Tsukahara

This is a bonus midweek post, just because! Actually, it is because of something specific. This past weekend my gymnastics team got together for the first time in over 30 years. Nor had I seen any of them in that span of time either. It’s a funny thing for me. If you met me up until the age of 18, you know me as a gymnast. If you met me after that, you know me as a hockey player. It’s like leading a double life. No matter what side of that equation you fall on, or even if you are just now getting to know me via this blog, then this is just going to be a fun little post to share a little story about my life as a gymnast. I’ll try not to jump into the deep end… but no promises!

So about this reunion- it was a spur of the moment thing (almost). One of our teammates, who now lives in Seattle, was going to be in town for his son’s gymnastics meet. He reached out to those of us he is connected to on FB to see if anyone might want to get together not knowing if he would even get a response. We all jumped on it! Some people even drove in from out of town. I had no idea how it was going to play out, but I certainly didn’t expect this- it was pure joy. I don’t think any of us expected that exactly. Yet we all knew for sure that this thing had to happen.

You see we were the original team of Bill Austin’s Gymnastics. Bill coached for over 30 years before retiring, so a whole lot of gymnasts passed through his doors after us. But we were the originals. We started with Bill when he first opened his gym in a tiny warehouse sandwiched between other warehouses in a row of warehouses. The gym was so small that you really had to be careful that you didn’t collide with somebody when dismounting whatever you happened to be dismounting! Our team was co-ed, which was not overly common. Usually a gym specializes in one or the other. We spent A LOT of time together both in and out of the gym. We spent almost every last dime of our childhoods together. We carpooled. We had team slumber parties. We went to watch college gymnastics meets together. We went on international trips for meets- Bermuda, Mexico City. And within all of that we had a good deal of unsupervised time. Look, it was the 70’s. Things were a whole lot looser back then! We had a blast. Yes, we worked our rears off. Yes, we were all not so secretly terrified of Bill. But we had an absolutely crazy, amazing, fabulous blast.

We moved with Bill, twice for many of us, as the gym expanded. I think what we had all forgotten is that we had become a family. That means that we have essentially been estranged from our family for over 30 years. Our reunion was surreal. We all laughed so hard and smiled so much that it brought back to life what probably feels like a different lifetime for most of us. And yet there it was… just the same. I felt at home. I think we all did. The thing is that when a gymnastics career ends, or transitions to a new gym, the truth is that it is traumatic. Every athlete can relate. It’s the same when your college, national, or professional career ends. 

I am happy to report that I was awarded not just one, but two titles at my gymnastics reunion. The first title… and don’t go feeling bad for my teammates about this, because frankly they did a whole lot more winning than I did back then!…. is the “Looks the Same” award. I will say there was a very close runner up, and the truth is we all looked really great. Gymnastics has served us well. The second title, which not everybody heard, but I and at least one other person did so I am just going to go ahead on and put it out there- Bill gave me “His Proudest Moment” award. Now, now, teammates, he is proud of all of us, so just let me have my day! Here is the story behind it:

I was in no way a naturally talented gymnast. Not. At. All. I was a tomboy. I fall more on the naturally talented hockey player scale. But I loved it, so I persisted. To make a long story short, I wasn’t the best vaulter (or anything else) in my early career. So much so that I drove Bill to blow a gasket one day. That day actually changed my life. He yelled at me for making the same mistake for the umpteenth time. When Bill yelled, the entire gym reverberated. I was deeply embarrassed. But Bill wasn’t having it. He then proceeded to yell something at me that I had never heard before. He yelled, “Lift up your head! Have a little pride in yourself!!!” What did he just say? Is he crazy??? I decided he was certifiably crazy, but I lifted my head because I didn’t know what crazy might do next if I didn’t. Something magical happened when I did. Somehow, someway, a little self-respect found its way in. After that, I decided that if I had to work 10 times as hard as everybody else to get there, that was what I was going to do. So I did. I became a talented gymnast late in my career…. in a career which you don’t have time to be late in! But nonetheless, it changed everything.

Flash forward a few years from that moment and I had become, more than anything, a talented vaulter. Bill’s proudest moment came the first time that I competed a tsukahara. Instead of me trying to explain it, just look it up on YouTube. All you need to know for this story is that it involves a one and half back flip off of the horse. Unfortunately, my nerves got the best of me and I came on to the vault too high, which meant that I got zero block (the maneuver that gets you height off of the horse), which meant that I got zero rotation off of the horse. I was heading for a seriously bad crash landing. I knew it. I also knew that if I didn’t do something drastic I was going to land on my neck, and when that happens all bets are off on the rest of your life. I instinctively reached out of the flip back for the floor and luckily (or perhaps skillfully!) flip-flopped out of it. If that sounded graceful, let me assure you this was every bit a crash landing.

It scared the shit out of me. It scared the shit out of Bill. It scared the shit out of every spectator watching. And more than anything it scared the shit out of the judges (which, in retrospect, made it slightly fun)! After making sure I was alright, Bill asked me what I wanted to do. You see I had to do a second vault. Call me crazy, but I knew I had to do it again. He said, “Go for it.” When I put up the number telling the judges that I would be doing another tsuk, I am pretty sure they all crawled under the judges table because they weren’t about to watch! Truly, this was the sweetest revenge that I ever got on those pesky judges! And… I did it! Actually, I overdid it… I over-rotated the second one and fell back on my butt. It didn’t matter. I had proven that I could do it. And I had given Bill what would be his proudest moment of his 30 year coaching career. It was the least I could do.

What I want to leave you with right now is that this thing I am calling interbeing is about connection. Seeking it isn’t all about the heavy lifting of exposing our shadows to get our selves out of our own way. The full experience of interbeing does require that, but that is just so that we can connect with others in a deeper, more meaningful way. But it also requires just good old fashioned connecting with the people who cross your path at any level that it happens to occur at. I’ve said this before, and it can’t be said enough- our relationships are precious. Really, they are everything.