Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Kay update


Kay had another of her highly competitive gymnastics events last Friday night (why these things are on Friday and Sunday nights are beyond me. 4 + hours of sitting on bleacher seats to see 4 min's total of Kay ...totally worth it!!)






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!