Haley Graham: Elite gymnastics is like, the navy seals, only harder. There are like 2000 navy seals, there are only like, 200 elite gymnasts. Guess that's because there's kids who's rather have a life than spend 6 hours a day training tricks that could kill you. Don't be fooled by the leotards people, the things gymnasts do make navy seals look like wusses. And we do them without a gun.
--Stick It (2006)
-----------------
Wee One chose not to do her Extended Cheer season at the local recreation council; instead she’s participating on a team called Charm City All-Stars. It’s a more rigorous program than the rec program, which is good for her cheerleading skills. On the Parkville Rec team, she wound up teamed up with some very inexperienced girls, which wound up making it tougher on the coaches and the more experienced girls, who wanted to move on to some of the new moves and instead wound up rehashing some of the old ones. This isn’t a complaint specifically; it’s just the way it goes sometimes when you have an inclusive program and only so many participants. You could have two very small teams or one decently-sized one, assuming you have enough coaches. It’s a problem either way and I don’t envy the people in charge of making the decisions. Anyway, Wee One is at Charm City All Stars this winter.
Charm City does its training at a place called Ultimate Gymnastics, which is a pretty gung-ho name for anything. If you’re going to Ultimate Gymnastics already, you don’t have a lot to reach for. I’m just saying. They have two sessions a week of cheer practice, which is where they do the choreography and such for the cheer routines. On Friday night she participates in a tumbling class, where she learns some of the basic stunts and skills.
Believe you me, Wife and I are much happier that she’s learning in this environment. When she first got into cheerleading, she was out front for hours every day teaching herself how to cartwheel. The grass is only just so soft, so we’re just waiting for the moment when she comes in with a broken limb; said limb not being from the tree in the yard.
All of which leads to the fact that I’m sitting now in the waiting area at Ultimate Gymnastics while Wee One is in the gym proper, doing her tumbling stuff and such. They have this extended trampoline thing that she’s on right now, and she’s using it to do roundoffs (kind of like a cartwheel, but your feet stop together and at the same time), and who knows what else. I know her big goal is to do a back handspring independently but I don’t see her working on that specifically just now. I don’t watch her too closely when she’s in there, because she gets a little bit of a “lookatmelookatmelookatme” thing going on, and then she’s not paying attention to what she’s doing.
So here I am, banging away on my laptop. Unfortunately, I don’t have the internet access in this place, but I do have Windows Live Writer, which works pretty well until I can get jacked back into the Metaverse. This is my usual gig when I bring Wee One to cheer/tumbling practice: sit and write, and listen to iTunes (got Beethoven’s Sixth going on just now). This has given me a bit of a reputation, I think. Not the reputation for being aloof and unsociable (not that I really care), but rather for being the sort of guy who crunches bytes for a living.
A few minutes ago, another dad (the only other adult, it turns out, in the waiting area this week) walked up to me and asked me to help me with his Blackberry. Now, this guy and I have a “hi, howya doin’” relationship, but not much else. He had no idea whether or not I’d ever seen a Blackberry before in my life, but he was pretty sure I could solve his problem for him.
Naturally, I could.
Shut up.

