Legs spread out, I leaned forward and lay on the floor, my arms and legs parallel to each other. I expelled a breath and closed my eyes, rejoicing in what my body was doing. I loved the way my muscles pulled tight and then loosened like they were just waking up. It hurt and felt good all at the same time. Flexing and pointing helped my shins, and I pushed my legs as wide as they could go by scooting up to stretch out my groin.
I was lost in the feeling when I felt the spring floor dip as someone came up next to me and grabbed my ankle, lifting my leg.
“What the...” I mumbled under my breath. I sat up and looked over my shoulder. I almost said fuck, but I caught myself. Coach knelt so close to my face I noticed how incredible his eyes really were. A brilliant green, the color of fresh basil and lime interwoven with each other pulled me in. Mesmerizingly beautiful, and when his hand moved to the crease of my hip and thigh, I drew in a breath.
His fingers dug into my skin where my leotard met my bikini line and he carefully rotated my leg so my knee faced up.
“Back down,” Coach ordered. I had no idea what he planned, so I listened and laid my chest flat on the floor, which ended up being a good thing. I didn’t want to get caught staring into his eyes.
Or think about where his hand currently was.
Slowly, he lifted my leg and pressed down on my back so I couldn’t move. A little grunt left my lips as he stretched out my hips.
“Toes pointed, knees up, Adrianna,” he said, like I was an idiot. Maybe the arrogance in his tone was a Russian thing.
Coach slowly pulled my foot up so it was slightly higher than my back. I felt the burning stretch in my groin grow as he raised it. Unwillingly, my body tried to sit up at this tense position to ease the strain, but Coach just pressed harder on my back, not allowing me to move. I held my breath, my fingers spreading wide on the carpet and my stomach flexed. His forearm dug into my back as he leaned over and pressed me down. This shit hurt. I thought my groin was about to be ripped out, even my butt felt like the muscles were being pulled to their max.
“Breathe,” he whispered.
I groaned in the back of my throat as he lowered my foot to the floor, where I began to melt and release the tension in my muscles. It felt so good, but not for long because he switched to my other side and applied the same amount of force. This took stretching and flexibility to a whole new level for me.
“Girls, sit across from the low beam, put your toes on it and wait for me.”
Opening my eyes, I was faced with two large knees just inches from my nose. He may have been wearing workout shorts, but I could see the width of his thighs and the muscles surrounding his knees. They were huge and his legs were free of hair.
Not to mention, he smelled really good.
Too good.
Twenty years later, Konstantin lowered my leg but I was stuck and stiff. Slowly, I sat up by walking my hands toward me.
“Partner up and take turns stretching out your knees. Bounce lightly, girls. We don’t need any broken knee caps.”
That accent...I was quickly realizing I liked his accent a hellava lot. Every time he opened his mouth, it begged attention. Maybe it was an American thing to like someone else’s enunciation, but then I wondered if foreigners liked American accents too. Probably not. There was nothing exotic about an American dialect. We didn’t roll our r’s the way Russians did. It would come off as a speech impediment if anything.
Moving behind me, Coach’s fingers grazed delicately down my forearm. He grasped my wrist, then reached for the other one. He carefully extended both wrists back, stretching my arms out behind me.
“Do not drop your chest. Shoulders back, back straight.”
“What are they doing?” I found myself asking as my eyes drifted over to the girls on the low balance beam just a couple of feet away.
“It is a stretching technique that overextends your knees. It helps with jumps so your legs are bowed. You have never done them before?”
“No.” I watched the girls lightly bounce on their teammates’ kneecaps. This had to be something he picked up in Russia. I could actually see their knees bending backwards as they sat like soldiers taking it. Never in my life had I seen this and I began to worry my knees would pop out.
“What happened to using two mats and putting our feet on them in splits?”
“We do that too, but I change things up and like to use my background. It is things a lot of other coaches do not do. It is a little intense, but it gets the job done.”
He let go of my arms and said, “Shake your legs out.” I bounced them lightly to a closed position so I could stand. My legs were stiff and now I had to overextend my knees even more?
A hand appeared in my vision and I reached for it. Coach helped me up, and I automatically fixed my leotard from the slight reposition.
Gymnasts picked wedgies out left and right without a second thought and kept walking. Which is what I just did. Hey—it came with the territory. Sometimes it got stuck up in there, so we had to remove it or our ass hung out.
“Reagan, please work with Adrianna, yeah?”
Reagan glared at me for some bizarre reason as I got into the same position as the other girls, my toes elevated on the low beam. I ignored her. When she sat down, she didn’t hold back and bounced on my kneecaps like she was bouncing on a giant yoga ball.
It took everything in me not to scream at her and call her a bitch. I didn’t see the other girls jumping this hard, but I knew better than to complain. So I rolled both my lips between my teeth and took the newfound pain being delivered to my body.
We switched places, but I didn’t go as hard as she did. Honestly, I didn’t want to injure her.
“Harder,” Reagan demanded. “You won’t hurt me.”
I stopped and looked at her, because I was really worried I would. “You sure?”
“Yup. Just do it.” I followed her command, all the while smiling internally and taking way too much delight in inflicting a fraction of the pain she just handed to me.
After group stretching, we split up amongst the different apparatuses: vault, balance beam, floor, and the uneven bars. Coach walked over to the bars.
“Do a few warm ups and when you are ready, let me know so I can see your routine.”
“Okay,” I said, tightening my grips. Then he walked to another part of the gym.
