"Glory Days"

Another one of my early video experiments...

This is from a videotape, filmed March 27th, 1992. I believe it was the PAC-10 Championships in Stanford. One of my better ring performances. I was never a top gymnast. Having started the sport late in life (I was 16, and had no idea there was an entire sport built around the idea of flipping), I was fortunate to be on the team at UCLA (One reason why this blog kind of bleeds blue and gold). More than half of my teammates were Olympians and Olympic-calibre. So I was content with occupying the bottom rung of the ladder. Furthermore, I focused primarily on rings and floor. Rather than devote myself to all 6 events, I thought I'd stand a better chance of competing if I just spent more time on these two events.




I got pretty strong after doing major rehab therapy on my right shoulder, from arthroscopic surgery. Strength was the only thing that I had going for me on rings. I think I had a record of 7 or 8 cross pull-outs; I could do about 4 one-arm pull ups with either grip direction, and over 50 pull ups. I think my record was 54.