It’s Been a While

Hellooo,

I just realized how long it has been since I actually wrote a blog post so I thought I would come atcha with a short one. What I have been doing recently:

• Uploading ‘Skill Update’ videos every month (if you would like to subscribe or watch the videos, here is the YouTube Channel link)
• Since two pairs of grips ripped in the same exact spot within a month I had to call the grip company and request two new pairs because they are not suppose to rip like that. But now that I have at least one good pair, I will start working with my club coach again to finish learning a new bar dismount required for one of the Cirque shows
• I go to LA Fitness to get my regular workout in
• Coach the little kiddies that come into Docksiders for gymnastics classes
• I’m at the tail end of studying for my personal trainer certificate and should be taking the test veeeeeery soon! 🙂
• And to top it all off, I’m a trampoline instructor at the Trapeze School New York based in DC! If you want to take one of my classes here is the class sign up page!

More to come!

“One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.” -William Feather

“So…What Are You Doing Now?”

If I had a dime every time I was asked this question since graduation I’d have somewhere close to 10 dollars by now…

“So what am I doing now”

Welp… the real answer is a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And as much as I want the answer to be a little more definitive and I want to know exactly what life is going to throw at me, I’ve come to the conclusion that instead of worrying about what’s coming next, I should enjoy doing ‘a little bit of this and a little bit of that’ because it won’t last forever.

Ever since I can remember up until my senior year of high school, my days consisted of going to school, going to gymnastics practice, doing homework and going to sleep to wake up and repeat the process. Gymnastics is one of those sports where you do not have an off season. You need to practice daily in order to just maintain your skills. If you talk to any serious gymnast they’ll tell you if they ever took more than a week off for vacation, they would dread coming back into the gym because you felt like you were hit by a mack truck. You knew you were going to be sore for at least a week and a half just to get up to the skill level you were at before you left for vacation. Therefore, my family and I rarely went on vacations when I was younger and if we did we would only be gone for a matter of days.

So if you’re not getting the picture, I was a pretty busy kid, even in the summers. I worked my butt off every summer to move up a level and/or master as many new skills as I could. And when senior year of high school arrived, most people knew where they were going to school next year but I had to continue to work my butt off if I wanted to get an athletic scholarship to a University. I was privileged enough to get a full athletic scholarship to one of the most expensive schools in the country to compete as part of a Division 1 gymnastics team. So after senior year of high school my schedule didn’t change much other then the fact that the classes were now harder as were the practices, competitions, and responsibilities of being a Division 1 collegiate athlete. And by senior year of college I was the captain of a team of 17 girls, needless to say, working my butt off came with the Betsy’s Life job description.

Recently graduated with no classes to sit through, no team to take care of, no practices that need to be attended (even though if you ask my boyfriend, I still practice and work out like a maniac), no assignments to complete in order to go home, and no conditioning lists that need to be conquered that make my hands bleed. Suddenly all of that responsibility of being a Division 1 collegiate athlete has now been taken off my shoulders…athletically; this is a different world for me, one that I’ve never been in and it feels very strange.

Since the audition (GW wrote a nice article about the audition), I make my own practices and I do gymnastics for myself, not to represent a club or a university. I treat working out like it’s my job because, right now it is. I’m learning new skills that I was never able to master when I was competing. And I still have those dreams of performing in one of the hardest and most well known entertainment companies in the world and so you ask, what am I doing now…

Well lets see:

1. I’m practicing at my old club gym to maintain and learn new skills to upload to my Cirque profile (here are two more videos that I’ve uploaded so far: Video 2 ,Video 3) as well as going to the normal people gym to maintain strength and cardio.
2. I’m also currently working at my old club gym as a gymnastics coach for the little kids which lemme tell you, has made me respect allllll of my coaches a little more for having to deal with me when I was a kid 😐
3. I’m constantly looking for new disciplines to learn to show that I’m willing to learn anything it takes. I’ve invested in a slackline and have been teaching myself the ropes: Slacklining 1, Slackening 2. And I’ve also been taking flying trapeze classes at Trapeze School New York in Washington DC which has been quite entertaining.
4. And if I am still around here after the Holiday Season, the plan is to study and take my personal training certificate in order to be a certified personal trainer.

So that’s the plan as of now, who knows, maybe in a couple of days I’ll be doing something completely different but like I said in the beginning, doing ‘a little bit of this and a little bit of that’ is something I should be taking advantage of and enjoying because it won’t last forever.

 

…My mom will definitely kick me out of the house at some point.