A season to learn and grow

Jonah's level 7 season unofficially began today.  This morning was the intrasquad meet and the first time that Jonah competed his new routines.  Level 7 is a mix of compulsory and optional skills. It is hard and some of the skills scare the crap out of me and I'm not the only one.  It is getting harder for me to be calm when I am watching Jonah.

Jonah is not fully ready for this season and I doubt he will be all year.  Jonah's coach has his reasons for this path.  I don't fully agree with them, but I am deferring to the coach with over 40 years experience.  Jonah is very young to be competing at this level.  He does not have all the skills needed for his routines on high bar and parallel bars.  He does on the other four.  The skills he doesn't have scare him.  Jonah had the total "come aparts" at practice on Tuesday when working on the high bar.  This is Jonah's 4th year on the team and I have never seen him leave the gym crying until Tuesday.  Angry, frustrated, sad, happy, but never crying and that includes when he was injured.  Tuesday was hard for all of us and my heart was so sad for him.

Jonah knows that this season is going to be really hard.  Because of his age he has to compete at level 7 for three years.  He will be one of the youngest kids at each meet he attends.  Being so young also means that he does not have the needed strength that the older boys have.  This has only been compacted by his shoulder injury.  In three years he will be stronger, more mature, and a pro at level 7.  But this year, it is like he is a high school kid playing in the big leagues.  He will get better and more confident.  Until he gets there, it is going to be rough.

Today was a good start on rings and floor.  Jonah has always been a great tumbler so floor will generally be a strength.  PB and HB were hard because he doesn't have all the needed skills.  Jonah fell on PBs and it was kind of scary.  He was fine and rallied to finish the meet, but yikes!

The PB fall rattled him.  That made PH awful and he fell again.  He has disliked pommel forever, but he must get over that to be competitive and Jonah knows it. 

I hate this

Jonah's head coach knew he was on the edge of falling apart.  To Coach Bill's credit he was on Jonah all day with encouraging words and coaching.  I mean all day.  Jonah is in a fragile state and the coaches know it.  He is being taken care of and that is why I am willing to try this whole level 7 mess.  Jonah is going to be a different person come next April.  This journey is going to be a challenge filled with more lows than highs.  The good is Jonah can vault.  Who knows what his other scores were today and honestly who cares.  But, on vault Jonah has a 10.7 out of 11.2.  I will take that each and every meet.

Post flight on vault

Jonah ended the meet a happy boy and that is all that mattered today.  Monday at the gym will be a new day.  Fifteen hours in the gym each week should have a positive impact, right?