Flipping Out: Competition #1: Seattle/Tacoma

Well, I competed at my first meet in one and a half years! As I said in one of my previous posts, this meet was in the Seattle area, Tacoma specifically. My trip included three caesar salads, an extremely special floor routine, a Toblerone bar, and lots of glass.

We flew in late Thursday, and had a late dinner in the hotel restaurant. Friday morning, we got up around 9:00 AM, ordered room service for breakfast, and then went to the glass museum. I must mention that the glass museum was very, very cool. The first part was wandering around the gallery, where there were many different styles of glass artwork. Then, we went into the "Hotshop."There were live artists who actually blew glass right in front of you. It was pretty interesting to me, especially since I didn't know anything about glass art. (I didn't even know that glass was actually blown-- *facepalm.)

This was one piece of art at the glass museum.

That is when I started flipping out. Yep, we had a team lunch about five hours before my competition and I started feeling nauseous, got headaches, and acting like a complete idiot. Thankfully, we made the great call to take a nap. After that, I was much better.

Then came the meet. I was special.

I didn't compete bars, which was a giant bummer but I wasn't planning on it so I was mentally prepared. Beam was next. Everything was going pretty well until my leap series, which includes a back tuck. I almost fell off. Almost. I managed to save it which about four arm circles, three steps, and a lot of wobbling. I was pretty proud of myself until I found out that all of my flailing was more of a deduction than if I had just fallen. Well....... whatever! (8.8)

Then was floor. My entire floor routine was pretty hysterical. I tripped a total of three times. Once in my turn, where I went flying in the direction of the judges but stopping myself just in time, then in my last pass where I landed on my butt, and then, on my last pose. Yep, that's right! I tripped on my ending post resulting in me awkwardly falling on my but and twisting to stare at my coach, who was struggling to contain herself because she was laughing so hard. Oh, yeah. Best routine EVER! Not. (8.2 Heck yeah!)

Vault actually went pretty well. I did a yurchanko tuck for my first vault, and then a yurchanko pike for the second vault. The only negative was that my wrist felt like they were about to fall off and my ankles were feeling pretty weak. (9.025)

By the way, the scoring system is based on the perfect score of 10.0. I tied for second on beam and vault, and got (I think) 9th on all-around. So, I'm kind of dismissing this meet as a first meet. I'm just glad I competed and had fun. Next week I have a meet in Phoenix, so hopefully I can improve on some things there.