Ruby Tuesdays and Thursdays

Ruby and her sister Delphine have been on and off, taking gymnastics at SMGC.

Mostly off.

After summer of 2006, Delphine focused on ballet; but we were fortunate enough to have Ruby as a holdover, staying on into the Fall.I think she started out in the beg/adv, then within the session, I knew I wanted to bump her up- along with her kindergarten friend Georgia- to intermediates.

Ruby was a good student, and I was sorry to see her not continue after this past summer. She had a good memory for routines (since we don't compete level 4's, we just start 'em off memorizing level 5's), not at all slow at acquiring new skills (she started doing kips on the strap bar before the start of summer), and was never a disciplinary problem. Overall, she just added so much to the intermediate group. It's always great, too, when you have kids who are able and willing to come at least twice a week (Tues and Thurs for intermediates, as well as Sat); it's much more difficult to build up a strong, well-rounded gymnast who only trains for 2 hours, once a week.

Ruby's now joined her sister in ballet. I had high hopes that she loved gymnastics enough to push forward into someday moving up to team; I was also hoping Delphine would eventually defect and join her sister in the gym. Perhaps, someday they will return.

Being twins, I did notice a remarkable difference in physical musculature, over the past year that Ruby did gymnastics consistently. Both her and Delphine are naturally on the thin side; but gymnastics training has given Ruby much more muscle mass than her twin sister.

This was a quick and easy video edit; and one that I had wanted to do ever since Ruby wore that t-shirt of hers, which appears in the video. So even though she is not currently with us, she is still special, and she is missed.