by Jane Lawes
There were gymnasts everywhere. A group of tiny girls were using the floor area on the other side of the gym. Their coach was helping them to do forward rolls. In their little pink leotards, Tara thought they looked very sweet, but she knew that they were getting a great head start on gymnastics. Maybe one of them would grow up to be a champion.
The air smelled a bit stale, and it was already quite warm, even though it was only 9.30 in the morning. Tara found a space on the floor near some girls who looked like they might be her age, and sat down. She was glad that almost everyone else was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, like her. She had to admit that Mum had been right after all.
The floor quickly filled up. With a bit of guessing, Tara counted fifteen who looked likely to be in the older group. There were about fifteen younger kids too. Then Lucy came in with three other coaches and introduced them. She and Greg would be coaching the ten-to-fourteen year olds, while Michelle and Amanda would work with the six-to-nine age group. They split up into their groups and the moment Tara had been waiting for finally came. She was about to start her first ever day of proper gymnastics training.
They all found a space on the floor and Lucy led them through a warm-up. It was very similar to the warm-up Tara had made up for herself in the garden, and she was pleased that she’d been doing everything right.
After that, they moved on to easy skills like forward and backward rolls and headstands. Tara loved doing headstands and she held hers steadily until her face was bright red.
“Great headstand, Tara!” Lucy grinned, and if Tara wasn’t already pink from being upside down, she would definitely have blushed when everyone turned to look at her.
They spent the whole morning working on floor skills. Tara loved being in the gym and working on the soft, springy floor, but she hoped they would move on to do some more difficult things later. So far, it was all a bit easy. She knew it would take much longer than a week to learn anything really amazing, but she couldn’t help wishing Lucy would help them work on walkovers or handsprings.
At lunchtime, they sat on the grass outside with their packed lunches. Some of Tara’s group were pairs and trios of friends, but a couple of them didn’t know anyone else either. Tara took a gulp of water, then a nervous breath, and started a conversation with a girl called Amy.
“I’ve never done any gym, except at school,” Amy admitted, when Tara asked her. “I’ve got to do something in the holidays while Mum’s at work, and I thought this might be fun. Next week I’m going to an art club every day.”
“I’d come here again next week if I could,” said Tara. She couldn’t imagine just doing gym for one week and replacing it with art the next. This was the most important week of the whole summer holiday.
“Have you done much gym before?” Amy asked. “You’re good.”
“I just practise in the garden,” Tara replied. “I’ve never been to a gym club before.”
“I wonder what we’ll do after lunch,” said Amy. She stretched her legs out, basking in the warm sunshine.
Hopefully something a bit more difficult, Tara thought.
The afternoon was more difficult, and Tara soon wished it wasn’t.
“Has anyone used a vault before?” Lucy asked, when they had warmed up again after the hour lunch break.
Some of the group nodded, but lots of them shook their heads and looked worried. Tara was in the second category. They’d only done floor stuff at school, and once or twice they’d practised climbing and swinging on the wall bars. She’d never even seen a vaulting table in real life – only on TV.
“Don’t worry,” Lucy reassured them. “We’ll start with the basics, and Greg and I will help you.”
They started by learning how to run along the track and jump onto the springboard so that they landed with both feet at the same time. Next, Greg asked Natasha, a fourteen year old who had been coming to the summer camp for a few years, to demonstrate a vault he called a “squat on”. Natasha ran towards the vaulting table, which was square and mostly flat, but curved down a bit at the front. It was held up underneath by one thick metal leg in the middle. It seemed impossibly high, even though Lucy had set it lower than usual to make it easier.
Tara watched anxiously as Natasha jumped onto the springboard and reached her hands out towards the beige vault. Her feet bounced off the springboard and landed in between her hands on the vault, so that she was crouching on the top of it. Then she stood up and jumped neatly off, landing on the big mat on the other side. She made it look easy.
“Well done,” nodded Greg. “Who’s next?” Tara and Amy edged towards the back of the group. Others had a go; some of them managed it on the first try, but a few of them didn’t. Soon it was Tara’s turn.
She took a deep breath and tried to imagine herself as one of the Olympic gymnasts she’d seen flying over the vault on TV. She set off at a run. The vault loomed in front of her, getting closer and closer. She jumped onto the springboard nervously, and instantly lost momentum. She teetered on the edge and almost toppled forward into the vault. She stopped herself with her hands and leaned against the curved part, defeated.
“Attack it with more confidence,” advised Greg.
“You won’t hurt yourself,” Lucy assured her. “I’ll help you.”
“Whatever you do,” said Greg, “don’t slow down.”
