Thursday Shooting Stars, I'm spotting 6 year old Olivia on her cast to back hip circles. After 3 casts, I usually hold her up to check her hollow shape then lower her to the bar to touch her thighs, then push her around in a back hip, placing emphasis on her maintaining the same body shape, throughout. So this past Thursday, I start only catching her very briefly at the top of her cast for shape-check, then letting go rather than lowering her to the bar, just making sure she keeps shape and lets her thighs come in to the bar. After a few of these- and while still in the middle of one- she tells me, "Wow! I'm getting pretty good at this!"Then Friday Perfect 10's, I have 4 year old Kaya who's strong enough to do a pull over with her feet off the ground. I decide to push her around the bar in a back hip circle without pause since she's showing me that she can maintain a pretty decent shape. After about the third one, she tells me, "Whoa....it's like a roller-coaster ride." So then I think, maybe I'm pushing her around the bar too fast and go back to carrying her through the skill at half the speed. So then she says to me, "That's too slow."Reminds me of how Erin Akamine, after I let her do round-off backhandsprings by herself for the first time one Saturday, described the sensation to her mom as "a rollercoaster ride".Whenever competitive gymnasts begin to lose that sense of why they are in the sport and what they loved about it in the first place, I think it sometimes helps to go back to remembering what it felt like when you got that first "big" skill, like a simple backhandspring. It really isn't quite so simple when you consider how many people on this planet will never experience that sensation and acquire that kind of physical talent.~~~
Thea told me about a conversation she had with Kort, today:Thea: "Can I fill my water bottle and go to the bathroom?"Kort: "That sounds like a really weird combination."Labels: kids say the darn'dest things, Thea
