Printer-Friendly Format     E-mail this article     Julie Abaray looks to have a great senior season.

 
Julie Abaray's Diary Entry

November 5, 2007

Nov. 5, 2007

If I said my senior year has not started off how I always envisioned it, that would be a complete understatement. After having knee surgeries this summer to trim out a tear in the medial meniscus in my left knee, and another to repair a tear in the medial meniscus in my right knee (for the second time in five years), I've been stuck on the sidelines doing treatment twice a day and watching my teammates as they work incredibly hard to get ready for season. It's been three months since the right knee surgery, and I'm just now allowed to start running. My knees are feeling pretty good right now, and my goal is to be able to be able to at least exhibition by our first meet on January 12 at Bowling Green, OHIO!

The rest of the team is looking better than ever! This is the farthest along any Mizzou gymnastics team I've been a part of has been at this point in the year. We have 10 girls doing 10.0 vaults right now! Ashley and Alex are doing great hand-front-pike-halves; Adrianne, Sarah, Danielle, Lisa, and Lauren are all nailing Yurchenko fulls; and Nikki, Becky, and Meghann are turning out great Yurchenko halves. Since preseason started, Fig has had all the girls doing many more drills and timers to perfect vault entries and form, and it's definitely working!

On bars we have eleven girls doing full sets now. Sarah and Lauren both have a new double-layout dismount, and Lisa Lap has the prettiest full twisting double back I've ever seen off bars! Hatch has added in her healy combination before the overshoot, and Nikki has a cool new release move out of an uprise. Puccio is getting back into the swing of things after getting a cortizone shot in her knee a couple weeks ago. Meghann's double-layout has greatly improved, Alex and Liz are working on getting double-layout dismounts, and Brooke has a beautiful giant-full to Pak combination.

Beam is looking great, with lots of new dismounts and creative flight series. Ashley's double-tuck dismount looks better than ever, and Nikki has changed her dismount to a gainer front-full off the side of the beam. Brooke has started doing a gainer back-pike off the end, and Lisa Lap has learned a cartwheel gainer-full off the side. Alex is going back to a roundoff double-full, and Becky's double-full has improved tremendously! Adrianne is now doing a front-aerial backhandspring layout-two-foot. Sarah and Lauren are both doing backhandspring layout-layout. Alex has a pretty front-aerial front-aerial, and Liz is doing front-aerial side-somi. Nikki has a new backhandspring backhandspring layout flight series, and Hatch has added back in her side-aerial layout step-out.

Floor looks wonderful, especially with our new choreography by Amy. Everyone has new floor music this year, and Amy is doing ALL the choreography for it! All the routines that are done so far look great, and all our music is different and crowd-pleasing. The girls have started doing floor routines with two tumbling passes; and everyone is able to do all their tumbling by themselves outside of the routine. Ashley and Adrianne are doing first pass double-layouts, Alex is working a full-in, and another seven are doing double-pikes. We've got some beautiful whip-half rudis and rudi layout step-outs, and lots of last pass double-backs.

Hopefully by the time season starts I'll be getting to do all this fun stuff in the gym with the girls! Go Tigers!

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