"[Insert Lame Excuse]"

So due to the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, I took a little bit of a blogging break!  Actually, there’s more to it than just me being busy.  For awhile, there was just no new news in [my] gymnastics world.  And considering the last piece of news I got was good, I was not complaining.

The last week or so, I spent going to practice in the morning, swinging bars (no dismounts), rehabbing my knee with the physical therapy my trainer gave me, conditioning arms and abs, and biking until my knee hurt.  Oh, then icing.  Lots and lots of ice.  Boy, am I thankful for the automatic ice machine that my parents have.  Nothing really changed from that routine because I knew I couldn’t get fitted for my official brace until I came back to Davis.  So in a way, I was just killing time until I went back to school.

On the 26^th, my parents took me to the airport, and two flights (and ten hours) later, I sat back in the Sacramento airport waiting for my ride back to my apartment.  Practice started up again in the afternoon on the next day.  Call it jet lag, or the off balance from my brace, or whatever excuse you can come up with, but my bars were sub-par.  Normally when I come back to Davis practice after a break, I’m so jacked up on adrenaline, that I actually do pretty well.  But for some reason, these last two days I haven’t even been able to get to some of my skills.  And on the second practice of the week, my coach just told me to be done after falling over and over again on this one particular skill.

My trainer, Missy, was watching practice that day, and saw that I was getting frustrated.  I couldn’t help it.  It’s annoying to me, because I KNOW I can do this skill.  Even with the brace, I was doing it last week.  It’s not hard for me.  But no matter what I did, no matter how hard I wanted it, I couldn’t get to the skill I needed to do.  After bars Missy talked to me and reminded me that the path that I’ve chosen this season, isn’t going to be an easy one.  Sometimes I’ll have days where I get frustrated, and I’ll be able to pick myself up and keep going—but sometimes I’ll have days where I can’t do it alone, and I’ll need the help of my teammates.  She reminded me that that’s okay.  Be patient and give it time.  It’ll come back.