A Whole new World

To this day, leaving Bakers Gymnastics was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  I had my best friends at Bakers, and leaving them was devastating.  However, I knew it was the right thing to do.  Because Bakers was such a small gym, it only had gymnasts up to level 7, which was where I was.  My mother and I believed that there was no way I could have progressed because of the space available, and the coaching ability as well.  Being in only the seventh grade, I knew I wanted more out of gymnastics and that I wanted to be the best I could be.  I officially left Bakers Gymnastics and started practicing at the Beverly YMCA Sterling Center.  I will never forget my first practice there.  On Fridays the gymnasts had to start their practice off with a three mile run.  If you didn’t finish in less than 30 minutes, you had to run two more miles.  Even though I had never ran for distance before, or even been on a treadmill, I was determined to keep up. It’s safe to say I was absolutely dying on that treadmill.  I could barely breathe, my legs were starting to give out, and I was profusely sweating.  But I refused to stop.  My new coach came up to me and saw that I was struggling but refusing to quit, and let me slow down to catch my breath.  It was from that moment on that my new coach Alex, took me under her wing and made me the gymnast I was for the rest of my career.  Alex was only my coach for a few months before she quit, but she made my gymnastics significantly better.  For example, she helped me accomplish a skill in two days that I never thought I would even be capable of doing.