Stars Challenge

This weekend Twisters compulsories traveled to Union City for the Stars Challenge, hosted by Pacific West Gymnastics.  Saturday morning began with our level 4 team and they came in on fire.  This was the toughest competition we've faced so far and we managed to come out on top in the end.  We had some mistakes here and there but overall, relative to everyone else, it was a good day.  The highlight was adding in another all-around competitor, who was able to pull out a floor routine for the first time in a meet setting.  It was fun to see her teammates get so excited for her and she won the team award at the end of the day.

After the meet I came home and was quickly losing motivation to go for a run when Cat called me and asked me to run around campus with her.  I didn't want to but once we got started it was fun.  We broke it up so that we'd run for 0.5 miles and then stop and do conditioning exercises, which was great except for all the weird looks we got because we were doing random things in the middle of campus.  After that I came home to shower and get ready for dinner, which I thought was just going to be with CJ and Weedge, but Liz, Tabbs, and Ming ended up joining us.  We had a great meal at Darbar and were there for a couple of hours just chit-chatting and such.  Liz leaves for Chicago today because she got a job transfer there, so it was nice to be able to see her before she was off.

This morning the level 6 team came to join in on the fun of the competition, but they had a bit of a rough go.  We started on bars and the scores were pretty low before we were able to pick it up.  Luckily the bar scores remained low for the rest of the meet, otherwise I would have felt really terrible about my coaching, but it still wasn't they way we wanted to kick things off.  In the end we didn't have the best day and for the first time our girls were defeated.  There was a lot of positive feedback from the judges though, so there's lots of good stuff to work on in the gym in the next couple of weeks.

Costanoa

I woke up really early this morning to trek to Wendell Beach for the SWG 2013 team retreat.  The day didn't start off too well because my GPS originally dropped me about 45 miles away from where I actually wanted to be.  I had to take a series of very slow, windy roads to finally get back on track and so I was late arriving to the beach.  Once there the team was already running through the obstacle course the staff had set up for them.  I grabbed an iPhone and started filming but the memory quickly filled and we ended up having to use more than one; the video camera Swiz brought along died very early on which was rather unfortunate.  After the course was complete there was another team activity and then the girls were allowed to stay on the beach while the staff went back to the campsite for some food and conversation.  I got to know new additions Jen (athletic trainer), Claire (nutritionist), and Brian (athletic director in charge of gymnastics) while enjoying the breakfast buffet.

Once the girls got back they made their own lunch and then had time to relax before team meetings.  Tabby and I talked for quite some time while the other staff took naps and then we sat through talks from Jen and Claire.  I decided after that it was time for me to come home but the team is still there going through other bonding activities.  I went to the store and then took a nap, now ready to have dinner and get ready for bed.  Tomorrow I'll go to the gym when the team gets back and gather all the video footage so I can create something for them.  Hopefully it won't take too long but there are so many video clips to import that it could turn into a very big project.

Edited to add:  Here's the finished video...up on YouTube!  Costanoa 2012

Salinas

Today Alex and I trekked south to Salinas for one of his tennis tournaments.  He was slated to play at 10am so we left pretty early given that it was supposed to take about an hour and a half to get there.  Unfortunately Cale had practice this morning so he wasn't able to join us, but we made a good time of it jamming out to music and enjoying our morning Starbucks.  The drive was actually pretty easy and we arrived early only to find out that the tournament was running about 30 minutes behind schedule (go figure).  It was fine because it gave Alex time to re-grip his racket and we were able to scout out some of the competition.  Finally his name was called and he made his way over to lucky court #6 where despite some early double faults he came away with a 6-3, 6-2 win!!  Yay!!  It was fun to cheer for him and to see him do well.  Because of his success he will play again tomorrow at 8am against the #1 seed, hopefully besting him and finding himself in the finals.

After the match he went to the car to change while I ran to the restroom.  Upon my arrival to the car I found Alex standing there with his mouth and eyes wide open with terror and I freaked out.  It ended up that he accidentally locked the keys in the trunk of Cale's car but lucky for us I have AAA so we weren't stranded for too long.  They came out and popped the passenger door open and we were able to retrieve the keys.  We finally began our trip home, once again enjoying singing, talking, and the sunshine.

We decided to pick up lunch at Village Cheese House in Town and Country which a very popular sandwich place (especially on game day...our football team is currently down 14-7 against USC).  While there I got the bad news that I didn't get the job I interviewed for, so that was rather disappointing :/  I went back with Alex to his house, Cale came over, and we watched Law & Order: SVU.  Afterwards Alex tried to make my life a little better by playing tennis with me out in the backyard which was really fun even though I got bageled (he won 6-0).

