Off Balance: A Memoir (7 page)

It was nice to have Papu with us, too. He’d mostly linger in the background, in the living room or in the little bedroom he, Maia, and I shared, often singing Macedonian tunes with his deep, steady voice. He was balding and had little patches of white hair on the sides of his head. He was already eighty-five years old when he came to the States, so he never learned English, or Romanian,
for that matter. A true Macedonian, he spoke only Macedonian. It’s no wonder I couldn’t understand what was being said in my house sometimes; I never knew exactly what language was being spoken because Maia, Papu, and my parents would mash up his and their languages in the same sentence, confusing me entirely!

Even though I never fully understood the words of Papu’s songs, it always made me feel happy when I’d hear his rich voice. It was a tiny apartment, so I could hear him sing whether he was eating breakfast or bathing. I loved that he never cared what anyone thought about him and never bothered to ask whether any of us liked his singing.

On the “Channel 10 Day,” I could hear Papu singing throughout the house as I was in my room trying to focus on one important thing: “What leotard am I going to wear for the news piece today?” If only such things remained my biggest dilemmas in life. I dug through my closet looking for the right leotard, throwing several maybes that I’d collected over the years onto my bed while the automatic rejects got tossed back into the closet in a pile. I was looking for my “lucky leo.” Every gymnast has one. They also have their “bad luck leo,” the leo they got hurt in and some vow to never wear again. A few more searches through my basket of clean clothes and finally, way down at the bottom, there it was, my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: my black leo with big green leaves and pink, purple, and orange flowers—that was the one. It reminded me of the jungle, and I’d had lots of good workouts when I’d worn it.
My good luck charm
, I thought, and I pulled it on. I was ready!

Both Mama and Tata took me to the gym that day, which was rare. I remember sitting in the backseat quietly just watching the road unfold in front of us. I was a little on edge and getting more nervous as we got closer to LaFleur’s. I wanted everything to go well. Tata was buzzing with an excited energy and talking nonstop about what an important day this was. He was wearing one of his special white button-up shirts, had his straight brown hair slicked
back with gel into a mini-mullet, and his wiry mustache tightly combed. Mama, in typical fashion, was calm and quiet. She didn’t like a fuss made over her and never wanted to be the center of attention, so it was no surprise when she declined to be interviewed by the news crew later that afternoon. Tata, on the other hand, was front and center, ready to go from the moment we stepped into the gym.

When we arrived, the camera crew and news reporter were already at the gym setting up. I tried to act normal and get ready for my warm-ups, but I was so excited and a little nervous because I didn’t want to make a mistake in front of this new and very special audience. I especially didn’t want to disappoint my coaches or Tata, and I wanted people to be impressed with what we were doing at LaFleur’s.

My teammates, other coaches, and a handful of parents would stop by every so often to peek at the cameras and see what we were doing. I had butterflies fluttering in my stomach at first, but as the day went on, I became more relaxed and the butterflies disappeared. Generally speaking, I was a particularly shy little nine-year-old, but the gym could always draw me out of my shell. I truly loved being there and was always able to lose myself in the physicality of the sport. When I performed in the gym, the rest of the world just sort of blurred around me, and I felt at peace with myself.

Jerry Johnson, the local sports news anchor for Channel 10, covered the story and started the segment very generously:

“Right here in our Bay Area lives a little girl with even greater vision. You see, Dominique Moceanu is just nine years old, and that means she’ll be just old enough for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. She’s a gymnast with extraordinary talent and a dream that began even before she was born in the heart of her father amid the communism of Romania. … At the tender age of nine, Dominique already has the look of a world-class gymnast. She has the poise. She has the determination.”

The camera crew recorded all of my events that day—vault, bars, beam, and floor—and Jeff had me demonstrate all of my most difficult skills for each event.

On the vault, I did a Yurchenko tucked full, which is a round-off entry vault with backward motion into a block off the vaulting horse and into a flip backward in a tucked position with a 360-degree twist. It’s an expected skill from an Elite senior-level gymnast, but was an advanced skill for my age, especially in the early 1990s. I was actually able to do this skill in a layout position onto a small eight-by-twelve-inch mat over the pit, which I did in practices with relative ease, but I felt most comfortable that day doing it tucked, and Jeff agreed.

