Mackaroni!

Mackenzie Solton is the kind of student teachers can't find fault with. Good attitude, diligent listener, hard working, burning desire to succeed and move up, no lip-service, et cetera. Because of that, even though her skill level wasn't quite there yet, we decided to go ahead and bump her up into intermediates.

She started taking occasional privates with me last summer, and through into December. Two of her primary goals were to get her backhandspring and her round-off backhandspring. So, this video charts her progress from the beginning phase up through to when she finally got her RO backhandspring last month. She's had to work very hard for her gymnastics skills, as none of it seems to have come easy and naturally. I'm sure that has only helped build her character.

One of her biggest hurdles was overcoming a very inconsistent, slow, and rather crooked round off. In fact, there was one time I was spotting her on her RO BH, and she threw one of her old crooked round offs and launched herself like a battering ram straight into me. The top of her head collided with my forehead like a hammer on an anvil. It hurt. A lot. I did years of boxing and combative sports, and I couldn't recall a headbutt, kick, punch, or kali stick that hurt worse than that did and made my head explode with stars. I worried if she were ok, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. But do you know what the first words out of her mouth were? "Are you ok?" I can't tell you how selfless that was of her to ask me that, and be concerned about my welfare (yes, Mackie....I wanted to cry); because I could tell it physically hurt her. But she didn't cry. I later learned through her mom, just as I suspected, that she was a bit shaken up by the experience, and held it in until she got in the car. Through the rest of workout, she had contained her pain and kept her composure. Sometimes Mackie's biggest obstacle can be her self-confidence in executing a skill, when I know she's physically capable. So I worried if this would set her back or not from getting her round-off backhandspring. Well, she's proved to be made of sterner stuff; and with the determination of a mack truck, she's been plowing through her gymnastics obstacles!



This is a video I've been wanting to make for a long time! But I couldn't make it until MacKie delivered on her round-off backhandspring. So I've been very patient on holding on to much of the footage used in this one.