Gymnastics may, to some people, be reminiscent of Saturday mornings as a five year old, but with no real involvement beyond that. There is a group of students at our school, however, that still are involved in gymnastics, and they had a meet this Saturday the seventh of January.

Margret Sarco, a freshman on the team, reflected upon the upcoming meet.

“I think [it] will be good, but I’m kind of worried because there will be a lot of people and some of them are going to be better [at gymnastics]. But I think it will be good,” Sarco said.

Sarco thought, by Saturday, she would be be ready for the meet.

“For vault I am, for floor and bars I’m not really [prepared] because I’m just learning the floor routine…I think I will [be prepared by Saturday],” Sarco said.

Michael King, the gymnastics coach, also has something to say on the team’s preparedness for Saturday’s meet.

“Some of the ones that have done this meet before, they know what to expect. [For] the ones that haven’t, it’s too early in the year that they’re getting their routines more prepared. Overall, it would be more half and half, since it’s still early yet,” King said.

The most important way that the team has prepared has been learning the routines, according to King.

“Actually the biggest thing [they can do to prepare] is just each kid learning their routines. And doing that on a day-to-day practice day, we will go through routines for different events. As we do that, they should be more consistent about knowing their routine, mentally and physically. Our practice this week has basically been focused on routine building,” King said.

Senior Priyanka Bhuta also reflects on the team’s methods of preparing.

“We have four main events, and every day during practice we usually try to focus on two, so that it’s more involved, and we get to spend more time with the equipment as well, so I think that’s a little different this year. So that we’re not doing everything, every single day, we are trying to limit it down just so that we could be better at one thing,” Bhuta said.

Sarco has done gymnastics since it has seemed to be a combination of two things she enjoyed when she was younger.

“Well, my big sister did dance, she did ballet, and I liked ballet, but I liked tumbling more and I wanted to put it together as one thing. And then gymnastics was kind of like both of them combined. So I was like ‘I’m gonna do gymnastics,’” Sarco said.

King also shares his reasons for being involved in the sport.

“I would probably say my calling to be involved with working with kids, is probably the calling [to gymnastics]. In [a] sense of working with them in an active way,” King said.

Bhuta, though attending the meet, is injured, and so she can’t compete in her main event.

“I actually injured my foot, so I’m not going to be competing my main thing, so I’m probably just going to be doing bars. But, I don’t know, I think that the whole point of going to a meet, more than the scores, is just cheering your team on,” Bhuta said.

With the injuries and not-quite-ready-yet-attitude, King still expects the team to do their best at the meet.

“My expectation is probably for each person to give their best,” King said. “And if that turns out to be a very good score for them, then that will turn out to be a good score for the team. So,number one I want them to at least give their best effort on the events.”