Hey Ladies gym fans! This is senior Dot, Dot, Dot coming at ya with the first gym talk of 2020 and of the spring semester—my and Cami's last semester at Centenary! Your Ladies have been enjoying some time off classes since the last gym talk. We all spent time at home for Christmas break, resting with our families and training at our home gyms. It was SO nice to have time to spend with family and friends from home! We returned to school about a week earlier than most of our friends to kick off boot camp on Sunday! Although we love having time at home with our families, we were all excited to see each other and get ready for meet season!
We had practices Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, then headed to the Lake Shack (Coach Jackie's house) for a New Years team retreat. We had a fun warm-up for our second practice on Monday, which featured a running maze led by Cami Bea. There were many laughs as we ran under the beams, through the little kids' area and across the rope wall, with it culminating it a hilarious wipe-out from our leader Cami Bea which resulted in a huge bruise and scrape on her leg. We also took advantage of the additional time we have without classes to have extra handstand and choreography work.
When we got to the Lake Shack after practice Tuesday, we kicked off the retreat with lots of pictures outside in the light—the views out over the lake provide a perfect backdrop for cute photos! After lots—and lots—of pictures, we played a game led by sophomore Xian called, "Do all Centenary gymnasts think the same?" based off the YouTube series Jubilee. It was great to find out what all my fellow gymnasts think—and no, all Centenary gymnasts do not think the same! After this game we did some more work getting to know each other, with a minute each of praise, talking about our pre-college lives, and talking about things we struggle with. Then, we did our annual Secret Santa gift swap. We all received wonderful gifts that show how well we know our teammates; Cami Bea received a lovely (hilarious) framed picture of freshman Kennedy Stephens as a part of her gift. Next, we had a tik tok competition, with the classes competing against each other (juniors and seniors combined). Hopefully y'all followed along on our Instagram and voted for your favorite tik tok dance; the juniors and seniors won the competition, of course! We had a blast making up dances together, using our teamwork skills, and showing them off to each other. In case you didn't watch, your Ladies can DANCE. After the competition, we all performed a tik tok dance together (starring Coach Jackie's mopping); if you want to watch this video—and yes, you do—click the link at the bottom of the article! After all the dancing, we chilled out and got to hear some funny (and some serious) stories with the M&M game.
We ended the night with some sparkling grape juice to toast the new year and started off the year with a great breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and sausage. And I gotta say, Coach Jackie really put her foot in those pancakes (iykyk). We headed back to campus for some R&R and a High School Musical: The Musical: The Series binge session before a dinner to celebrate Cami's 22nd birthday! Happy birthday, Bea! We quickly got back into the practice rhythm with a judged intrasquad on Thursday. Your Ladies did awesome showing our routines in front of judges for the first time this year. It's so nice to get an opportunity to practice in pressure situations before we get out there for our first meet; thanks to Coach Jackie for setting up opportunities like this to make us the best prepared we can be for season, and thanks to the judges for watching us and for being so helpful! We had a light practice in the Gold Dome on Friday and practices Saturday and Sunday as well. We had a fun session of PiYo (a combination of Pilates and yoga) with a former Centenary gymnast, Libby Burkhalter, in between practices on Sunday!
We had lots of great progress in the gym this week, including some great vaults (beautiful fulls from Lani and always amazing halves from Cami Bea) and some people making great comebacks on bars and floor (Lauryn, Maddie, Si~Si, and Lacey)! I've seen some people really putting in work to help out the team: Shoutout to Kendall Huff for her hard work and stepping up on bars, Lani for stepping up on floor, and Rose for stepping up on beam! As meet season is coming up very quickly, I'm so thankful for my teammates who not only work hard in the gym but also work hard to keep their teammates' morale up and cheer them on. Taylor Ann and Lauryn, you make hard days possible; thank you for keeping things positive in the gym!
Thanks for following along with your favorite Ladies! Come back next week to hear how our first day of Spring semester classes and our first meet go! Wish us luck and follow along as we travel to Oregon State this weekend for the first meet of the season! Catch ya on the flip side!
Love,
Dot
