Gym Notes: Kara Weaver
November 07, 2006 04:19 PM | General
November 7, 2006
Each week a different member of the Mountaineer gymnastics program will give us an update on what's going on during preseason workouts leading up to West Virginia's regular-season opener against Michigan and James Madison at the WVU Coliseum on Jan. 12.
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| Kara Weaver |
The beginning of competition season is getting closer and everyone is starting to put everything together. Vault is beginning to work on landings on the hard mats, which started out rather successfully with Tynisha (Dennis) looking very strong and Jaime (Gold) hitting her Yurchenko one and a half.
Shelly (Purkat) and Chelsi (Tabor) are really stepping up on vault and are looking great. We are excelling on bars with Erica (Watson) catching many new skills such as Hindorfs and Shaposhnikovas; along with a lot of girls starting to hit new releases.
Rachel (Hardin) has started doing her Tkatchev and Mehgan (Morris) has been doing hop-fulls, neither of which they have ever done before. Overall, our bar lineup is looking pretty deep with last year’s lineup hitting and new prospects stepping up. On beam, we are starting to work on hitting consistently with more and more pressure sets.
The freshmen are really learning how to deal with the pressure, which helps from the cheering. We are beginning this week with full routines on floor, which is a little scary every year, but I think we will be surprised at how well we’re going to be able to put it together. With everyone working hard with the conditioning, I think it’ll pay off once we begin full routines.
The atmosphere in the gym has really began to feel a lot more like competition season with everyone cheering each other on with enthusiasm and support. The seniors are starting to realize that this is their last year, and are soaking up every practice and run test.
The juniors are looking healthier everyday, just being excited to officially be an upper classman and really stepping up as leaders. The sophomores are taking on their new roles of not being freshmen anymore and are looking more confident.
I am very impressed with the freshman and how well they have been adapting to the new life of college gymnastics. A lot of them have been able to handle the pressured atmosphere in practice which is going to make it a lot easier for them once the season starts.
We just finished our poster for this year’s goals, which if everyone can follow the steps to achieving our goals, we are going to be able to really come together this season and shine -- together.
