Gym Wheel

During my extended stay in the Netherlands I had the good fortune of staying with a friend I met at the Gym Wheel World Championships back in the spring of 2009. To add to that good fortune, I was invited to train at his club!

The combination of no longer being in school and being on tour means that I haven't had a coach for wheel, well, since leaving school. Its always so nice to go train at a real Wheel Club and work with a trainer again. My friend J was really awesome and showed me all kinds of new (and difficult) skills. He seems to have faith in my abilities because we mostly worked on D elements (the most difficult kind in wheel gymnastics). There were some skills that I flat out said I didn't want to work on, because without a coach at all times, they were far too dangerous.

Simply describing them would not do the terror of those particular moves justice. I mean, how can you adequately describe the feeling of slowly letting yourself roll backwards, head first towards the floor, while upside-down, all the while holding on for dear life with forearms twisted in a very unnatural position, all because you need to "wait" for the wheel to get into the right position?

J keeps insisting that I compete at Worlds again in 2011. He even offered to represent me as my coach! It will all depend on the tour schedule of course. In theory, I'm free, but only if we don't do the optional performances, and I won't find that out until the very last minute... But you never know! Competing again makes for a great excuse to head back to the Netherlands to train!