Hey, new here!

[TDiver]

Hey everyone,

Just thought I would say this board is amazing, and tell you a little bit about myself.

My name is Tori and I am 16 years old from Tennessee and did gymnastics for 13 years of my life. I went through many injuries (3 surgeries) during gymnastics and after being out for a year I competed as a level 10. After my last meet this year I was having really bad back pain and decided it (with a little help) was time to be done. Thankfully I had been diving a little bit off and on since the age off 11, so I had something else to turn to. I now spend once a week in the gym and dive 5 days a week twice a day. Even though I am done with the sport, I love it and will start coaching most likley when I finally get the time.

Well That's about it for me. I can't wait to meet everyone!

Thanks,
Tori

 

[gracefulone]

Hey, nice to meet you!

 

[gymnastmomof4]

Hello. We are from Tennessee also. my daughter is 7 and is competing level 5 this year. We would love to hear from you.

 

[Ingymmom]

Hi Tori & welcome - you sound like an incredibly talented gymnast! I hope diving gives you much satisfaction & success... I am mom to a gymnast (5) and to my 2 fab boys (14& 12) that love the trampoline and recently joined a pre-team program. I am ALSO a big fan of Tessa Pama.

 

[TDiver]

Thank you all so much for the welcome! Gymnastmomof4 it is cool that we are from the same state.

Ingymmom, Thank you so much and yes Tessa Pama is an incredible gymnast!

-Tori

 

[Blackie6]

Just wanted to say "welcome" to the CB. I am mom to a new level 4. She is 6 yrs old and just loves the gym. I honestly don't know who she gets her conditioning "bug" from because I hate to excercise...she thinks it's fun. She is a late sign-up on our comminity pool dive team this Summer. She loves the water but not liking the dives right now. We all thought she would be a "natural" but for some reason she is scared. I even told her today that the wonderful thing about diving is when you do fall or mess up it is only into the water. When you fall off the beam it's onto the floor, LOL! She hit the water once on her back and it stung so I guess she can't get over that but her 9 yr old brother loves it and is not scared. maybe once she gets over it she will like it as much as gymnastics. There aren't too many clubs here with a dive team though...mostly swim teams so we haven't had alot of meets yet. Anyway, nice to meet you and hope to see you around, I'm sure that your years of being a gymnast will be a great source of knowledge for us new mommies!

 

[gym law mom]

Welcome Tori!! I have a just turned 11 yo who is working L8 stuff right now. She has also expressed an interest in just trying some diving to see if she would like it. I had to remind her divers are taught to land on their head while gymnasts are "supposed" to land on their feet

As a parent I certainly welcome your insight on gymnastics!!

 

[gracefulone]

I know you're into diving now, but have you ever thought about pole vault? Neither did I, butnow I'm the best at my school. It is very easy for gymansts to be good at it; the more gymnastics the better the vaulter. 7' is a pretty decent height and I made it at my first meet(one week of practice). I'm level 6 training seven. My friend Danielle was level 9, then did highschool, and she made 10'. Just a thought....

 

[TDiver]

Gracefulone,

I was actually on the track team for my high school last year (my father is the track coach so it worked with my schedule a little) and I was going to pole vault, but they never got the pit out! I was really excited to learn it, but now with my back and such my dad says he doesn't want to teach me until it is better. My dad went to Olympic Trials twice in Polevaulting so I really wanted to try it. Sadly, my diving coaches are not going to let me do track this year.

Sounds like you are doing great with it and good luck with your gymnastics and pole vaulting. I think it is good to get into more than one sport when your younger so you are more open to different things say if something happened with gymnastics, even if it is just for the summer or once a week. Gymnasts usually excel at most sports, so that helps a lot!

Gym law mom, If your daughter shows some interest in diving you should let her give it a try if ever allowed. And about the head vs feet thing, it was hard with certain dives for me, but at gymnastics I never landed on my head because of getting confused. I did land on my feet instead of head at diving quite a few times though, but not everything is to your head. My gymnastics coaches didn't like the whole idea at first but the past 2 years they thought it was great that I was excelling at more than one sport.
-Tori

 

[gracefulone]

Oh ok. Sometimes it can be hard on your back. I didn't even want to vault. The vault coach addressed the entire girls' track team and was like I need girl pole vaulters-see me if you're interested. Nope. Sprint coach-Kate, what do think about pole vault? Nope. Jumps coach-Kate pole vault might be for you, you can jump really well plus you're a gymnast. Nope. Three strikes you're out, right? Definitely not. The jumps and sprint coaches talked to our head coach about possible candidates. Before I knew it, the vault coach came up to me saying, Kate, you're coming with me today. Apparently, I'm a natural. At first I hated it. I really just wanted to jump. (long/triple). But slowly I started to like it, then love it! I don't even jump or run anymore(I did the 4 by 200 all through indoor, and part of outdoor) I even practice during the summer, and weight lift three times a week.

