A Wicked Flyaway

Over summer, the team girls occasionally had early workout, coinciding with camp. Some of the older SMGC girls couldn't make it, and would come in around regular workout time (sometimes, too, it was a matter of confusion on the weekly schedule changes). Since team coaches were done by late afternoon, the "leftovers" would join my advanced group, so that it looked like they had a coach.

Around mid-to-late-August, Crislin, who had come to daytime team practice but was waiting to be picked up, decided to join my advanced class and team rather than sit around. Jesse and Julia wanted to work on the bar over the pit. We decided to push Crislin on flyaways. Time for the little bird to fly from the nest.

Flyaways are one of those simple skills that can sometimes create a mental block of fear. For Crislin, it had become a major speed bump to her level 6 progression.

Here is a clip (taken June 19th) of Darryl and Robar laughing by the rings. What I didn't capture, was the moment that caused their laughter, where Crislin launched her flyaway from the bars all the way over to the ring tower (in a safety belt).

Don't sweat it or fret it, Crislin...remember: They're laughing with you, not at you (*chuckle, chuckle*).

I think it was perhaps the last time Vladimir was willing to spot her in the belt, at the time. The night Crislin joined my group, I found out why.

Since I had my own group to attend to, I didn't want to get bogged down with belt-spotting. Team was mostly on their own. But I did want to try and help Crislin get over her mental block. Things like that can really eat one up and I was just finding out she's been stuck in the mud for sometime now. She had become an expert at letting go and landing on her back and doing drills. But when it came time to turning it over...

We fluffed the pit. At first she wouldn't let go. When she finally did, she let go at the bottom, taking my arm out of its socket along with her. Tried it again. Same problem, same results.

When I was done with the advanced class at 7pm, I stuck around to help out Julia, Keli, and in particular, Crislin. We stuck her in the safety belt where she did one-and-a-half flips a foot off the ground by peeling at the bottom again....and again....and again.

I don't know if it was allowing her to make those mistakes and her realizing she wasn't going to die that caused her mind to try something different and actually hang onto the bar longer....or some verbal advice-which I know she's heard countless times before- finally sinking in.

I showed her on camera how good her swing in the front were- almost to the candlestick position....right up until the one she was going to let go on. I froze the film at the point where she was letting go; then I froze the film at the peak of her front swing where she should be letting go. I told her to pitch herself out in a candlestick, aiming her toes toward the rings....I think around then, she finally rode one up. After that, she only had one peel below bar level, but even that one was nowhere near like her "let go at the bottom of the swing" dismounts (none of which I captured on film, unfortunately, for this video; somehow, when people are messing up badly...it just doesn't feel right to be filming them. I should know better by now, as it's part of the narrative in storylining a video).

After her second successful dismount in which she realized she had cleared a major hurdle in her gymnastics, she got very emotional and ran over to the nearest warm body (Keli) to be the recipient of one of her bear clutches.

After this night, the rest, as they say, is history. The flyaway demons were exorcised, and we have a story with a happy ending. I think she only peeled once in the belt when Al spotted her the next day, on her first one. But after that, all was going right with the world. She quickly went from the belt, to hand-spot, to no spot without any problems at all. And by last Saturday, I filmed her doing her full bar routine without a spotter on her dismount.

Congratulations, Crislin!