I fear that my daughter is done. She is also headed to ninth grade this fall and was supposed to be training L6 right now. Gymnastics has been her world since the first day she stepped into the gym in kindergarten. Looking back, I think she was born loving gymnastics. She started playing "gymnast" at 18 months. But the road to optionals has been long, winding, and beset with heartbreak. Her last two meets were disastrous thanks to fear issues on her flyaway and general nerves. When the gym closed, she was already worrying about how she would balance high school and gymnastics and was talking of competing Platinum instead of L6 even though this would probably mean she would never compete giants, which has always been her dream. She looks forward to her gym's Zoom sessions, but on 1.5 hours a week she's already lost a lot of conditioning. She still talks about "when I get back in the gym," but realistically that won't be for a year or more. Unless she improves her mental toughness while she's out of the gym, I just can't see her having the patience to regain her conditioning and skills after that much time away. But perhaps the rigor of high school coursework will help her develop the necessary grit. Only time will tell.
