In the World of 8-year old gymnastics . . .

In the world of 8-year old gymnasts, my daughter is "tight".  This is an utterly amazing fact to me.

 In the last couple of months, she's been struggling with splits (and oversplits) during classes.  Splits because coaches make them sit in splits FOREVER.  Think Yin Yoga.  In order to get a deep tissue stretch of surrounding ligaments & tendons, you have to hold a position for an agonizing two minutes.   Parental committment to see your child succeed (and not cry her eyes out through class that you've just paid for . . cha-ching) dictates some home stretching.  We do it at least once per day.  Twice sometimes on weekends.  A distraction is the best medicine.  She's up to holding those right splits (her weakest side) through a full game of mancala.  Yee haw. 

 And then, there's "ovesplits".  Even a hundred years ago, when gymnastics was MY cup of tea, we had to do this . . . . only our coaches put us up between two beams & pushed down the center.  Now, it's one leg at a time.  But, lookie, lookie . . . she's holding 30 seconds with chest up, then a ten second push, then another 30 seconds with chest up.  That's a long friggin' time.  Counting, by the way .  . is another distraction.  Sometimes she counts in English, sometimes LOUD, sometimes she sings.  I taught her to count in Japanese.  MOTH taught her to count in French.  Her favorite is pig-latin.   She's multi-lingual when it comes to counting to ten.