Gymnastics has been a huge part of my life for the last 18-19 years. It is safe to say that gymnastics has been and will always be my favorite sport. Today is National Gymnastics Day so why not celebrate the sport I love?
While my career as a gymnast was far from anything special, my love for the sport has kept me involved.
When I created my first website, it was called World Famous Gymnasts. For years I put all of my free time into creating websites for a number of different gymnasts. I worked on sites for Blaine Wilson, Justin Spring, Todd Thornton and the Hamm Twins. I worked with other webmasters on sites to create content about all of our favorite gymnasts.
From those days a gymnastics webmaster, I met friends who I will have for life. Most of them I’ve never met in person, some I have more than once. As a group we would stay up late and talk about gymnastics and sometimes life.
All of the gymnasts I have run sites for in the past retired & I moved forward into a new aspect of life being a mommy, wife & working in internet marketing. I do have a goal of archiving all of my sites eventually but it has been a slow process. There is a good 10 years of gymnastics content sitting on my computer right now.
I still watch gymnastics whenever I can & GymCastic keeps me updated with the latest news. Watching the Fierce Five in London, I cried my eyes out. I now am keeping a close eye on the American girls as they are heading into Worlds, hoping to see them bring back some hardware. The guys team I couldn’t be more excited about seeing some of my favorites make their way onto the world team.
It is safe to say I would be lost without the USA Gymnastics YouTube Channel.
After “retiring” from competitive gymnastics as a level six I began coaching kids at my local club. For the next two years I spent most afternoons working with young girls as they learned their first cartwheels, pull overs and vaults. While going through a rough time in college, I realized that a large part of me was missing and it was my time in the gym.
I wound up getting a job at a local gym near our university. For the next four years I coached kids as young as three up through level three team. Each day after work, I looked forward to time in the gym & time with my girls. It always felt like a safe place to go.
When my “real world job” took over and I had to make the decision to stop coaching, it was extremely difficult to do. Working 60-80 hours a week and attempting to fit in coaching was not fair to the girls I was leaving behind at the gym.
There are a lot of times where I think about my days as a gymnast, coach and gymnastics webmaster. Maybe I’ll find my way back into it some day, maybe not. For now I’m enjoying simply being a fan.
Do you watch gymnastics? Will Simone rock another World Title? How are you celebrating National Gymnastics Day?