Gymnastics Competition

Sunday, Briana had her end of the year gymnastics showcase. Or what I had thought was supposed to be just a showcase. I had been asking Bri's gym for weeks about the showcase and I was not given much info about it at all. I am still a newbie at this invitational stuff, so I really needed to be told details. It wasn't until 5 days before the showcase weekend that I actually found out a date and time that Bri was supposed to participate.

Now that Bri is in an invitational class, she was showcasing on a different weekend than the Spring Spectacular celebration of years past. With Bri only being 4 years old and her classmates being 4 and 5, I assumed their showcase would last an hour maybe even two. I was so wrong. Not only was Bri and her classmates lumped into a day with older kids, I found out when I arrived that day that the showcase was actually a competition (where she was getting scored against her classmates) and it was scheduled to last for 3.5 hours. I had no idea. My poor child that doesn't even love gymnastics that much anymore was expected to do warm up and compete on four different apparatuses over a 3.5 hour time period. We were at the gym for 3 hours and 45 minutes and Bri probably only actually did something for about 10 minutes. All we did was wait and wait and wait some more. I invited my poor parents to this and they stuck it out the whole time. Bri is the youngest in her class and she still has some stuff to work on. She is not even close to being able to compete at anything. If I had known there was scoring and if I had known the amount of time required to be there, I would not have signed her up at all. 

On a regular day, I would say the bars and trampoline are Bri's strongest apparatuses. Floor is her weakest. Floor was first on competition day and unfortunately, bars didn't happen until about two hours into the competition and trampoline was the very last event. - 3 hours into it. By the time Bri hit those two, she was tired and just going through the motions. She actually did better on the vault than the bars and trampoline that day. She got 6th place total out of her group (last) - though she score 4th place on vault. I don't think she really understood she came in last place. Her face lit up when she got her certificate and medal and she felt like a rock star. That made me happy and that is all that matters I guess. I was so very proud of her for sticking it out.

I am still kind of upset how it all went down. Right now, I do have Bri signed up for summer gymnastic sessions. I don't plan on signing her up for fall unless she has a serious turn around in attitude for gymnastics this summer.

So, enough complaining! Here are pictures of my amazing girl. She hung in there like a rock star!

Bri and her friend Olivia talking with Coach Cynde before the event...

Very excited to see Miss Ashley...

Olivia was amazing that day. She came in second place! She has been asked to move up to the progressive level...

Two sweet friends...

Bri waiting for floor to start...

Waiting for trampoline...

Bri really struggled with the bars. She was so tired...

She still was so happy to get a medal...

Gramma and Papa hung in the whole time. We grabbed a quick bite after the competition because we were all starving...

Huge smiles. She got a medal around her neck and she was so happy...