Well, the Reader's Digest version is that she was not happy right afterward, but I think she's feeling OK about it now. She had two big goals that she did not achieve (flyaway and front tuck), but as I reminded her, 1) it's only one meet, 2) it's her first meet at this level, and 3) a heck of a lot of things went right!
She's always struggled on vault, but had a bit of a breakthrough a few weeks ago, so this event went better for her than it ever has, despite the coaches' warnings that judges are stricter with form deductions. She still isn't really popping off the vault, but she's getting better about getting off just after hitting the handstand, and her arms are much more controlled than they were last year. 8.6, a personal best on this event.
Bars -- her biggest disappointment. She's one of those who had a great flyaway and lost it. She landed one of her practice flyaways in warmups, but the routine itself was . . . let's just say, "not what she had hoped." She did manage not to brush the floor going up into the second kip, so that was a real victory. However, she released too early on the flyaway and fell on her landing. Her coaches are pretty frustrated, because they've been telling her to release later, and after this, the main bars coach told her that if she can't fix it, he's going to scratch her on bars for the next meet. We had mucho drama over this when we got home, but the next day, she was able to settle down a little and watch the video, and lo and behold, there she is, releasing when she's about 3/4 of the way up! It also helped watching the upper level girls compete, and seeing one of the other gyms compete a group of girls on bars at level 9 who (in my rather uninformed opinion) had no business competing that level. (Shouldn't you be able to turn a clean giant before attempting a release move??) We talked about risks and safety and I think she now has some additional reasons to clean up that flyaway, and if she has to scratch, she'll be unhappy but OK with it. Oh, score was 6.95 from a judge who was handing out some scores in the 5s.
Beam was not her best ever, but she nailed her back walkover and full turn. She was very happy about these things, especially the full turn (which to my eyes was indeed quite nice). Her score was an 8.85, and she wants to do better, even though I reminded her this was a great debut at a new level, especially getting through the whole routine without any falls. (Her scale and dismount were lovely, too.)
Floor was interesting -- she's been landing her front tuck consistently but really low. Unfortunately, she fell at the meet. But she's really improved her leaping and turns, and her RO-BHS-BT was not too bad. She ended up with an 8.4, which is just a little lower than where she started last year. And, as I reminded her, without a characteristic fall on one of the major elements!
So overall, I'm delighted for her. She's made so much progress since last year, even though she had a major injury from which to recover. In particular, I'm in awe at how far her floor has come. Thank goodness for patient coaches!
She's always struggled on vault, but had a bit of a breakthrough a few weeks ago, so this event went better for her than it ever has, despite the coaches' warnings that judges are stricter with form deductions. She still isn't really popping off the vault, but she's getting better about getting off just after hitting the handstand, and her arms are much more controlled than they were last year. 8.6, a personal best on this event.
Bars -- her biggest disappointment. She's one of those who had a great flyaway and lost it. She landed one of her practice flyaways in warmups, but the routine itself was . . . let's just say, "not what she had hoped." She did manage not to brush the floor going up into the second kip, so that was a real victory. However, she released too early on the flyaway and fell on her landing. Her coaches are pretty frustrated, because they've been telling her to release later, and after this, the main bars coach told her that if she can't fix it, he's going to scratch her on bars for the next meet. We had mucho drama over this when we got home, but the next day, she was able to settle down a little and watch the video, and lo and behold, there she is, releasing when she's about 3/4 of the way up! It also helped watching the upper level girls compete, and seeing one of the other gyms compete a group of girls on bars at level 9 who (in my rather uninformed opinion) had no business competing that level. (Shouldn't you be able to turn a clean giant before attempting a release move??) We talked about risks and safety and I think she now has some additional reasons to clean up that flyaway, and if she has to scratch, she'll be unhappy but OK with it. Oh, score was 6.95 from a judge who was handing out some scores in the 5s.
Beam was not her best ever, but she nailed her back walkover and full turn. She was very happy about these things, especially the full turn (which to my eyes was indeed quite nice). Her score was an 8.85, and she wants to do better, even though I reminded her this was a great debut at a new level, especially getting through the whole routine without any falls. (Her scale and dismount were lovely, too.)
Floor was interesting -- she's been landing her front tuck consistently but really low. Unfortunately, she fell at the meet. But she's really improved her leaping and turns, and her RO-BHS-BT was not too bad. She ended up with an 8.4, which is just a little lower than where she started last year. And, as I reminded her, without a characteristic fall on one of the major elements!
So overall, I'm delighted for her. She's made so much progress since last year, even though she had a major injury from which to recover. In particular, I'm in awe at how far her floor has come. Thank goodness for patient coaches!
