Katie big accomplishment

Katie started to compete in gymnastic this fall.

Her coaches said Katie improved so much over the summer,

She really started to be focus,

paying attention to the little details.

Listening to the coaches advices

and having a smile.

 

Her first meet, she did great for a first time competition gymnasts.

With her score, we could see she could make 

it to state with a little improvement

0.60 improvement in score.

She was pretty happy with her score for her first competition.

 

Her first state qualifier, she didn't get the 32 points she needed.  She was about 0.50 points away from it.  Monika made it in along with a hand full of teammates including some of the brand new competition gymnasts like Katie.

This started a negativity seed in Katie.

She started to compare herself to everyone, including Monika.

Monika was a great leader and sister and pointing out many good qualities on Katie,

even showing Katie that the score Katie had gotten in the first two meets, Monika didn't get those kind of scores until near the end of her first year competing.

This didn't help Katie, she still wasn't believing in herself.

It was hard to watch that from Katie, that no matter what I, her dad, siblings, and coaches said, she wasn't believing that she was doing great and that she could make state.

You have 3 chance to get into state.

Last night was your last chance and this past week, Katie was really getting hard on herself.

The coaches and I brainstormed a little bit.

I had a couple pep talks with her, her dad and Monika did too.

On Thursday night her coaches showed her scores from the previous meet,

all of level 5 girls scores from all the gyms.

This help Katie to see, that eventhough she wasn't the best gymnasts or maybe not one of the top, there were a lot of girls that were below her.  

I feel this help her to see that she is a good gymnast.

Katie and Monika with a couple of their team mates before the 3rd (and last) State Qualifier.  The blonde hair girl was competing all four events for the first time (she was recovering from an injury a week before competition started in Sept.) and was hoping to do well to get into state (Which she did plus beat her previous All Around score by 2 points which is huge).

Monika and Katie's team, there is 23 girls in all and they are all doing so good.  This meet was the first meet that all 23 girls did all four routine.  Katie was on the vault first, which I was nervous about.  Katie had hyper extended her knee during practice on Thursday and was sore going into this meet.  I had prayed that she would do beam and bars first rest the knee, but God knew better and the vault was the first event for her.  She nailed the vault and got 8.8 on it, beat any of her records and Monika's record too.  The smile on her face when she saw that score was priceless and you could see her body relax a little bit.  She continue to do very well in all the events and was very proud of herself.  Her whole family and coaches were so proud of her.

Overall the team came in 2nd place.  There was a lot of personal best scores made Saturday night.  5 of the girls didn't make it in State, but they are improving every meet and I feel next year they will breeze their way to State.

Monika and Katie two peas in a pod.

STATE BOUND

In December

I Praise the Lord that he was able to show Katie how good she is.  Katie knows that she has to work harder at things then most people, that she requires a lot of repetitions whether it is school, gymnastics, or day to day stuff.  Once she gets it, she does great, but working to get there can become frustrating for her and she can see her challenge come out and then it starts to cause negativity.

But she proved she can do it, that she is Amazing.

Way to go Katie and Monika