My competition is next Saturday! I am a little nervous.
He said
With five days to go to Emelia’s first competition of the season, the focus around the house understandably so has been gymnastics. Emelia has been focused on practice and making the most of every single one she has up until the meet this Saturday. She’s coming home from practice sore as her coach Alex has stepped up their strength and conditioning to ensure the girls are ready for their first competition. On Thursday we got to see a little bit of what they were working on and could understand why she was coming home so sore. With only two more practices left to the competition, it is all about the finer details and making sure your body is ready.
This will be the first year that Emelia competes provincially so every meet will count. They factor the two best meets she has of the year, so because they’re doing three that will give her the opportunity to work the kinks out in the first one. But, I am really hoping she has a great start to her season so that she gets to be more selective about her throw-away scores. If her past is any indication, while she didn’t medal at any of the meets last year, the reality is, she’s always managed to put in her best performances when it counts and they’re being scored. Last year her practices leading up to competition she was her messiest and having trouble. When it came time to perform at the competition, she managed to put it all together.
As much as I really want her to have the opportunity to qualify and compete provincially this year, really I want for her is a medal and podium stand at one of the competitions she is in. Last year she was so close, and got nudged so many times by girls who were ranked in the top ten provincially that it broke my heart when she got forth place finishes. She didn’t understand in those moments that she was competing against provincially ranked girls and handling herself well – she just knew she wasn’t getting a medal. This year, more than anything else I wish for her is that a podium trip is in her memories and that medal memory sticks with her for the season. She’s really done the right work this year and Alex has really honed her skills and set her up for success.
Aside from that, with it being January, as we mentioned last week, we’ve started to think more and more about the camping season. And while today’s frigid weather doesn’t seem anything like camp weather, the reality is that with Ontario Parks campgrounds, and the ones that we love, you have to be booked six months in advance at any of the ones that have any popularity. The reality is, our all-time favourite park, Bon Echo is one of the most popular campgrounds in all of Ontario. And, with reason. We’ve decided that our two main parks this year will again be Bon Echo and Aarowhead. We’ll also go to Wolfe Island Music Festival again as well as Sandbanks Music Festival in September. And then we will sprinkle in as many weekends as we can figure at Golden Pond RV Resort which we first tried last year. Whether there will be a Port Huron KOA camp weekend is still unknown.
So this week will be focused on getting Emelia competition-ready and us ready to cheer her on. The great news is there will be a pretty hefty contingent of family out to watch her perform at this meet as plenty of our family live close by. So after she gets the competition jitters out of the way, and the competition itself out of the way, then she can see all the people who have been following along. And once we have first competition out of the way, and how the judging goes then it will set up her season and what she has to focus on. We’re so excited and nervous for her in the same breath!
She said
This week will prove to be a bit stressful but exciting at the same time. Emelia is in the final push to get ready for her first competition on the provincial team. She has been more stressed this time because the push is so much earlier in the season for her first competition but I do feel she is ready. She is battling some injuries and pain that we are trying to rest this week – that will prove hard with so much going on this week. I was able to squeeze in an appointment with our chiropractor that will hopefully get her in good shape for Saturday.
This first competition has come up fast, add in the fact that they had a longer than usual break at Christmas and the girls are really feeling the push. Emelia at times feels she’s ready and other times is not even close. We have told her some confidence and a bit of nervous is a good thing. Like John said as parents it is hard to watch your child push herself and not quite hit where she wants to be but honestly this year I feel she is the most ready she has been leading into competition season. Her coach is great, the perfect balance between positive support, with hands on corrections and really technical in the details. Exactly what you need in a coach. Emelia has grown so much this year and she seems almost unrecognizable as a gymnast even compared to last year. Now to get her nerves under control and we will hopefully be in good shape. All we want for her is to see that beautiful smile on Saturday proud of herself for all the work, and a medal around her neck would be a great bonus because we know how much she wants that.
The rest of this week was about getting back in the full swing of things, the first week back to school, first week back to dance and the first week back full time to work for the daycare kiddos. Everyone folded back into the routine pretty well and we are back nicely into routine. It was a very busy week around here but we managed to balance it all out and keep things in check. So the this week will be about keeping Emelia’s nerves in check, focused on training and getting ready for Saturday. Her first competition will be here before we know it!