The Dreaming Season

Being a gymnastics parent is quite a different experience to being a hockey dad. With hockey your girl is part of the team. She may even score a hat-trick in a 3-2 win and provide you with an enduring memory (see!) but it’s not really about the individual, it’s about the sum of the parts. That’s one of the reasons we wanted our girls to do team sports in the first place. You have matches nearly every week so there is no real peak, there is always a next week. This week’s poor performance is erased by next week’s victory. You develop a rapport with the other parents on the sidelines. You look forward to the banter. We are all there for the team, we all have the same focus, at least until one of the girls gets promoted to another team. I miss hockey, I miss what might have been but the invisible hand of fate brought us to where we are even if we willingly helped events along their way.
It was all about passion. That’s what made us get in touch with the rhythmic gymnastics coach who allowed Luna to join the team. Gymnastics became more important than the other sports and even within gymnastics both Luna and Daisy have moved from artistic to rhythmic and acrobatic gymnastics respectively. Nadia won’t even get a chance to take to the hockey fields or to dance Irish or even to walk the beam. She chose to start with rhythmic and there really are not so many choices available once you follow your sisters down a well-trodden path.
This year Luna is in her first year as a competitive rhythmic gymnast in the category 4 A/B. She mostly trains five times per week so there is a lot of commitment needed on all sides. Hockey gives you a second chance almost weekly but the gymnastics season builds up much more slowly. The season starts at the end of August but the first real competition is not until February 9 when she will compete in the Zuid Holland district championship. Months and months of training go into the gymnasts’ performances so that their routine becomes a part of them and the hope is that they will know where to be by instinct at this stage. Luna can afford to slip up in the district but the first national qualifiers follow in March and a gymnast’s season can end at this stage. If you don’t make the semi-finals then you are out and you have to wait another year. It helps being younger when so much weighs on a couple of minutes.
Daisy is also in her first season in competitive acrobatic gymnastics. Her first competition is also the District Championship with her duo partner in the Ladies E category on February 10. Right now she is also training five times a week. She does three acro sessions and she has started doing two rhythmic sessions as well. Luckily the training halls are in the same neighbourhood. Nadia just does one rhythmic session per week but she is only four after all.
Beyond performing poorly a gymnast can hardly afford a major injury. In the recent icy weather we have been very reticent about letting the girls skate. On the one hand it is a big cultural thing for the Dutch but on the other any ankle sprain might be season ending. It seems a bit of a risk to allow hundreds of training hours to melt away. It’s hard to find a balance.
The next months are the high point of the gymnastics year. Dreams are made and hopes fall apart. We keep telling the girls that the main thing is not to win but to do your best. If you know that you gave your all then you can’t have given any more. Then the results can tell the story they tell but you have achieved something remarkable as a person. Gymnasts are extraordinary, human beings who push themselves to the limits to create something that looks effortlessly beautiful. To have shaped something extraordinary, to have added and not just taken away, that is the dream.

About these ads