Tara went back to the beginning of the track to have another go. This time, she kept her speed up and when her feet hit the springboard, she didn’t stop. She felt Lucy’s hands on her hips, giving her a little extra push to help her up. Once she was on the vault, she was fine. It was easy enough to stand up and do a simple straight jump off. But she couldn’t forget that she hadn’t been able to do the whole thing by herself like Natasha. She joined the back of the line again and looked wistfully over at the floor area. Earlier, she’d felt like the summer camp was too easy. Now she was learning something new. And it was much tougher than she’d imagined.
As the week went on, Tara got to try lots of new things. She loved working on the trampoline, where Lucy taught her to do light, bouncy handsprings. And the beam was fun too, though she couldn’t do anything more than walk up and down on her tiptoes, and balance with one leg held out straight behind her in an arabesque. She sort of got used to the vault, though she still felt scared every time she ran towards it, and hated feeling like she wasn’t any good at it. Her favourite thing by far was the time they spent on the floor. Lucy was impressed that Tara could do the splits and could hold a bridge with her feet together and her legs straight.
On the last day of the camp, Tara was practising walkovers when she thought no one was looking. She couldn’t resist trying them on a real gym floor while she had the chance.
“Tara!” exclaimed Lucy. “You never said you could do walkovers!”
“I didn’t want to show off,” Tara mumbled, embarrassed because now it looked like she was showing off.
“Show me again,” said Lucy. “I’ll see if I can give you some tips.” Tara showed the coach what she hoped was a good walkover. “You mustn’t let your knees bend as you’re going over,” said Lucy. “Good try, though.”
Not good enough, thought Tara. Floor skills were just about the only thing she could do – it would be nice to do something perfectly to make up for the disaster on the vault. She’d just have to keep practising. With that in mind, she got back to work and didn’t notice Lucy go out to the lobby, or come back in with another coach. She didn’t even notice when the other coach stayed to watch the last half hour of training.
At the very end, they all sat on the floor and Lucy got up to talk.
“You’ve all been brilliant, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the week,” she began. “If you would like to join the club, Michelle and Greg are handing round leaflets now with the details of the group we think would be best for you.”
Tara glanced around as the two coaches stepped between them all, giving them slips of paper. Amy, sitting next to Tara, was handed one about a group on Saturday afternoons. But Greg walked off without giving Tara anything. Had she been so terrible at vault that they didn’t want her at all? Should she ask Lucy? Maybe it was better not to say anything – she couldn’t bear to hear someone say out loud that she just wasn’t good enough to be a gymnast.
She was so lost in these thoughts that she nearly jumped right off the floor when a woman spoke next to her.
“You’re Tara Bailey – is that right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Tara said. She turned to the woman, worried that she’d miss Lucy saying something important.
“I’m Clare Roberts. I coach one of the Acrobatic Gymnastics competition squads,” the woman said with a friendly smile. “You did really well just now. Lucy told me you’ve been her star gymnast all week.”
“Really?” Tara smiled uncertainly. She was shocked – a star gymnast? Her? She felt like she’d done fairly well at some things, but had she really been good? And then there was the vault. Surely Lucy and Clare had both made a mistake? She wasn’t sure what Acrobatic Gymnastics was, or where this conversation was going.
“What gymnastics training have you done before this?” Clare asked.
“None,” Tara replied. “I mean, a bit at school, and I practise a lot in the garden, but that probably doesn’t count.”
“None at all?” Clare sounded very surprised. “You mean you taught yourself to do walkovers and everything else you were doing just now?”
Tara nodded and went red. In the last half hour of the day, she’d realized that she might never get another chance to work on a real floor area, so she’d practised everything she could do. She’d had no idea anyone was watching.
“Usually when people join the club we put them into Artistic Gymnastics groups – you know, working on beam, bars, vault and floor,” said Clare. “But I need a new gymnast for my Acro squad. That’s where gymnasts work in pairs and trios. One of my gymnasts moved into a more advanced squad, leaving one of the girls without a partner. I’d really like you to give it a try – you’ve obviously got the potential to be a good gymnast and you’re the perfect height to work with Lindsay. What do you think?”
“Oh…um…thank you,” stammered Tara.
“We train three times a week – Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. You can stay for the training session tonight, if you want, to see if you like it. It starts in about twenty minutes.”
Tara was too stunned to reply. She remembered the gymnasts she’d seen on the breakfast show the other day and the amazing things they could do working together.
“Will I be able to do it?” she asked nervously. “I mean…are the gymnasts in your group really good?”
“It’s a competition squad, so I expect a high standard from them,” said Clare. “You’ll have to work hard to catch up, but from what I’ve seen you do today, I think you’re definitely capable. It’s a shame you didn’t start when you were younger.”
Tara nodded, even though she still felt a bit uncertain. She had to give it a go, didn’t she? This was what she’d dreamed about. If she said no just because she was scared, she knew she’d regret it for ever. But part of her just wanted to go on as she was, by herself in the garden, with no one to laugh at her if she did things wrong. The other gymnasts in Clare’s group had probably been coming here for ages. They all knew each other. And she was sure they were all going to be much, much better at gymnastics than her.
