Lauren's First Gymnastics Meet

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Here in Las Vegas (or at least the gym Lauren belongs to), they allow Level 3 advanced to compete in a couple of meets. It gives them practice for the "real thing" and lets them get their feet wet as far as if they want to even be in competitions. Historically, Lauren is not that competitive. Shane thinks she gets it from me, but really I am pretty competitive (at least with myself). I don't like to lose, I am just okay if I do. Lauren is okay if she wins, loses, or whatever. So, Shane and I were both a little concerned competition might not be for her. Well, we fixed the hair and added the glitter (a necessary part of competition, as we have come to find out)! We have done the hair back and tight two other times and there were a lot of tears. This time there were less. I have hopes we may be able to do it someday without any tears! The meet went great! She loved it and really stepped it up from her practices. She was in a group with 12 other girls and she consistently stayed in the higher scores. Her best score was on her worst event - vault. This poor child cannot run and when she does it is flat footed. For a tiny petite little thing, she sounds like an elephant. BUT, she managed to get off the springboard into a handstand forward roll. It wasn't too shabby and got her an 8.70. A very admirable score. Her floor routine was also decent. She can do the motions, but she doesn't always make her movements deliberate. I think this is where her deductions came from. She got an 8.35 on her floor routine. All the girls at this level do all the same routines. She doesn't get to make up her own until she is at least a level 7, I think. Until then, there are compulsory routines and premade ones. On bars, which is her strongest event, she overrotated her hip circle and ended up having to remount. Her mill circle was great and her dismount was beautiful! She arched and landed. She still pulled out a 7.0 on this event. Her beam routine was the best, though. She rocked it. She did fall doing a split jump, but her jump was higher than the other girls'. She pulled out an 8.1 with the fall. It was an awesome score. She ended up taking 3rd place in her age group. If she hadn't fallen on either event, she would have taken first. It was that close. She is very excited for the next meet in two weeks. This one will be at another gym, so the competition will be different. We can't wait to see what she does there.