Geek Rock

I am going to tell you about gymnastics.

Gymnastics is one of my passions. I was quite good. I started at the age of 5. This went well I started with a small gym club at my school. I got told I was REALLY good and that I should join a proper club. I jumped at the thought and went to Gordan’s Gymnastics Club. I cried every day I went. I hated it. I went to my first Western Provence Cometition when I was 7. I came third over all in my age group! YAY! So I was spurred on but hated the club I told my Gran and she said we could find another club. This went on a while and in the end I joined Sun Valley’s Gymanstics Club or Brawns. I loved it. Probebly because I was the best there but it was also good for my gym. I went to Oudshoorn because I had made it through my second WP Trails. In Oudshoorn I saw some strange markings on my foot. These are commonly known as bruises. It was terrible but I thought nothing of it. I was nervous and couldn’t wait to do my gymnastics. I was 9. Too young to know that life was a misrable place to live and if I could find a way I would live in a parallel universe. But I went to the competition. We thought nothing of the bruise. I carried on as usual. Before the comp started I went and did my practice vault. I hit the spring board and to the naked ear nothing happened but to a trained expert I’m sure there was the sound of a bone squealing and then dying. I didn’t realise what happened and carried on. I did a few more vaults and realised that something was wrong. I sat down and worked my foot checking what was painful. I looked up and saw my mom in the crowd. And she mouthed “What’s wrong?” I pointed down at my foot and mouthed “It’s sooooo sore!!!” This isn’t something a mother wanted to hear. She called my first coach and asked what she could do. What happened is my mother stepped onto the gymnasim floor. Of course I was immediately disqualified. I cried half because of my foot but mainly because of my gymnastics competition ruined for me. We went to a doctor (useless people) and the lady said “Of course it’s a stress fracture”. So we did all the exercises she gave us and I did them patiently because I wanted to be the perfect gymnast again. This didn’t work. I went back to gymnastics and I failed. My foot was excruciatingly sore and so when we did vault or beam or floor I did bar. (For anyone who doesn’t know there are 4 elements Bar, Floor, Beam and vault). It was sad and  I felt I was wasting money. The next doctor I went to see said give it a 6 month rest. I did. It went well I got out of all physical activities which only led to me putting on some weight. I went back to gym. Only to find (yes you’re right) that my foot was still really painful. The next doctoer we tried said “put these specially designed insoles into your shoe and you should be able to go back to gymnastics in a few months. YAY! Well not exactly. I did this. We paid alot of money I tried some non competitive gym to see and, yes, I was still suffering. I stopped altogether. I was depresssed I couldn’t do anything to do with insane feet work. So we went to the final doctor. His name is Dr. Hastings. Thank him or I would never believe in doctors. I told him the whole story and he pressed in this one spot before I told him that that was my painful place. Asked if he was correct and then said “Um well in the beginning you actually broke your foot. A peice of bone has grown here here and here and we’ll have to have an operation”. I had seen so many doctors fail that I was to say the least sceptical. In the end I was persuaded and I missed my S.O.S. camp because the day in between the camp my cast came off. It was absolutly fascinating. At first it was gross and my foot was weak. I went to some physio and soon enough my left foot (op foot) was better than my right. It was such a relief and now I am going to be starting gymnastics again. All thanks to Dylan ( a friend of mine) who showed me that gymnastics is cool.  I think it’s going to be quite a competition between us but hey I know I’ll win!

It was a long process. Thank you for reading. I know my mom isn’t liking that she taught me to type because she had to proof read all that! Ha ha!

T