Spring Break
Flipping back into love
Olivia Vivian
Issue date: 3/6/09 Section: Sports
I am an easily distracted person. My mind is always wandering different places, and I get bored 10 minutes into class. Imagine my thoughts after 11 years of gymnastics?
I started gymnastics when I was around 8 years old, which is quite late in this particular sport. The more common age is around 5, and it's generally because the parents are sick of cleaning up the dirty footprints that the kids leave from doing handstands against the walls!
Gymnastics was all fun and games at first. I didn't care about scores or results or anything except doing flips and learning new skills. But when I got older and it turned into a career, the fun in training slowly started to disappear.
Back in Australia, I trained 32 hours a week. That's a full-time job without the benefit of getting paid. Of course, the rewards in the end far outweighed the hours of practice. But training became so boring, I lost the joy I used to get out of it.
Just over a year ago, when I was in preparation for the Beijing Olympics, my passion for gymnastics was almost on empty, and I found myself trying to find any excuse to get out of training. I once faked sick so I could stay home and watch a new series I just bought on DVD. In my defense, this series was incredibly gripping, and I couldn't wait to see what happened next on the following episode.
After I had finished this series and done some deep thinking about my goals, I returned to training and tried to avoid thoughts on how repetitive and routine my days had become. Not long after this, I signed on with OSU. Another four years of gymnastics…
I had only a slight idea on what I was getting myself into. I heard that college gymnastics was very different and that it was an NCAA rule that you couldn't train more than 20 hours a week! I will admit, the sound of no more than 20 hours immediately made me smile.
Now that I have experienced college gymnastics, I have found my passion for gymnastics again. It's like when you find something you love to eat, then you eat it too often and get sick of it. Then after a long period of time, you try it again and, once again, it's the best thing ever. But after doing a certain style of gymnastics for so long, this adjustment was exactly what I needed.
The atmosphere here at OSU is so much fun. The training assignments change all the time and small games are created to help keep things different and challenging - not to mention that the coaches are wonderfully refreshing and my teammates never fail to entertain me with their amazing traits.
I used to think about retirement and how great life would be when I stopped training. After experiencing what I have here with OSU gymnastics, I never want it to end. We have our "Salbasgeon Suites Invitational" meet tonight, which will be the last time our seniors get to compete in the incredible Gill Coliseum.
I want to thank our seniors Brooke Barclay, Kera Bolen, Jami Lanz, D'Anna Piro, Johnnie Rae Schmelzer and Tasha Smith. They have all made huge contributions to this OSU program, and I hope that their college career has been all they hoped and more.
Olivia Vivian, OSU gymnastics
sports@dailybarometer.com
I started gymnastics when I was around 8 years old, which is quite late in this particular sport. The more common age is around 5, and it's generally because the parents are sick of cleaning up the dirty footprints that the kids leave from doing handstands against the walls!
Gymnastics was all fun and games at first. I didn't care about scores or results or anything except doing flips and learning new skills. But when I got older and it turned into a career, the fun in training slowly started to disappear.
Back in Australia, I trained 32 hours a week. That's a full-time job without the benefit of getting paid. Of course, the rewards in the end far outweighed the hours of practice. But training became so boring, I lost the joy I used to get out of it.
Just over a year ago, when I was in preparation for the Beijing Olympics, my passion for gymnastics was almost on empty, and I found myself trying to find any excuse to get out of training. I once faked sick so I could stay home and watch a new series I just bought on DVD. In my defense, this series was incredibly gripping, and I couldn't wait to see what happened next on the following episode.
After I had finished this series and done some deep thinking about my goals, I returned to training and tried to avoid thoughts on how repetitive and routine my days had become. Not long after this, I signed on with OSU. Another four years of gymnastics…
I had only a slight idea on what I was getting myself into. I heard that college gymnastics was very different and that it was an NCAA rule that you couldn't train more than 20 hours a week! I will admit, the sound of no more than 20 hours immediately made me smile.
Now that I have experienced college gymnastics, I have found my passion for gymnastics again. It's like when you find something you love to eat, then you eat it too often and get sick of it. Then after a long period of time, you try it again and, once again, it's the best thing ever. But after doing a certain style of gymnastics for so long, this adjustment was exactly what I needed.
The atmosphere here at OSU is so much fun. The training assignments change all the time and small games are created to help keep things different and challenging - not to mention that the coaches are wonderfully refreshing and my teammates never fail to entertain me with their amazing traits.
I used to think about retirement and how great life would be when I stopped training. After experiencing what I have here with OSU gymnastics, I never want it to end. We have our "Salbasgeon Suites Invitational" meet tonight, which will be the last time our seniors get to compete in the incredible Gill Coliseum.
I want to thank our seniors Brooke Barclay, Kera Bolen, Jami Lanz, D'Anna Piro, Johnnie Rae Schmelzer and Tasha Smith. They have all made huge contributions to this OSU program, and I hope that their college career has been all they hoped and more.
Olivia Vivian, OSU gymnastics
sports@dailybarometer.com
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