She Got It

You may have already heard me discussing a little dilemma we've been having with Faith's gymnastics class.  Her studio changes classes around at the beginning of June right after the Spring recital.  She was assigned to a class that simply will not work with my piano schedule, especially once school starts.  I told the director it must be changed.
She told me Faith had to have her aerial to be moved up to the next class.
I told her she would get it.  Then I asked how we should go about helping her to "get it".
She told Faith to do 150 round-off back-handsprings in sets of five six days a week.
I said "Done".

It was definitely easier said than done.  Holy smokes!  We spent a lot of time every day building up her strength by doing these back-hand-springs.  Faith was a trooper, but I'm just going to say that I was a trooper too.  I kept track of them and encouraged, cajoled, praised, threatened, rewarded, and anything else I could think of to keep her on track and get them done.  And we did not miss a day for over a month!

Do I sound like a crazy mom?  I don't deny that I may in fact be a crazy mom, but in this case I feel that my efforts were justified.  And although it took longer than I expected and was feeling like giving up (never mind what poor Faith was feeling-- she was the one hurtling herself through the air) SHE GOT IT!!!  She got it at class last week and she now she can do them at home-- which means she really has it.

The good news?  She has successfully landed about 15 aerials at home.  The bad news?  She is still not quite up to 50% landing rate, which means she still has quite a few uncomfortable landings.  But she is tough stuff.

The take-off.
At this point I'm always holding my breath.

I wish I had an awesome camera.

Please, please land it!

Her goal is to be able to successfully do one for her talent at the Fox Family Talent Show.  She'll have to practice a bit more.  I'm a afraid that Faith landing on her head would upset Grandma.  We'll have to get up to at least a 75% landing rate.