Take One for the Team

Chapter 12: Regionals Practice

The next Saturday we had a practice competition for regionals. Regionals would be the following Saturday in Tucson, Arizona.
We got to the studio at 9. The first thing when we walked in, Coach Melissa brought in a huge box. She opened it up and inside were our new uniforms!
"Put them on!" Coach Melissa exclaimed. "This is a dress rehearsal!" We all put on our new uniforms. They looked great. They were blue with a white stripe and black at the top. In the corner was McKenzie's perfect logo. I waited in line for the bathroom to change into mine.
The uniforms looked even better on real people than they did when we opened them up. They looked great on everyone, all of us with our different figures.
After we all had our uniforms on, we got right to work. We started with the first event, thirty second speed.
Coach Melissa had stations set up and some volunteer parent judges with clickers, ready to count our speed scores. There were small boxes on the floor made out of tape in which we were to jump.
Thirty second speed is a quick event, and I don't think that there's enough time to get the score I want to get. My feet pattered back and forth on the floor. My score was 63, which I wasn't nearly happy with.
The next event is 1 minute speed, which I like better. I think that a minute is just enough time for speed, not too short, not too long.
I ended up with a score of 120, which is pretty good for a girl my age.
Then was relay, when there are four jumpers and each jumps for thirty seconds. The groups were the same as pairs double dutch so I was with Joey, Leia and Zoey.
After that was double dutch speed, which me and Becky had to skip because Brandon wasn't there.
Then we did pairs double dutch speed, where two people jump for a minute each and two people turn. I was one of the turners.
It's important to be a strong turner for double dutch. In fact, it's almost more important than the jumping. Anyone can jump, as long as there are strong turners.
After pairs double dutch was my least favorite event, 3 minute speed.
Three minute speed is exhausting, because it's very hard to keep up your pace for three minutes. I should at least be able to maintain 100 jumps per minute, which would be a final score of about 300, but I usually don't.
I got really tired during 3 minute speed and ended up with a score of 240. Ugh.
The last speed event was triple unders, where you do as many as you can in a row. Luckily, triple unders is an event for competitors ages 15 and over only, so I didn't have to do them.
We had a lunch break before we moved on to freestyle. Coach Melissa ordered pizza. I was so hungry that I ate four slices.
After lunch we moved on to freestyle. We had sheets with the requirements on them and we judged each other.
First we did singles. The requirements for a single rope routine are double/triple under combo, a dance combo, a crossing combo, a gymnastics combo and a rope release. When I did my singles, Cara and Jenny judged me. After I finished they handed me my paper. I had missed twice, which would deduct from my final score, but I still did well. In addition to your combos, you also get judged on your presentation and smiling in your routine. It's really hard to smile and not miss, but I usually did a pretty good job. I practiced my singles really hard, and it was paying off.
After single was pairs. It was a little sad to watch everyone do their perfect pairs routines with their partners and I just had to o judge them.
Then came double dutch. We had Coach Melissa turn the other end of the ropes while Becky and I took turns practicing our parts for our routine.
The last event was pairs double dutch. We were all pretty dead by this time, so we had a bunch of misses in pairs double dutch. I was still proud of our routine. It looked really cool, and we smiled the whole time, too.
After pairs double dutch, people's parents started coming. As soon as Jake's mom got there, we walked outside and saw that it was dark. We had spent the whole day jumping! It was a fun day though. Not bad at all.
We only had two practices left until Regionals.
Tuesday we spent going through all of the events like we had done on Saturday, but quicker, so we could fit all of it in in three hours.
Thursday we didn't stress about getting through everything. We made some last minute touch-ups on our routines and goofed off a little. It was a fun practice, because by now our routines were what they were.
We all hugged on Thursday night.
"See you at Regionals!" said McKenzie. "Wow, that sounds scary," I said. "Even if regionals is only two days away."
That night when I got home I packed my bags. Then I laid out my outfit for the next day on the road.
The next morning I got up and got dressed. We all got in the car. But we didn't drive to school. We drove right past the school, over the bridge and onto the freeway. We were going to Arizona.
It took us eight hours to get there. I read my book report book most of the way. We stopped three times to go to the bathroom and eat. By the time we got to our hotel, it was eight o'clock at night. We checked in, went to our hotel room, and watched some TV. Then we got ready for bed.
I had a hard time falling asleep that night. I kept thinking, I'm really here. It's really tomorrow. Everything I've worked so hard for is on the line. If I blow it now, I can't go to nationals.
And with those words in my mind, I went to sleep.