Oh, it'll be Fine

That was my advice to Davan on starting workouts with team today - "Oh, it'll be fine." And it was. Sort of. And it was sort of awful. Poor kid. She cried at break and said she wanted to quit. By the end, though, she said it wasn't great, but it was okay.

What could possibly have happened that Davan, the girl who loves conditioning and is in great shape and would live in the gym if she could, would have such a rough time?

Well, she was the only one starting team today. I know (from watching the whole thing) that the coach didn't keep that in mind hardly at all. Davan was mostly expected to just know what to do. She just kind of followed along, looking semi-panicked. The coaches did not take it easy on her as far as the performing of her skills went at all. She was nit-picked from the very beginning. I know that's the whole point of team, but geez, couldn't they have said anything to make her feel like she was doing a good job for her first day rather than harp on all what was wrong?

She had one of the best front walk overs in the group, which she noticed and that perked her up. She thought, though, that she'd done very badly on vault until I pointed out to her that one of the girls never did make it over the table trainer by herself, but Davan did and she'd never used the table trainer before. Period. These girls had been doing it for four months and another parent told me that her daughter had only started going over it one month ago. Rather than say, "You made it on your second try ever!" (the first time she only got into a handstand instead of going over) she was corrected about her body position.

My sensitive girl was not having fun. However, she is going back again and knows the worst day is over. From here on out, she'll know more and another girl who got promoted will be there on Thursday, as well, making her not the only new girl in the bunch.