Jessa’s Gymnastic Journey
I was asked by Jessa’s teacher to write a little recap of Jessa’s gymnastic journey thus far. I have been so proud of her and her character that has shown while going through the ups and downs of a sport she has learned to love. Just yesterday she was asked if she wanted to be registered as “achievement” or “placement” in her next meet. (Achievement means you get an award just for being on the floor and Placement is where you actually get ranked within the competition) She very seriously said “of course I want to do placement because I want to actually work to earn an award!” Sometimes I forget she is just 8 years old!!!
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Having an education background, I always dreamed of teaching my kids many things. One thing that I never considered though, is all of things that they would teach me! This past 6 months Jessa taught us all an important lesson in perseverance and strength.
Going back to last summer, Jessa was invited onto a competitive gymnastics team that was just getting started up. Her coach complimented her on her “coachability” while inviting her onto this team. Just a few weeks after the team had formed and practices began, we found out Jessa had a fracture in her 2ndmetatarsal. The doctor put her in a boot, her coach encouraged her to come to practice and “do what she could” and we settled in for what we thought would be a quick healing process. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget watching Jessa swinging on the bar with an almost 10lbs. boot on her foot, or standing on the balance beam trying to balance and learn new skills being completely unbalanced from the weight of her boot.
A few weeks had past, more doctor appointments, an MRI and lots of questions later Jessa ended up in a cast and was completely non-weight baring on her foot. At this point I pulled her from gymnastics, although I quickly lost the fight when both her and her coach begged me to let her come and still try and learn the routines. You could tell she was frustrated watching her friends and teammates completely bypass her in the skills they were all learning and practicing. Instead of giving up like most would, she took out her frustration by watching the YouTube videos of her routines over and over and over again.
When the cast finally came off, the pain was still present, and she spent many days after school at physical therapy, basically learning how to walk again. At this point her coaches started to doubt her ability to compete this year, but she NEVER gave up! Jessa never told herself she couldn’t because she fully believed she could! She kept her spirit high, and her mind focused on her end goal of competing in her first meet.
The timing of her injury forced her to miss the first two meets of the season, but I’m so proud and happy to announce that yesterday she was able to compete in her very first gymnastic meet. She did fantastic! She most definitely has improvements to make but you would have never guess watching her with her team, that she missed almost 3 full months of skill and routine practice!
——-
Having an education background, I always dreamed of teaching my kids many things. One thing that I never considered though, is all of things that they would teach me! This past 6 months Jessa taught us all an important lesson in perseverance and strength.
Going back to last summer, Jessa was invited onto a competitive gymnastics team that was just getting started up. Her coach complimented her on her “coachability” while inviting her onto this team. Just a few weeks after the team had formed and practices began, we found out Jessa had a fracture in her 2ndmetatarsal. The doctor put her in a boot, her coach encouraged her to come to practice and “do what she could” and we settled in for what we thought would be a quick healing process. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget watching Jessa swinging on the bar with an almost 10lbs. boot on her foot, or standing on the balance beam trying to balance and learn new skills being completely unbalanced from the weight of her boot.
A few weeks had past, more doctor appointments, an MRI and lots of questions later Jessa ended up in a cast and was completely non-weight baring on her foot. At this point I pulled her from gymnastics, although I quickly lost the fight when both her and her coach begged me to let her come and still try and learn the routines. You could tell she was frustrated watching her friends and teammates completely bypass her in the skills they were all learning and practicing. Instead of giving up like most would, she took out her frustration by watching the YouTube videos of her routines over and over and over again.
When the cast finally came off, the pain was still present, and she spent many days after school at physical therapy, basically learning how to walk again. At this point her coaches started to doubt her ability to compete this year, but she NEVER gave up! Jessa never told herself she couldn’t because she fully believed she could! She kept her spirit high, and her mind focused on her end goal of competing in her first meet.
The timing of her injury forced her to miss the first two meets of the season, but I’m so proud and happy to announce that yesterday she was able to compete in her very first gymnastic meet. She did fantastic! She most definitely has improvements to make but you would have never guess watching her with her team, that she missed almost 3 full months of skill and routine practice!
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