Letters to Nowhere(56)

It was a well–known fact among us elite girls that whenever one of the other coaches filled in for Bentley, we could usually get away with things we couldn’t with him around. Something about them being excited to work with us and us being some of the top gymnasts in the country gave me and my teammates a tiny power trip.

A power trip I decided to take advantage of today.

I walked over to the vault runway that landed into the loose foam pit, rather than the competition landing mats, and shouted to Patrick, “I’m going to add the extra half twist this time!”

Even from the distance of over eighty feet, I could see his eyebrows push together like he was thinking hard. “I didn’t know you were working on Amanars.”

Okay, so truthfully, I hadn’t worked on Amanars before. It was the most difficult vault that female gymnasts were doing today, so difficult that when Romanian gymnast Simona Amanar had performed the Yurchenko with two and a half twists at the 2000 Olympics, the International Gymnastics Federation had named it after her. So yeah, it was hard. But Bentley had said several times in the past few weeks that if I kept nailing my Yurchenko double full, I could add another half twist. I’d seen Stevie train for this vault years ago and compete it, though she hadn’t yet progressed to doing them again since her comeback and was lucky to squeak around a double on a good day.

A thin mat sat on top of the loose foam blocks at the end of the vault table. That meant my landing would be easy; even if I didn’t make the two and a half twist all the way around, it wasn’t going to hurt or anything. Plus, the foam pit vault was lower than the regular landing mat vault and it gave me more time to finish the twist.

I took off running before Patrick had a chance to think about it too hard or ask Bentley if it was okay. The Yurchenko vault is tricky even without any twist because you basically cartwheel onto the spring board and then do a backward dive onto the vault table. If you don’t hit the board just right, it can screw everything up. Or if you don’t get a big push off the table with your hands, you might not make the flip all the way around, let alone two and a half twists. But I’ve been doing a Yurchenko since level 8, when I was only eight years old. The beginning of the vault hasn’t changed at all for me in nine years, only the part after I push off the table.

I got a huge push off the table and easily added the extra half twist, but landing in the pit with only one mat always caused me to over–rotate and I had to jump into a forward roll after my feet hit the mat.

“Wow!” Patrick said from beside the other vault Stevie and Ellen were using. Blair was over on bars doing more leg–free work with Stacey. “The block you’re getting is just incredible, Karen. You’re at least a foot or two higher than the last time I watched you. Your run is much more efficient, too. Have you been doing drills?”

I suppressed a groan, thinking about the monotony of drills I’d done recently. Last August, Bentley had—in his quiet manner—simply told me that I needed to remeasure my steps, and that led to me to starting ten feet farther back, and that led to dozens of drills with an orange band around my arms to keep them as tight to the sides of my head as possible while diving back onto the table. That was supposed to give a better push and obviously a higher vault. I think the reason the change had frustrated me was that Coach Cordes had never told me my run was wrong or anything, and when I asked Bentley about it, he said I’d probably grown taller and Cordes didn’t want to make changes during meet season.

“Thanks, it felt pretty good,” I said to Patrick before queuing up the video replay system we had rigged at every event in the gym. I didn’t use it too often, but with Bentley not here to correct me, I decided to see the first attempt at the Amanar before making a second try.

“I’m gonna do a two and half also!” Stevie shouted from the end of the runway.

I hit pause on the video using the remote and watched, holding my breath as Stevie charged down the runway, her dark, muscular legs flexing in response. Stevie hadn’t even attempted this vault in the pit yet since returning from retirement.

She made the two and a half twists just fine, which was a surprise considering her struggle with doubles, but she had to take a couple big steps sideways to control the landing. She headed right over to the TV and gently plucked the remote from my hands, fast–forwarding to watch her vault. I stood there beside her as she looked it over, then she flipped back and watched my vault.

“Yours is higher,” she said, setting the remote down without looking at me.

Shock at her blunt statement rendered me temporarily silent. “Well…I was landing in the pit. There’s only one mat in there right now.”

“Don’t patronize me, Karen.”

My hand froze on the remote. “I’m sorry—”

“And don’t apologize!” she snapped, spinning to face me. “I’m so tired of everyone treating me like I’m a diseased person and no one has the heart to tell me I’m dying! I said your vault was higher, but I meant to say, it’s higher for now.”

This scary and exhilarating tension built between us as we stared at each other. My fingers were tingling, ready to attack something. I tore my eyes from Stevie and glanced at Patrick. “I’m putting another mat into the pit.”

Hopefully that would get me closer to doing the Amanar on the real vault landing mats.