MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University gymnastics team has been hard at work inside Cary Gym since Sept. 15, laying the foundation for a competitive, successful 2017 season.
Next up in our Tumblers’ Tales Preseason Check-In is sophomore Carly Galpin. A key cog in the Mountaineers’ balance beam lineup as a freshman, she competed on the event nine times in 2016 and never dropped a score. A native of Boonsboro, Maryland, Galpin scored a career-high 9.875 and finished on the podium twice.
Hoping to contribute in more events as a sophomore, Galpin has been working hard throughout the fall. Read on as she details the progress she and her teammates have made inside Cary Gym, and how a decision to change her major has helped her flourish in her second year at WVU.
I remember my first few weeks in Cary Gym as a freshman like it was yesterday. I was in a completely new environment and was unsure of what was ahead of me, but I didn’t think I could be any more excited to start my career as a college gymnast. Now that I’ve experienced a season on the West Virginia University gymnastics team, I’m really eager to do it again as a sophomore.
During the first couple weeks of the school year, we had open workouts at Cary Gym. At this point, we were all getting used to being back on schedule. We didn’t have specific assignments from the coaches yet, but we were each doing what we thought we needed to in order to be prepared for the first official practice on September 15th. By the time the 15th came around, I think everyone was ready, physically and mentally, to get going with preseason.
During the first few weeks of preseason, our assignments were made to get us routine-ready. With each practice, we would take another step toward putting together routines that will start from a 10.0. At this point, a lot of those routines are ready to go, and now we are just focusing on the small details to perfect those routines. By the time competition season hit, our routines need to be clean and consistent so that we can compete them confidently. The coaches have told us a few times that they’re impressed with our progress and that we are even ahead of schedule. I know that if we keep up this kind of hard work in the gym, we’ve got a really promising season ahead of us.
Now that so many of our routines have come together, we’ve begun doing intra-squads and other pressure assignments. The skills are there and the routines are there, and now we have to make sure that mentally we are prepared to hit those routines in competition. In gymnastics, mental toughness is equally as important to success as physical ability. Intra-squads are a lot like meets; we get limited turns to warm up, and then we show our routines one at a time to everyone in the gym. Even though intra-squads give me butterflies in my stomach, I like doing them because when it’s time to compete and I get nervous, I have experience handling those nerves. Throughout last year, I saw improvement in my own mental toughness as I practiced pressure assignments, and I hope that I can build on that even more this season.
As a whole, the team shows a lot of poise. So many of my teammates have impressed me with their composure under pressure. The goal is to go into meets with lineups in which everyone competing believes in herself, and the whole team is confident in her as well. Based off of where we are now, I think our team will be able to do this.
I am so excited for our Fall Classic coming up, and I know my teammates are, too! There is a positive atmosphere in the gym, and everyone is really supportive of each other. Of course not every practice goes perfectly, and we all get tired and sore, but we’re always there to help each other “rise up,” which is our theme for the season. I love this team so much and I ,cannot wait to compete with them!
I think that I personally have improved a lot as a gymnast since last season. I had issues with my back last year that stopped me from practicing floor for most of the season, but thankfully it’s not stopping me anymore. It’s great to be fully back in the swing of things!
This year has brought a lot of changes for me. I’m now living in an apartment with some of my teammates, instead of dorms like last year. Also, I changed my major from biology to elementary education so my class schedule looks a lot different than it did last year, but I enjoy my classes a lot more this semester than I ever have.
My sophomore year is off to a great start, and I can’t wait to see what the Mountaineers do this season!
