The New Boy

practice

"first, we will stretch and introduce ourselves. after that, you will do a toe touch, pike, front and side. then you will do your tumbling pass. we will work on stunting afterwards." Coach Carrie says.

"um. coach?" I ask.

"yes Jess?" she replies.

"Amy, Ryan and me have already stretched, do you want us to stretch again or do our jumps and passes?" I ask her.

"yeah. after everyone introduces themselves."

"okay." I say and we stretch a little more until everyone introduces themselves.

once everyone introduces themselves, Ryan starts while everyone is still stretching. he nails everything, but wobbles a little on his pass.

Amy goes and she hyperextended her toe touch, but she messed up a little on her side, other than that, she was perfect.
I go after, I had Ryan record me so I could watch myself. everyone else is still stretching, so I watch my video with Ryan.

"be brutally honest. watch it with me." I tell him. "but don't say anything until the end." he nods and we watch the video.

I hyperextended my toe touch, pointed my toes in all my jumps, my pike was perfect, my side could've been a little higher, same with my front, but otherwise all of my jumps were good. I perfectly landed my pass. I honestly didn't see anything wrong with it, except my jumps could've been higher.

"honest?" Ryan asks.

"brutally." I say.

"nothing. you've improved from last year and your jumps were amazing and so was your pass." Ryan says and I smile.

"thank you, but my jumps could have been higher." I say.

"hun. listen to me." he says grabbing my hands. I look at him. "are you listening?" I nod. "you were perfect." I hug him, I was worried about how I was going to do. I've been practicing all summer because I wanted to make my senior year perfect.

"thank you." I say.

we watch everyone else go. everyone else is amazing too. we even have one freshman that made varsity. there's a few sophomores, and the rest are juniors and seniors. we have enough people for 5 stunt groups. the freshman, Zoey, will probably be a flyer, because she's too small to be a base. then there's Ryan, Amy and me. we have two open flyer spots, not including Zoey.

"Coach?" Amy asks.

"yes Amy?" coach replies.

"who will fly this year?" she asks.

"um. you, Jess, Ryan and I'm not sure who else. who has been a flyer?" she asks the team. five girls raise their hands, including Zoey.

"okay ladies. flyers go over there. we'll use Dan, Samantha, and Jackie. Ryan, this will be your stunt group. Ryan, you go over there with them and warm up. as for you five ladies, how many of you can do a scorpion?"

they all raise their hands. "needle?" all but one raise their hands.

"okay. can you move over there? how about bow and arrow?" only three girls raise their hands.

"okay. can you go over there too? I'm assuming that all of you can do a heel stretch?" they all nod.

"okay. can you all do your scorpions?" they do and they all look good.

"mhm.. okay. now heel stretch." they do this too, and again, good.

"okay. needle." they do. Zoey has an amazing needle. her and one other girl can hyperextend it.