Hey there Centenary gym fans! It's junior Tavia Smith bringing you this week's gym talk! This week we had our first set of open gyms. It feels great to be back in the gym flipping with my favorite people. After this first week, I am so incredibly pumped for the upcoming season. This team has so much talent and fight, and I'm excited to see the amazing things we can do this year.
Last spring before we went home for the summer, the team got together and decided on some goals we wanted to set for the summer and where we wanted to be as a team when we came back to school in August. We wanted to be in a better place at the beginning of the year so we would be ready to train routines earlier, giving us a stronger start to our season. One of our areas we knew we needed to focus on was being physically fit when we returned. We did a mile run on Friday, which we had set a time to finish in 7:30 or less. I'm excited to say that we had a 100% pass rate for the second year in a row! Way to go Ladies! Also props to the comeback kids for all successfully completing their 2.5-mile speed walk.
Saturday was our first open gym that the whole team was together. I love the team's energy and how we all meld together-returners and freshmen alike. I'm just so proud of this team for all the hard work we put in over the summer to have a strong starting position to begin the preseason. It only goes up from here, and the future is bright! Mad props to the freshmen for looking so amazing after having a month off of gymnastics while they took their August class in Paris before the returners got back on campus. These girls are ones to watch this next season as they are sure to make a serious impact on the competition floor from the start (no pressure). Good job freshmen Jenny Jackson and Sierra Ponder (Si-Si) for having beautiful major releases on bars. I'm so excited about the depth we are going to have on bars this year with the new freshmen as well as the returners adding more difficulty to their routines. Also props to two of our newest beam queens, Jerrica Harris and Dorothy Mims, for their beautiful beam work. I'm also psyched about adding depth to our vault and floor line ups. Look for more twisting vaults and difficulty on floor from your Ladies this season!
So when we set our goals in the spring we all agreed upon meeting certain "landmarks" when we came back to school, we decided upon our landmarks on each event so everyone on the team was aware of our expectations when we returned this fall. We picked our open gym on Sunday to see how everyone did over the summer. I have to say that I'm proud of how this team performed is an understatement. We definitely raised our expectations over past seasons and everyone stepped up to the table. Great job to our vault shakers for working hard on their twisting vaults! Congrats to all our bar stars on doing outstanding half routines. Our beamers are looking awesome as well with everyone who trains beam looking ready for routines. Lastly, our floor roars are really stepping it up with more high-flying tumbling.
Well that's all for now folks! Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks as we prepare for our first intrasquad in just five weeks! It's going to be an awesome year Ladies and Gents!
Until next time,
TT
