just to be here

The Westerns National Qualifier Bio asks the gymnast, what is your favorite part of doing gymnastics?  My team, Beach answered.  The team she will be without on Saturday.

What is your goal for gymnastics? Not to die, she laughed- then told me not to write that college coaches wouldn't think it was funny.  It was the only joke she's made about this whole thing.  Since Regionals I have not been "allowed" to talk or ask about Westerns.  The last time I saw her this nervous it was on the Level 8 State Team.

I know why she is nervous.  It is for the same reason she was nervous then: she believes she doesn't belong here.  She hasn't said it but she feels that qualifying for Westerns was a mix up or a misunderstanding- at best a lucky day.  She feels unprepared to compete on the National Stage. 

She's had a rough year.  Entered season with an avulsion fracture in her hip.  Learned her new floor routine and tumbling passes without being able to hurdle or leap. Had to scramble to find a new series for beam.

Honestly, I have no idea how she will do on Saturday either.  Regionals could have been her best meet of the season or her best until now....

She is so nervous.  As her hip and hamstring heal her strength is returning.  That is both good and bad.  Her tumbling passes are so powerful she is having trouble controlling the landings.  Her bars scores not the greatest, not the worst either. Her beam series so freaking hard to stick.  Her leaps just returning.  And then that vault. Level 9 is huge.  Big enough to get lost in.

So much could go wrong; so much could go right.

In a back corridor of a convention center in Reno, Nevada the girls who qualified to Westerns were named and gather together.  The divide between home gyms and states fell away as the new Level 9 Region One teams were formed. 

Beach sat on a chair and began chatting away to a girl from California who barely above a whisper said to Beach, "Your vault is so cool." 

In 20 minutes she had 3 new friends and a backpack full of Region One apparel. 

When I see her doubt herself I look beyond the vault, the beam, the floor, and the bars. Over the sea of parents and the tide of coaches.  Out past the scores and the ticket offices. I see her sitting on that chair in some out of the way hallway creating a team out of reluctant strangers. 

I see a kid who defiantly deserves to be right where she is.

So she may or may not put up any scores for her new team- we will have to wait to see.  When she competed on the Utah State Team in Level 8, only her vault score was high enough to help the team total.  And yet I had 3 different coaches and half a dozen parents come up to me afterwards to tell me what an amazing teammate and child my daughter is. How impressed they were with her overall.

On Saturday only her parents will be sitting in the stands cheering for her.  Across town her home gym will hosting our own compulsory meet. Sometime after 1:00 maybe 2:00 if the scores lag, you can look up her scores to see how she is doing out there- high or low, they won't tell you anything about who she is.

Her name is Beach Ries. She competes for Gymnastics Training Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Legally blind in her left eye, 14 years old, 8th grade, and a Level 9.  Her favorite thing about gymnastics is her team.