 

[TDiver]

Well that's really good that even though you said no, you got to try it. And look your probably amazing at it! When I ran track I did the... 4 by 100, 4 by 200, triple jump, and 100 meter hurdles. I really liked it, but the girls on my team probably didn't like that I didn't go to practices much and only came to time trials to get spots on the relays. Is it hard doing more then one sport for you?
-Tori

 

[xstitchcarina]

Welcome here. I am sure you will like it here. Sounds like you were a very good gymnast, sorry to hear you had so many injuries. Hope they will all heal and that you will be able to compete at diving really well.

 

[gracefulone]

Yes! After a three-hour pole vault practice, I would eat in the car, and head to gymnastics for two and a half hours.Actually, my parents cut down my gymnastics after state. My mom didn't want me to do both this year. She said I could do HS gymnastics(but I REALLY don't want to). So I told my pole vault coach that I may not be returning next year. He just about had a fit. He said that I can miss track practice on the nights I have gymnastics(Mon/Wed), since no one really needs a five-hour workout and gymnastics help a lot with pole vault. He said he'd talk to the head coach. Not to mention blancing homeowrk-AP world history is no cake walk

It stinks that the other girls were mad, couldn't they tell how hard you were working on something else? I ran the 4 by 100 as a last-minute substitute at outdoor jv conference. You can't do the same event at both conferences, so I pole vaulted varsity, and my coaches agreed to let me do long and triple jump at jv. I ended up second in long and fourth in triple, improving my personal best by two and one and a half feet, respectively. i was watching the jv pole vaulters when my jumps coach told me it was time to do long jump. She said, Kate, will you do me a huge favor? I was like, What?, Run the 4by1? And she said,how'd you know? I told her that I knew one of the girls was injured. I just hope that people wil be more understanding of my situation. Well, the boys I vault with will give me crap, but what else is new? They are just jealous that I can do more pull-ups then them, I'm more flexible, and I'm closer to the school record than they are!

 

[TDiver]

Xstitchcarina,
Thank you for the welcome and thanks!

Gracefulone,
I'm so glad you wil get to do both again, that is great! Last year was really hard for me. I was doing gymnastics, diving, high school diving, high school swimming, and track! Some days I wouldn't be home until 11:30pm and the only full practice I went to were diving (since i do club i get excused from high school workouts). Diving ended at 7pm and I would run off to the gym and until 9pm some nights.. and the nights I didn't go to the gym I would go to swim practice from 9pm to 10:30pm. It was confusing, but it iwas sorta of my year of getting out of the gym and I only had to be there the whole 5 hours on saturday and one day in the week just to keep up my strength and level 10 skills, so it wasn't as bad.
-Tori

 

[gracefulone]

Wow. That's a lot to deal with all at once. I hate doing stuff late at night. The thing that ws hardest was when we had a track meet that was almost two hours away, I had to do my homework at the meet-and I had an ap world history test the next day! We didn't get home until around 11 that night. How did you keep up with school?

 

[TDiver]

I kept up with school okay because I only had 2 hard classes at once. My second semester was okay other than Chemistry because I had a teacher that didn't believe in homework (which was amazing!) But I believe it is going to be much harder this year. I will have all core classes (eight of them, 4 each semester) and will be diving in the morning. So that will mean waking up at 5am and going to the pool for practice then going to straight to school. After school it is back to the pool for the 2nd practice and then home for dinner and homework. It will be tough with the traveling all over for meets. We may be going to Sweden for a competition this year!! It's exciting but i'm worried about missing too much school and getting behind. I am already starting school 3 days later then everyone because of Nationals this year.
-Tori

 

[gracefulone]

All of my classes are year long-3 ap classes, plus physics and intro calculus/trigonometry. Doesn't that just sound fun? My only breaks are orchestra and first semester strength(weightlifting pretty much) and second semester trends("new"/upcoming ways to stay fit.) Keep up. Have fun at your big competitions.

 

[MartinaE]

Hey Tori! Wow, you must have been an incredible talent at gymnastics! I`m really sorry to hear about your back though! I hope it was not too hard to say goodbye for you.......
But it sure is great you still have diving now! I hope things are going well for you there!

 

[TDiver]

MartinaE

Hey martinaE,
Thank you so much. And it was hard to say goodbye but my diving coach and teamates have made it a lot easier. Diving is so similar to gymnastics and almost every single person on my diving team has done gymnastics so that helps too. Things are going alright here, I leave for USA Junior Diving Nationals today!! They are in California so I will be there for the next 11 days! I'm excited, but very nervous. Thank you for the welcome.
-Tori