Taking a deep breath, I watched as one of the girls warmed up on bars, doing light release moves where she flowed freely from bar to bar, giant after giant, an overshoot that involved a half-twist mid-air to the low bar, clear hip circles, where the gymnast circles backward without touching the bar to her hips, and then an easy dismount, like a back tuck. The other two girls went and then I was up. We all pretty much did the same warm ups, some adding pirouettes and other elements, but the real fun was about to begin.
A straddle back was one of my favorite skills to do on bars. It wasn’t used as often since most did the half twist mid-air to the low bar, but I loved it. There was something powerful in releasing the high bar to straddle the low bar mid-air into a handstand. It took me a while to master this move. My ankles kept hitting the bar, not to mention, initially it scared the shit out of me. Until I figured out the trick to tackling this skill was getting your hips to rise as high as you could manage by flicking them up and back,
not
your feet. Lifting your feet in a straddle back was a hard habit to break, but it didn’t actually pull you in the air the way your hips did like you’d think it would. Basically, I lifted my ass, stuck it up and out, and I was golden.
My bars routine wasn’t as intense as the other three girls who went before me. I guess it wasn’t supposed to be since I was a lower level, however, I became consciously aware I was behind. I didn’t have an early start in the sport like most did who were elite. Although I was young when I began recreational gymnastics, I was almost ten years old when I joined the girl’s team and officially began rigorous training.
There was a difference between recreational classes and team classes. Both were taught the same skills, but team trained more hours a week and focused on the smallest of details. In the end, those details could make or break you. There was commitment and motivation involved, too. Not just from the gymnasts, but from the parents as well. The financing, traveling, and attitude were brutal. Team was much more grueling but also very rewarding.
I performed my routine a handful of times more before I mustered the nerve to ask Coach to watch. It wasn’t my best practice—I could tell by my jittery movements and racing heart, that had nothing to do with my actual routine and everything to do with the intimidating Russian and three hours of sleep. I felt like I was competing for a spot on the US World team and everything relied heavily on this moment.
This was my chance to prove I was ready for elite.
Konstantin stood there near the side of the bars, his eyes trained solely on me, and showing no emotion at all. I thought for sure I was about to be sick. It was a blank stare, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if I’d rather that or to see his face fall. My heart was in my throat and all the noise faded away.
Shit. I was so nervous.
A bars routine can last anywhere from thirty to forty-five seconds, mine was thirty-six, and that was simply because of my level and what I was capable of doing. A great deal of training and conditioning went into a bar routine. Most people never realized how short they actually were. After being captivated by jaw dropping release skills and eye-popping combination sequences, it was easy to forget it wasn’t even one-minute long.
As I performed my routine, it felt like an eternity of wishing and praying I’d catch the bar, hit my handstands, legs together, and didn’t wobble or bend my arms. I mentally chanted to myself,
I got this
,
repeatedly with every little element before the dismount happened.
“Once more,” he ordered before I could catch my breath. After I chalked up my grips and did my routine again, he dipped his chin and said, “When you get to vault, follow the same instructions,” and then walked off. I had no idea if I did well or not, and there was no gauging his thoughts either. He was like a slab of concrete.
“Don’t stress—he’s always like that.” I looked over at the voice beside me. “You’ll never know what he’s thinking no matter how hard you try. I swear, it’s his goal to make you feel like you suck at life.” I breathed a sigh of relief knowing it wasn’t just me. “I’m Holly, by the way.”
I smiled politely. Hayden’s twin. “Adrianna. And thanks for the heads up. It doesn’t help that I’m nervous as it is, but the way he acts puts me on edge.”
“Oh, that’s how he normally is. You’ll get use to it, we all have.”
Note to self: His default personality is dick. Got it.
“Hopefully it doesn’t take long. He made me feel like it was the sloppiest routine ever.”
Holly laughed. “We all went through it and had the same sentiments. Kova has a keen eye, so while there were probably things you did mess up on, he can spot talent through it.”
“Why do you call him Kova? I thought his name was Konstantin.”
She shrugged. “It’s just what he goes by. None of us call him by his real name.”
Interesting.
“Are you from here?” I asked curiously.
She nodded. “I’ve been with World Cup for years. We used to live here, but my dad was offered a job in Ohio he couldn’t refuse. He bought a small townhouse and moved there while my mom, Hayden, and I stayed back so we could train with Kova. My mom left once we hit sixteen though, because she missed him a lot. She was nervous to leave us, but luckily we have friends and family nearby if we need anything.”
I knew in the general public it was absurd for parents to allow their children to train alone at such a young age. It wasn’t uncommon for us to go to summer training camp in Texas for three months alone, or to train long hours in the gym without any parental supervision. The gym became our second home. The coaches were extremely close to the parents, which put them at ease when it came time to leave their kids. Plus, we were never completely alone, there was always an adult around, a friend or a mom to help out. While we thought nothing of it, to the outside world, I was sure it looked like neglect.
“How old are you?”
She tightened her wristband, her eyes focused on the movement of her fingers. “Almost seventeen.”
“Oh—” My voice heightened. “Wow. So you’ve been here for a year on your own?”
An innocent smile spread across her baby face as she looked back up at me. “I know it’s crazy being away from family, and hard at times, but you get used to it. Luckily, they understand our love of the sport and allowed us to stay. But it doesn’t come easy. My parents still live in the townhouse in Ohio and took out a second mortgage so we can continue to train and compete here.
“Last year we had a girl, Sage, she was incredible, better than all of us and had future Olympian written all over her. Her form was impeccable and she was only nine years old. We used to watch her in awe, but unfortunately, her parents couldn’t afford to live in two different places anymore. She has an older brother and it wasn’t fair to him, so they packed up and went home to Washington. She cried, we all did. Seeing that made me realize how fortunate I am to be here. I don’t know if she’s training anymore though...hopefully she is. She was too good not to.”