Sports Acrobatics Competitions

    "Your scores are from Duncan, 7.5, from Davis, 7.8, from Duncan, 3.0 and from Telega, 2.9. Your execution score is 7.650, your difficulty is 9.0, your artistic is 2.95, and your deductions are 0.0. You total score is 19.600. This concludes our 10-12 age group, we will now have a 30 minute warm up for ages 13-15." The announcer pronounced in a deep sounding voice.
     It was now time to wait and watch the entire elite acrobatics compete for the gold. I was in New Orleans competing for the national title. Going for the gold. Now let me tell you how I got here and why I am here.
     It all started with my coach telling my team that we were going to China and the only way we could do this is if we had a years experience of competing. That was the start of training for six months and then we got a break to practice for nationals. Every weekend we were away competing at a different place, the closet one in Madera. Each time we would compete we would have butterflies in our stomachs. My partner and I were scared to death the first time we walked out on the floor and saw thousand of people just staring at us. When the music started we froze. We didn't no what to do. Then we saw my coach telling us to get a move on, that this was just like practice with people watching us.
    After the first routine we waited with our coach panting, hoping we did good for the first time ever. When the scores came up we were in 2nd place. We still had to wait for the other people to go who had been competing for years and knew what they were doing. In the end we placed 3rd. I was happy with our score and walked proudly away. Then the hard-core training came along in Sonora, California.
     All was well when we got up there, except for the fact that our car broke down and we had to spend the night in a two person Motel six room with eight people. When we got to there gym we bought new leotards and the started warming up out on the floor. This gym was small compared to ours at home. The teachers came out and started yelling an telling us what we needed to change and what was good to keep. When the day was over we had become better. We were much stronger to for the fact that they worked us harder than any of us had ever worked.
    We left for home and came to show of our new double front twisting toe pitch back. This trick had never been done before by sport acrobatics at our gym. This was really amazing to us. When we went to our next competition we showed it off to tell people that we were just as good as them.
To sum all this up my competing team that consisted of pairs and trios, had been the first competitive team of Central Coast Gymnastics in San Luis Obispo, California. Our competing pairs were Nicole Lieneman and Margo Cleaveland, our second pair was Katie Taylor and Amanda Martin, and our third pair was Chelsea Parker and Tess Wearda, and our competing trios were, Katie Taylor, Nicole Lieneman, Margo Cleaveland, and our second trio was Chelsea Parker, Tess Wearda, and Abby Hollister.
    Our pair and trios all placed in the top 10 in the nation. This was our first time ever going to state, regionals, and making it to nationals. This was a major commitment for all of us to make and we all did great. We will be going on to compete this year. Come and watch us sometime.