As the cameras caught this vault on tape, I remember Tata front and center about halfway down the runway on the right side watching me with his arms crossed, beaming with pride. Tata had been working so much, he would only come to see me perform at the gym occasionally. Which was typically fine with me—I didn’t like him there, hovering over me and watching and critiquing my every move. But on this special day I figured it was okay. In a way, it was his day, too, since he had orchestrated the whole event. I know Tata was full of pride and pleased to no end that people were taking an interest in
his
daughter. He held his chin high as he stood close to the vaulting horse and then on to the bars. Being able to please him in this way—to be the source of his pride—felt like a significant achievement in itself.

The news story wouldn’t have been complete without an interview with Tata. Looking pleased to have the reporter and news camera’s attention, he explained that he was a gymnast himself back in Romania. In the final news story, Tata’s name appears in captions under his image, misspelled as “Dimetrius Moccano,” instead
of “Dimitry Moceanu.” Tata was comfortable in front of the camera and his words, despite the thick accent, came easily:

“In the capital Bucharest, I practiced almost eleven years until I was in eleven grade in the high school. It was very important to me to be gymnast. I mean gymnast was my profession, was to be my career … but I cannot finish it because the government doesn’t let me. I came to the United States in about ’79 because of the regime in Romania, the communism. You know, it was very hard. I escape through the airport. I took a plane. I flew in Vien … Vienna. I stayed six months and then after, I came here. Everybody knows that United States is the best country in the world [w-oo-rhl-dh].”

Animated and emphatic, Tata was a charmer. He had the news reporter and crew laughing and hanging on his every word and sweeping hand gesture. He went on:

“I said to myself if I ever have a child, I like to be a gymnast.… My heart is jumping with every movement, every step she does on the floor, or beam or, you know, parallels.”

At that point, the camera panned out with perfect timing to catch me doing a press handstand on the balance beam.

I was the focus of the piece, but my part was to perform my skills, leaving everyone else to comment. I did manage to squeak out a few sentences:

“I was little, three and a half when I started gymnastics. I’ve been doing it for six years. My goal is to reach the 1996 Olympics.”

“How come?” Jerry asked.

“Because I wanna win a lot of medals,” I said with a smile and shrug of my shoulders, “and be on TV a lot.”

It almost seemed scripted, but it wasn’t. Definitely not the words of the shy little girl I was outside those gym doors. I was feeling the moment and gaining more confidence with each word I spoke.

“It’s absolutely realistic.” Coach Jeff followed up, in support.

“When I look at Kim Zmeskal and Betty Okino and some of the kids that are in the top three of our country right now … [Dominique’s] way ahead of where they were four years before the Olympics … she’s milestones ahead of them and, so barring injury or, you know, unforeseen mishaps, she’s got a tremendous shot at the Olympic team, and perhaps an Olympic medal.”

Jeff, always focusing on developing the complete athlete, made sure my efforts outside the gym were acknowledged:

“She’s extremely quick and a straight-A student … all three terms last year she had straight A’s in conduct and achievement, so she’s extremely bright intellectually, as well as extremely fast and strong and powerful, so she can grasp the concept and make it work.”

I remember Tata being particularly proud, practically bursting with joy, when I did my triple back dismount off of the uneven bars. It was one of the highlights of the day and was emphasized on Al Keck’s “Sportsline” segment on the Channel 10 evening news that night.

Tata, with his chin held high, would call it “The Triple” like it was this work of genius. With his dramatization and heavy accent it sounded more like “
Th-uh Tr-e-e-pole
.” Indeed, for my age this was a gigantic skill well beyond my years of experience. As it turned out, I really was one of very few gymnasts in the world at the time who had even attempted this skill, much less at the young age of nine. In retrospect I am so grateful to Jeff for allowing me to excel
in a rapid yet safe manner. He fed my talent by safely allowing me to do daring skills that I desperately wanted to try, but always was there to spot my every move and not let me do it on my own until I was truly ready. It was my favorite dismount, and I loved doing it partly because it was so unique.

