For almost three hours each evening, the gymnastics team meets at Northshore Gymnastics Center. Led by captains junior Florence Sambisa (she/her) and sophomore Chloe Doan (she/her), the team is working hard to improve their gymnastic skills: strength, mobility, endurance, flexibility and coordination.
Practices usually include a series of warmups before the gymnasts go through their routines for different events. Junior Clara Lundberg (she/her) said that the team does two to three out of four total events — vault, bars, beam and floor — per practice while also working on drills.
“You’ll go to the event and you’ll warm up, and usually show a routine to our coach,” Lundberg said. “She’ll give feedback and tell you what to work on, and then you’ll go and work on that thing.”
Lundberg regularly competes in the floor event where gymnasts perform a routine to a song.
“So I do a front flip, then go into a cartwheel,” Lundberg said. “I twist halfway, then do a front flip from that. Then I do a run-up and, just like that, I can spring.”
Doan explained that gymnasts improve by “upgrading” their skills, where a gymnast can add a deft move to a skill they’ve already mastered.
“On beam, you can work on upgrades, like you can do a back handspring on beam, and then you could upgrade that to a backflip on the beam,” Doan said. “Upgrades are just upgrading your skills. So, it’s what you’re working towards.”
Doan added that improving skills and upgrading is very challenging and requires a strong mentality. She said that one of the most rewarding parts of being a gymnast is witnessing her friends achieve their goals.
“Getting a skill that you’ve been working on for a really long time — it’s definitely a lot mentally, to push yourself to get a skill and overcome that fear,” Doan said. “I love seeing my friends get new skills and doing something they’re proud of.”
Competitive gymnastics requires diligent strength and agility training, which are physical skills that translate well to other sports. Lundberg is a multi-sport athlete and practices almost year-round for swim and dive, tennis and gymnastics.
“It makes you an overall better athlete,” head coach April Nakata (she/her) said. “So even if they don’t stick with (it), it makes their body so much more capable to excel at any other sport.”
New skills require lots of practice, and the gymnasts’ practices often go until 10 p.m. Nakata said she is grateful that her team is working so hard to be a formidable opponent during the season.
“Most people don’t realize just how much time it takes to be a gymnast,” Nakata said. “You just can’t succeed unless you fail.”
ractice is a stepping stone to a good performance, and with the new year offering a clean slate, the gymnasts expect a successful season. Lundberg believes the team has a good chance at qualifying for state this year, despite how hard it is to score well.
“I think this season, we have a good shot at making state as a team, because now we’re in 3A,” Lundberg said.
With two meets and a jamboree already under their belt, these gymnasts have proven they’re ready to compete. During meets, the starting score for each gymnast is 10, and then for each error the judges notice during the performance, points get deducted. Lundberg said that girls will typically land within a score of five to seven.
Some judges, however, are more strict than others. Untied hair, colorful nails or sparkly leotards can be justified as grounds for a point deduction.
The team doesn’t let this shake them, and thanks to the support of Nakata — who was a gymnast in the ‘80s — they maintain an optimistic and competitive attitude for each match. This season, Nakata hopes to tumble her squad towards a season trophy by switching up her leadership style.
“We’ve always been really competitive out the gate on the first meet,” Nakata said. “The strategy this year is to really go in slow and keep everyone healthy, and then ramp up our competitiveness and our skills towards the later part of the season.”
With only 16 athletes, the gymnastics team is tight-knit. Both captains work together to plan bonding events that bring the team even closer together — like the team sleepover — which Doan said took hard work to plan but was eventually fun and rewarding.
“Gymnastics is so different, because we really are such a supportive sport. We support our athletes,” Nakata said. “It’s an expectation I have and one that all the girls follow.”
