Well Ladies fans, it's that time again! This is senior Mack, tagging in to bring you this week's recap of the chaotic and thrilling life we have as Centenary Ladies. Hope you're ready to hear about all the exciting, and also not so exciting, ins and outs of this past week.
Let's begin with Tuesday. Unlike probably most of you, the Ladies began their day "dark and early" as we like to say, enjoying the limited and therefore precious gym time we get to share as an entire team at our first 6 a.m. open gym of the week. As you could probably guess, gymnastics is not always easy when you are half asleep, but somehow we still manage to continue to soar to new heights despite our lack of brain function so early in the morning. The rest of the day was spent getting smart as the team went off to their smorgasbord of classes, until we reunited once again in the fit later that day. Our seniors, Liz and Tavia, led us in a very satisfying circuit of strength and cardio exercises for our first voluntary team led conditioning – which is important because, like I've always been told, "a strong gymnast is a happy gymnast".
Next, Wednesday started out like any other day with the Ladies killing it in the classroom. However, twas not an ordinary day for me I must say. I got to experience a first on this marvelous Wednesday afternoon. What was this first you may ask? This was the day I got to experience what it felt like to become concussed (no worries no permanent harm was caused in the making of this new experience). While it was a shared effort in the process of my concussing, I completely understand the idea of abrupt self-preservation of a teammate not wanting to be landed on—sometimes it becomes every man for himself. Maybe you just have to fall on your noggin to get the most out of your college experience (it's all about the memories made right?). While that was the end to my week of gymnastics, my fellow Ladies continued to push themselves the rest of the week as we all trickled in and out of the gym each day. I could feel the sense of determination, purpose, and commitment in the air as we pushed on and successfully made it over the notorious hump: to lead us to another dark and early morning track workout on Thursday. Not only did we watch the sun rise as we ran up and down those stadiums, and back and forth across that turf, but a sense of willingness and strength filled the atmosphere. We carried this into our Friday.
Like any other Friday, the Ladies filled their 12-3 p.m. time slot with tons of flips as well as fun. You may have even seen some of the action on our new Centenarygym Snapchat! Our very own freshman Xian and sophomore Jenny have been busy filling our snap story with tons of exciting videos each day. I highly encourage you to add us on Snap so you don't miss out on not only some big gymnastics, but also the daily, self-entertaining, hooligan nonsense that goes on within the life of a gymnast. Don't get me wrong, the Centenary Ladies' number one focus is to work hard and become the best team we can be, but we have to remember that we are a large group of adult children who tend to find ourselves entertaining each other by playing human horseshoes with spare hula hoops.
To end another long academic week, the Ladies got to spend some quality bonding time together Friday night for this year's sister reveal. It was a great time for all involved, but most importantly our three freshmen who became a part of their new gym families. (See Instagram for the new additions!) Once the big surprises were revealed, we all enjoyed some delicious cookies (shhh! Don't tell Jacqueline) over some arts and crafts and a guessing game of random facts about all returning members of the team. It was a marvelous night which set us up for another spectacular year.
All this action leads me to a few much needed shout outs to some very impressive Ladies. Shout out to junior Dorothy for her beautiful giants after nine months of not being able to do the sport we love and her continuing climb up the skill ladder now that she has her shiny new brace! Another shout out to freshman,Kendall Sanders and Kendall Knaps for their awesome bar release work, it's just a matter of time until y'all will be catching consistently! Finally, shout out to senior Liz for being an incredible comeback queen, and a constant reminder to all of us that no matter how long you are kept on the sidelines unable to partake in this amazing sport, if you have the opportunity to come back, then you're the only thing standing in your way.
That's it for this week, but be sure to tune in next week to hear from another fellow {Senior}ita, Natalie Scates, as she shares how this team continues to grow in spirit, and of course to give you the inner scoop on all the other shenanigans we will take part in this week.
All the love y'all,
Mack Pack