Remembering the Steps

When I was young I did gymnastics and ballet for 8 years. I quite right before I went to high school, which obviously was meant to me seeing as it lead to me to the current love of my life: the triple jump. I look back on those days as learning years, when I learned so much about myself as an athlete and as a person. I was forced to grow up beyond my years, and coaches expected out of us more sometimes than we felt we could give. Exhausting as it was, I was thinking today about how much I used to love the floor excercise.

For those of you non-gymnastics folks, the floor is an event which gives you a specific time to do a routine choreographed by your coach. This routine is then scrutinized down to the last toe point for accuracy and difficulty. Sounds like a mouth full doesn't it? Expecially for a 12 year old girl. I used to lay awake for nights about my competitions and my constant strive for perfection and approval.

It is exhausting to say the least. But I learned something from it. Sometimes we are so concentrated on this idea of "perfect" that we forget what perfect really means. To some, perfection means that A+ on that test or that 10.0 for a routine. For me over the past years it has come to mean something completely different: a feeling of complete confidence in yourself that you have done the best you could.

I always used to concentrate on little details of my routines, and when I did this I found out more times than not that I would fail to get the marks I strived for. When I was at nationals in Tacoma, Washington I had the best floor exercise of my life. I went out there and I danced not for my coaches or my teammates but for myself. It is an exhilarating feeling, trust me. When I was out there, I remembered the steps even though I feared I would forget them. My body and mind remembered what to do. And I achieved a near perfect mark: a 9.75...my lifetime best.

Now looking back, I try to remember that concept in every single aspect of my life. I know what to do next, even if at the moment I feel lost. I WILL remember the steps, even if I am afraid that I will forget them. I WILL achieve what I came here to do, and I WILL achieve my version of perfection.

So no worries:even when the going gets tough and you don't think you can make it through...

you will always remember the steps :-)