I was a mostly self-taught gymnast. The only person who ever "coached" me was an older cousin who had been on her high school gymnastics team AND the Special Olympics team in our state. She tried to teach me an aerial ... on a concrete ledge (close to 4 feet off the ground) of a planter bed in front of their porch. At that point in time, I still didn't have a 1 handed cartwheel ... I got that on my own 4 months later. I told her there was no way I was going to attempt an aerial on concrete. I told her I didn't need another concussion, lol. Their yard was on a hill, so I couldn't try there either. I just did regular cartwheels and roundoffs on the sidewalk.
Then, there was always watching gymnastics on tv. I loved it.
Fast forward to December 2005. The girls had been invited to a birthday party at the YMCA. We found out they offered scholarships to cover part of membership fees AND part of classes. We applied in January and were offered a 90% discount. We still didn't know that gymnastics was a possibility though. We were regularly going to the Y to go swimming. OG was literally climbing door jambs at home and hanging from her fingertips and doing tuck ups. YG couldn't climb it because her little legs weren't long enough, but if someone lifted her up, she would hang and do tuck ups too. We were right there in case she wanted down.
In March, there was a "demonstration" day going on in the Y lobby when we arrived. So now we knew they had some sort of gymnastics program. The girls wanted to do it, but YG was technically not quite old enough for the baby class. The Head coach said she could still join since the class was for a toddler and an adult and she would be old enough at the end of the month (3 days after her last class for that month).
The girls were hooked from the beginning. They did both also try other sports, but they always went back to gymnastics. They have also both taken time off ... sometimes they were both out and sometimes, it was one or the other. OG is a sophomore in college now and she wishes she had stuck with gymnastics. YG is struggling with life at the moment (junior year of high school, having to babysit her SM's babysitting kids if she doesn't have school, can't miss as much school as she normally does because she is at the local JVS and they are very strict on attendance, a girl who she has had issues with for the last 5 years is in more than half of her classes, she is trying to find time to finish her online driver's ed class before her time is up - the course will reset if she takes too long, and she has always struggled with school due to ADD - no hyperactivity and zoning out).