I'm home now and getting ready for another trip south tomorrow to join SWG in Costanoa for the day.  They are currently there on their retreat and Kristen asked me to help out if I could.  Alex and Cale will go to day two of the tennis tournament and I'm sad I'm missing it, but Cale's good about updating me so I'll be attached to my phone in the morning.  Should be fun :)

Friendly Reminders

There are some days where you are reminded of how lucky you are to be surrounded by your friends and people who love you.  There are certain people in your life that are just so special and never cease to amaze you with their ability to ground you and help you realize your potential.  I'm one of the very most fortunate people and just have to acknowledge that; I don't do it quite often enough, but I'm truly thankful to have such great people by my side.

"Best friends believe in you, even when you've ceased to believe in yourself; accept you as you are yet help you be what you should."

River City Classic

The Twisters compulsories participated in Byers' River City Classic yesterday, kicked butt, and took names!!  I arrived at the newer Byers facility around 11:45am and took time to walk around, give hugs out to people I new, and get re-aquainted with my home club.  It was awesome to see Eli and Debbie and everyone else in the Byers family after so long and we easily filled time reminiscing and swapping life stories.  Before I knew it it was time to get our level 4's warmed up and then we were off and running.  Unlike the last competition we were in all our 4's were in the same session, which was nice.  We were split into two squads, one starting on vault and the other on beam; we started off strong right away and then from there we never looked back.  It was awesome to see the girls applying all the drills we've been working on and to see them rewarded for their efforts.  In the end we swept the all-around titles, had multiple individual event winners, took the team totals on each event, as well as the overall team score; we ended up beating second place by almost four points!!  We were also able to qualify three more girls to the State Championships, so now all the 4's competing all-around have made it.  There was happiness all over the place, from the girls to the parents and even to us coaches.  Allan really wanted us to come in and beat Byers on their home turf so to do that felt pretty awesome :)

The afternoon continued after a bit of a break (more time to catch up with old friends) with our level 6's.  There are only four of them and looking at Byers' team of 14, we knew we had our work cut out for us.  We started on beam and unfortunately had two kids come off but we rallied on floor and vault before closing it out on bars.  In the end us coaches couldn't wait for awards so we snagged the score sheet as soon as it was available and looked to see where we stood.  We had all-around champs in two of the three age divisions, as well as individual event winners.  Just as in the level 4 session earlier we swept the team event titles and came out on top of the standings in the overall team competition.  It's crazy to think that our four girls were able to best some really great and much bigger teams; many coaches came up to us to comment on how good they looked which was surprising because I don't think we felt that they had their best day.  I guess it just goes to show that it's all relative and today we were better than the competition.

The other fun part of the level 6 session was watching Eli and Debbie's almost 10-year-old daughter Lillian compete.  She came in third behind two of our girls and had a great competition.  It's crazy to think back to when I first came to Byers and Debbie was pregnant with her, and then how we would build her a play-pen out of panel mats when she was really young and in the gym.  Now she's flipping around and is a real person!  You can tell she loves gymnastics and Eli and Debbie are great about separating their coaching and their parenting.  They love to watch her and just see what happens, which seems to be working!  Congrats, Lilly!!

Next weekend we're off from competition but then we're back at it the following week when we go to Union City for the Stars Challenge.  Hopefully we can continue to improve and get more of our level 4's competing all-around and qualifying to State.

Salsa Club

What a fun night!  Alex, Ryan, Cat and I went out to Mountain View to go to a salsa club and it was great!  The music was really upbeat and it was fun to watch all the great dancers while trying to replicate what they were doing.  Alex was the best in the group and I'd like to think I kept up adequately, but you'll have to ask his opinion.  It was fun to try to teach Ryan the moves and Cat is a natural dancer so she picked up a lot of the steps quickly (or at least looked really good with whatever she was doing).  I'm definitely ready to go back and hope that it will happen sooner rather than later  :)

San Jose Giants

Yesterday my mom and dad made the trip down here on Amtrak to join me for a single-A baseball game.  They've been making it a point to visit as many ballparks as possible and my dad is actually thinking about starting a blog/website about their adventures.






I went to work in the morning and then made my way to the train station in San Jose to meet my parents.  We found a Hawaiian BBQ joint in downtown SJ to have lunch at and we enjoyed some hearty fried food alongside the biggest salads you've ever seen.  Afterwards we killed some time by driving around town, making our way to the house my parents rented for a year when they lived down here.  It was fun to see it as it was my first time; we looked around the neighborhood and explored the nearby parks and shopping centers.  Finally we found our way to the ballpark, parked the car, and got tickets.  It was much more crowded than we anticipated and we ended up with "general admission" tickets, seating us up near the top (which still wasn't bad because the park is relatively small).  The San Jose Giants played the Modesto Nuts and the Nuts were the ones who struck first, scoring two runs in the first inning.  It took awhile for the Giants to get on the board but in the end they came back to win it all 3-2.

After the game we went to dinner and then it was already time for me to take my parents back to the train.  It was sad to see them leave because I always enjoy having them down here but I'll be home next weekend for the Byers compulsory competition, yay!