Typical Day

When you are a competitive gymnast, nothing can come between you and the thrill you get when you're flying over the vault or twisting in the air, or doing tricks on a beam only four inches wide. For some, these scenarios may sound crazy, but for the gymnasts at Zero Gravity, it sounds like just another typical day at practice.
There isn't a day, and rarely is there a minute, that goes by that these girls don't think about the sport they have grown to love--gymnastics. Many of the girls have wanted to be gymnasts since they can remember, always watching gymnastics on television growing up, aspiring to be the next Mary Lou Retton or Dominique Dawes, both admirable gold-medal winning gymnasts on past U.S. Olympic teams. The fact that anyone watched the girls on T.V. fly through the air, and more often than they would like, fall back down, and try the same things is admirable, and to me, a bit crazy. I was in gymnastics since the age of three, but I only stuck to the floor, where there was a nice, stable surface below me at all times. When I teach at the Y and watch the Zero Gravity gymnasts, some of them really do believe there is zero gravity. The daredevils will try anything once, and usually keep pushing themselves until they can do it perfect. The amount of dedication and concentration it takes to fly across the vault, jump from bar-to-bar then release and jump back, and flip around on a beam that is smaller than my hand is unfathomable to most, but understood and loved by the boys and girls who call themselves gymnasts.