Sept. 17, 2008
Welcome back Tiger Gymnastics fans! We have a strong and motivated group of ladies for our 2009 season. We worked hard during the summer, most of us staying in Columbia for a summer class and gymnastics practice. We enjoyed the time to relax our minds and bodies for the upcoming season. We stayed busy on weekends, taking a trip to World's of Fun in Kansas City, visiting friends at the Lake of the Ozarks and celebrating birthdays. I had a wonderful summer and became much closer to my teammates. And, all of our freshmen stayed in Columbia for a month. It gave us a chance to get to know them better and ease their transition in the fall.
Fall classes started about two weeks ago along with eight hours of mandatory workouts. It was definitely a shock that first week. It's never easy, but wow! We were sore! I think I stretched for at least a half an hour after the first day. Our coaches made some "fun" conditioning circuits for us to do. We did leg lifts, crunches, handstand push-ups, rope climbs, sprints, anything you can think of...But, we know that if we want to get better we have to work hard, and we're willing to do it. We want to make nationals this year, and I really believe this team can do it. We are making significant changes in our workouts to get us there. Last Sunday we all met at Cosmopolitan Park to set goals and find a direction for the year. It lasted four hours, but we all really came together to express team goals as well as individuals goals and came up with a plan for us to accomplish that.
Monday was the first day of official practices, meaning we have 20 hours of required practice per week. Our practices are more structured than before. After our conditioning warm-up, stretching and basics, the team is split into three groups. Monday and Thursday we do bars, beam and floor, Tuesday and Friday we do bars, beam and vault and Wednesday we can do any event we need a little extra work on. For the next couple weeks, we will be getting all of our skills back and trying to combine them into small parts. And, it was exciting to find a printed schedule in our locker room of our assignments on each event for the week. Thanks Fig! : ) I think that will help us mentally prepare for the weeks to come and will ease any confusion on our expectations.
I am truly excited for this season and can't wait to see everyone at the Hearnes Center in January! GO TIGERS!!!
-Hatch
