Vault – 1st event – continuously challenging for
Kay as she’s strong, fast and light. It takes her airborne if she’s not ready
for it.
Vault # 1 – nice looking vault but doesn’t block (aka push off) so is a lower
score due to lower difficulty
Vault # 2 – blocks nicely but see comment above – goes FLYING to the end of the
mat – I swear she was going to hit the wall!
Score= 8.225 didn’t place
Bars – each and every one of her team mates fell of the bars
and she was up last. We were really nervous. They are trying new skills on the
bars and she’s lost a bit of confidence.
Her routine looked beautiful! We thought she was in the 9’s for sure but…
alas, not to be
Score = 8.75 6th place
Talked to the coach later, learned that she had an incredible run at the bars and
then let go on her dismount a bit too early. That’s enough of a point reduction
to get her out of the 9’s. bummer
Beam – again, her team was super wobbly and fell off
numerous times…can Kay do it?!
Score = 9 4th place
Really nice tight performance, she needs a bit more confidence to get that
score up a
bit.
Floor – this is Kay's sweet spot, all that speed and strength
and lightness comes to play here and she ROCKED IT!! Nailed both her front tuck
(flip) and back tuck (flip) perfectly. It was so fun to see.
Score = 9.475 2nd place
Kay took 6th overall and got the award for best swing
on the bars across the whole tournament (I TOLD you she looked awesome). Her
team placed 2nd overall and the 1st time they have ever
placed as a team in the tournament.
It was a super fun tournament with fun give always and even a
hand stand contest (super funny to watch pre-teen girls stand on their hands
for up to 4 min’s straight. Not graceful but impressive!!)
Kay was thrilled, she talked non-stop the whole way home
about how much fun she had, how well she did, where she got better, what she
needed to work on, etc etc. She was on the moon. WAY better than the last
tournament when she cried with disappointment. Way to go Kay!! That’s our girl,
resilient and determined to do betterJ
Tracy spent quite a bit of time chatting with Kay’s coach,
just by chance, during the awards. She was super chatty and
mentioned how often she gets compliments from the other coaches/parents on our
team: how polite, engaged, professional, supportive and cohesive they are as a
team. Everyone is impressed by how close they are and how they encourage each
other. Such fun things to hear as a parent! She also mentioned that she’s
considering take 2-3 girls (Kay included) and having them skip level 6 and move
directly to level 7 when this tournament season is over. It seems that there is
only 1 skill difference between 5 & 6 and these girls almost have it
nailed. Its interesting because Kay’s Toronto coaches wanted her to skip
level 5 and go right level 6 (which would put her ultimately in the same spot
on the same timing). When Tracy mentioned this to Kay’s coach, she said that
level 5 is compulsory (i.e. – you have to compete at level 5) in MN.
Interesting…we’ll see what happens. Kay has 1 more tournament this year (3/8)
and that will determine the next steps.
In the meantime, she’s having fun, competing hard, learning
great life lessons, pushing herself mentally and physically and getting a
terrific workout (we are all jealous of Kay’s abs). All around win,
win, winJ
In other Kay news… and the other side of the Kay spectrum.
Band.
We should really leave it at that but you need the
background. Band in 6th grade is compulsory (it is in 5th
grade too but she missed that due to being in Canada). Kay chose the
trumpet. Why? Because it only has 3 keys (not true but there are only 3 buttons
on a trumpet). She has proceeded to not practice, forget her trumpet, forget
her music sheets, etc. Anything and everything to avoid band. When she does
practice, it sounds like a dying seal and Jimmy is fairly certain he can play
better than she can and he’s never even tried. They have been practicing
3 songs for their concert, one of which is We will Rock You. There is one very
small part in it when you just blast on the trumpet. Every time she gets to it,
Kay says “oh, this is the part I’m good at”.
The concert was tonight. We were considering telling her to
fake it especially after we got an email from her band instructor asking us
specifically have to have Kay practice A LOT over the weekend last weekend.
Needless to say, 6th grade band concerts aren’t
highbrow entertainment. We made the boys go and we are fairly certain it was
going to be Jimmy’s version of hell. However, it was really good.
It looked like she was actually playing and they played some fun songs. Not
sure that this is enough to entice her to stick with band but…it was a positive
experience all around.
Kay –
thanks for being so tough, adventurous, adaptable and resilient and for having
a great attitude (about most things !) we love you!
