing what so many patient and kind individuals would go on to do for me in my life: overlook my general laziness and oblivious nature to offer me a second chance at something I'd always wanted. "Come practice with the Team next week and let's see how it goes."

Showing off at Art Camp in 4th Grade

So, I showed up to Team Practice the next week ready to absolutely pee my pants with pride and excitement. In regular classes, you'd start with stretching and then progress through a series of increasingly difficult skills--a forward roll...a handstand...a cartwheel...a one-handed cartwheel. Team Practice followed a similar schedule, except they'd skip right over the bullshit and go right to the hard stuff. Prior to practicing with "The Team", I'd been plagued by a form of gymnast's "writer's block" that was stunting my progression from the one-handed-cartwheel to the next logical step--which was, obviously, no-handed cartwheel--otherwise known as an aerial. When "aerials" were casually announced as the next warm-up skill, I rode my wave of panic to its peak and launched into my aerial with feigned nonchalance, as if all previous attempts hadn't ended in face-plants that nearly rug-burned my nose up to that point. And to my surprise...I landed it. Bam. No-handed cartwheel. Like it was nothing. It was in that moment I learned the value of adrenaline--and that heightened expectations really can be the catalyst for improved results.

My performance that day earned me a spot on "The Team" and with it, the opportunity to compete against other gymnasts at my level--which was low. I'd failed to realize in all my acrobatic daydreams that, for every perky Olympic gymnast bouncing through a uniquely-choreographed routine, there was a platoon of novice competitors wearing a hole in the same "compulsory routines",  identical sequences of tumbling and technical elements replicated by every other kid on their level on each individual event--again and again, meet after meet. In other words, you were placed into a competitive level based on ability, then you and your peers would learn and compete with the same routines.

It must have been mind-numbing to teach and to judge--the same ubiquitous piano music for every floor exercise, the same elementary squat-over vault for every kid, beam and bars routines that were completely identical for every participant from mount to dismount. The only way to earn a different set of routines was to move up a level after a season or two of scoring well wherever you started--and even after that, the privilege of performing individually-crafted original routines was still several levels ahead. At least, that's how it was back in my day, when "10" was still considered "perfect" and parents did not yet have the luxury of phones that could both snap pictures of their little athlete and then quell the inevitable boredom of a day-long competition. Your child's 4 performances would account for a combined 12 minutes of the entire day, while the rest of the time would be spent watching someone else's kid wobble through a forward roll on the balance beam or balk face-first into the vault.

The meets were always hosted by larger gyms, 2 or 3 towns away, which meant dropping me off and picking me up later was not an option. So my dad drew the lucky straw of attending all my meets, dooming him to the ranks of our captive parental audience, our witnesses to a veritable Ground Hog Day of the same entry-level gymnastics over and over--a fate that might have compelled lesser parents to hang themselves from the high bar or O.D. on lines of hand chalk.

I competed for a total of two seasons and never progressed past the compulsory stage to the glamorous niveau of individual routines. While Olympic gymnasts in that day considered any score below 9.0 a tragedy, kids at my level got ribbons for anything above a 7. And while I got 2 or 3 of those notch-above-"participation" awards, each year had a theme based on which event was my personal kryptonite. The first year, it was bars, where the top-score I yielded was a 3.29...out of 10...because I could not perform a "kip", the compulsory mount, resulting in a catastrophic deduction at every meet. For those of you unfamiliar with the skill, just imagine a diver who falls off while climbing the ladder to spring board. There's really little hope for a good score after that. By the second year, I'd triumphantly mastered the kip, so my bars scores were 6s and 7s, well in line with the rest of my team. In the meantime, it had suddenly occurred to me that the balance beam--which had never bothered me before--was just 4 inches wide and nearly my height in its distance from the floor. I fell off that bitch like it was my job that year--2, sometimes 3 times a rotation--so often, it should have been part of my routine. I never saw scores lower than 3.29 again, but I was no stranger to 5s on beam all year long.

I was stronger and more flexible than I'd ever be again and I was learning and growing all the time--but fierce competitor, I was not. I was then as I've always been--content to enjoy things and improve for the sake of it--but not exactly driven by a particularly competitive spirit. And while I loved to perform on the floor (because it's hard to fall off) and eventually bars, beam and vault tore my nerves to shreds. I anticipated every competition on my calendar with the dread of a death row inmate. I quit the team before my sixth grade year and returned to my bi-weekly classes, this time on Monday and Wednesday nights, with older kids like me who wanted to focus on tumbling and socializing.

I did use my gymnastics in competition again during high school, this time as a cheerleader--but my senior year, I quit that, too--having realized two things: (1) that the base of an all-girl pyramid rarely goes on to be tossed around on the co-ed squads in college as a scholarship athlete and (2) that, at the time, I didn't really care for sports--and systematically cheering for them was an irony I'd lost the energy to pursue. Things change, of course, and 20 years later, I can honestly say that I do enjoy sports--as a spectator, at least. And based on the interests of my young sons, I anticipate a fair amount of cheerleading in my near future.

As for gymnastics, I still feel compelled to bust out a cartwheel or two whenever I'm presented with an expanse of sandy beach or grassy field--and I then quickly realize how much even the most basic gymnastics has me flirting with a groin-pull at this age. I remember telling Mark about the flips and splits that I hoped to still be capable of at 40. I also recall his knowing smile, and his slow but positive response of "That sounds reasonable". Now at 37, it's quite clear the only "flips" I'm likely to reasonably accomplish in the next few years would be unintentional--the result of either slipping on ice or falling down stairs.

Mark and Ben's old gym, where half my hometown learned to do handstands, was abandoned when I last drove by, with tall grass growing up through the old gravel parking lot like a scene from The Walking Dead. I like to picture them both, retired somewhere, but still busting out occasional giant swings on make-shift high bars they constructed in a horsebarn, like an ongoing reenactment of that scene from Footloose. After all, old gymnasts never die, right?

Meanwhile, during the first week of the Rio Olympics, my dad left me a voicemail. He'd been watching Women's Gymnastics and reminiscing about my illustrious career as an elementary-level gymnast. Naturally, the years have put polish on my ability and the maddening monotony of the compulsory meets he attended. "You were fantastic," he tells me, "And I loved watching you."

I know his view is a vast overstatement, but as I watch my own kids excelling in their own ways, I can appreciate that his perception is as true to him as my pride in my boys for the little victories of childhood they clinch on a daily basis. And while I may be too old to "remount in 30 seconds", I still feel an ownership over gymnastics as I watch these young phenoms make history in Rio and remember that rush of satisfaction when I see them proudly salute the judge at the end of a routine. Like a balance beam rotation over molten lava, I dread the inevitable heartbreaks and failures my kids are bound to face as they grow--but I do look forward to the triumphs we all experience and that parents all live to celebrate.

Long after the relevance of once-elusive "kips" and "aerials" has faded, parenting has proven to be the biggest challenge of my life thus far. As parents, we are always competing for something: love, respect, control, forgiveness.... While parenting is always worth the struggle, the highest level of difficulty often comes in chasing the impulse of my young gymnast-self--to enjoy it and improve for the sake of it. Because, just as in gymnastics, the score is always changing. Yesterday's "Perfect 10" is forever being outdone by increased demands and expectations. There is no final performance, no last chance for gold. Just a life-long impetus to try. A parent is always a parent and a child is the biggest mark on the world many of us will ever make. Through them and their kids and then theirs--we may never die...we just can't remount in 30 seconds.