Chapter Six
Lucy called for quiet, and everyone stopped talking. “Just before you all go home, it’s Tara’s birthday tomorrow, so let’s sing ‘Happy Birthday’!”
Tara smiled at Lucy while everyone sang. Then they got to their feet and there was the bustle of leaving and saying goodbye. It took a while because everyone wanted to thank the coaches.
“Have fun on the art course!” Tara said to Amy.
“Thanks,” said Amy. “I hope you have a great birthday.”
Tara smiled and then Clare took her to the lobby to sort everything out with Mum. More gymnasts were arriving for their training sessions and Tara wondered which ones were in Clare’s group. The coach explained Acrobatic Gymnastics to Mum and told her a bit about the group, how often they trained and how much it would cost. Tara drank some water and ate a cereal bar while she waited for Clare to finish talking.
“Is this definitely what you want to do?” Mum asked Tara.
“Definitely!” Tara replied. She was more sure about this than she’d ever been about anything. Clare went to the office to get some forms that Mum would have to fill in.
“It’s great that Clare wants you to join her group,” said Mum. “I know how hard you’ve been practising in the garden. But if it’s too hard, or if you don’t enjoy it, you don’t have to carry on.”
“Thanks, Mum,” Tara said, giving her a hug.
When all the forms were signed, Mum said goodbye and promised to come back in two hours to pick her up. Clare and Tara went back into the gym.
The summer camp gymnasts had left, and the floor was now taken up by a group of girls and boys of mixed ages who were stretching and chatting. Clare and Tara went over to them, and the coach introduced her. Most of them smiled and said hi. Tara noticed that they were all wearing leotards in different colours and patterns, and she suddenly felt embarrassed by her T-shirt and shorts. She thought longingly of the leotard she’d seen in the shop, but then put that firmly out of her mind. She was here to learn gymnastics, she told herself – nothing else mattered.
Even though Tara was already warmed up from working hard all day, she sat down with the others and did some stretches. At the summer camp, one of the coaches had always led the warm-up, but it looked like Clare’s group were left to get on with it themselves. Probably, after years of training three times a week, they knew how to do a good warm-up, Tara thought. She copied them and tried not to make it too obvious that she didn’t know exactly what to do. She could hear whispers going round the group though, and she guessed they were talking about her. Her cheeks burned and she looked down so that she didn’t have to see them all watching her as she moved into a straddle stretch with her legs out to the sides and her stomach on the floor. But when she sat up again, she accidentally caught the eye of a girl with long blonde hair – who gave her such a friendly smile that she suddenly felt like everything might be okay after all.
When their muscles were ready to work, the gymnasts moved into three lines at the edge of the floor. Tara wondered what was going on.
“Forward roll to straddle standing, then up to headstand,” called Clare. The girls at the front of each line began to do the move across the floor.
“This bit goes on for a while,” said the girl who had smiled at her. She was tall and thin and her hair swung behind her in a long ponytail. “We do loads of different moves, starting off easy and getting harder. It’s sort of an extension of the warm-up. Once we’ve done stretches and stuff, we practise some basic moves before we start to work on new skills.”
Tara nodded. They had done something similar on the summer camp. Forward rolls and headstands were fine, but how difficult would it get towards the end?
To her relief, Tara kept up well with the others to begin with. She could see them sneaking glances at her, eager to see what the new girl could do. She was pleased when Clare asked for handstand-bridge-to-stand – she bet the others would think she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t help smiling as she stepped up into a handstand, then brought her feet all the way over to land in a bridge position. As soon as her feet touched the floor she pushed off with her hands and stood up. She’d done it so many times in the garden that she could perform the whole thing in one fluid movement. She did them all the way across the floor, hoping that the others were watching.
&nbs
p; But the next one was forward walkovers. Tara watched, worried, while the first row went. They could all do it. One of the second row struggled. When the third row started, she watched the blonde girl step effortlessly into a smooth, flexible walkover. Now it was her turn. She looked at Clare.
“Don’t worry if you can’t do it,” the coach said. “Just have a go.”
Tara tried. The first and second rows had finished now, so there were six gymnasts watching her from the other side of the floor. She got as far as stepping forward onto her hands, and bringing her legs over one at a time, but she couldn’t stand up. She pushed her hands off the floor and eventually managed to get back up, but it wasn’t one movement like it should have been.
“Good try,” Clare said, encouraging her. Tara felt better when she saw that one of the other gymnasts in her row could only do very messy walkovers too. She kept trying all the way across to the other side, but she didn’t manage it properly. She hoped that backward walkovers would be next – at least she could do those.