On the day Channel 10 was there, Jeff decided it was safest to assist me by lightly spotting my triple dismount. Jeff didn’t see the need to show off for the cameras by pushing me to do the dismount without a spotter and risk injury. He was a wise coach, and I respected and trusted him completely.

I stood at the chalk tray, powdering my hands after warming up on the bars. I tried to ignore the cameraman circling around trying to catch me from different angles. That part was all so new to me. It was hard not to look directly at the lens, and I did my best to pretend I didn’t notice the camera. As I chalked up, I even winced once after catching myself staring straight into the camera. In future years, that news camera would become a constant companion and familiar presence as I traveled the world to compete at high-profile gymnastics meets. But for now, it was still a new distraction that I had to try to tune out as I prepared for my triple dismount.

I climbed the steps to reach the high bar that stood alone over a loose foam pit. As I stood on top of the wooden step, which Jeff would later use to spot me, I looked down at my chalked hands. Beneath the chalk, my hands were pretty beaten up. I was one of the few gymnasts who didn’t wear grips on the bars. Grips—leather two-inch strips that support the middle of the palm with two holes for the second and third fingers, with a strap around the wrist for support—help gymnasts grip the bar better while offering some protection to the skin. Most US gymnasts wore grips at the time, while gymnasts from Europe and Asia rarely wore them. After lengthy practices on the bars, my hands were more torn up and callused than those of my teammates who used grips, but I didn’t
mind. I was comfortable not wearing them, and I figured it made me tough. I felt I had a better hold on the bar without a layer of material in my way. Later in my career I did learn to use grips, but as a young gymnast of Romanian descent, it seemed part of my birthright not to.

I rubbed my hands together and quickly glanced around the gym. Everything and everyone seemed so still, practically frozen with most eyes on me. I could see Mama peering out from the viewing balcony, Tata standing proud next to the bars, my teammates, coaches, a smattering of parents, the reporter Jerry Johnson, and his crew all waiting to see what I could do.

I took a deep breath and focused on doing the best triple dismount I possibly could. I grasped the bar, hung straight down, and moved my hands side by side to get to the middle of the high bar so I could land in the middle of the mat. I pulled myself over the bar and placed myself in a support position and waited for Jeff to climb up and spot me. Once he was ready to go, I casted to a handstand with my legs slightly apart and a little loose, but as soon as I reached my handstand position, my body remained tight and straight. I wound up with two giant swings over the dismount bar, gaining tremendous speed and making sure my legs stayed glued together. As my legs reached above the bar on my final swing, I released the bar underneath. I didn’t have to think, I just floated through the air. I did what naturally felt easy to me—I flipped: three consecutive flips in a tucked position with my legs at 45 degrees and slightly separated. I landed soundly on the soft twelve-inch mat. I remember Jeff jumping off the spotting table and being there for me throughout my triple, with his hand lightly tapping my back for reassurance and safety. By the time I completed the three flips, Jeff was to my left on the mat and watched me roll out of the dismount with room to spare. I did it with such ease.

It still amazes me today that I went for such a challenging skill
while the cameras were rolling. I can understand now why Tata was so proud. I relished being one of the few gymnasts in the world who could perform a particular skill at that age. I liked that. It made my desire and fire burn harder to be the best. It also served to heighten my competitive spirit while making the world seem so much smaller—knowing that only a handful of others anywhere else in the world could even attempt what I could do. And sure enough, beating the rest of the world became a part of Tata’s mantra from that day forward. I can still hear my father’s voice in my head saying, “You
have
to be the best!” With his broken English it sounded more like “Y-o-o h-ah-v t-o-o b-he d-uh b-eh-s-t!” And he’d give two fist pumps, as if pumping confidence into both of us. Sometimes it would make me laugh out loud, and Tata would stop and say, “What? It’s true, you have to believe!” Although I would act like his exaggerated mannerisms were over the top, I knew deep down he was right. I did have to believe in myself and in the possibility of going to the Olympics one day, and perhaps even winning a medal—maybe even a gold!