Born For This...Kelsey Morris

I met Kelsey Morris early in 2007, I housed with her during a summer gymnastics camp at Leading Edge Gymnastics Academy. At the time I hadn't any idea who this dynamo was or what she would accomplish in the next few years. I just recall her being very friendly, energetic and an extremely powerful gymnast in the gym. Although she was a couple of years younger, we would both began our first level 9 seasons that year.

She would come away with many wins that year, to top it off, she ended up finishing her prestigious season with two event titles during the Western Nationals and would just miss taking the all around spot by .05. She would instead settle with a second place finish.

It would not surprise many when she headed into her next season as a level 10 competitor. However, finishing in the top 10 at her first nationals might've turned a few heads in her direction. Not to mention, she was also competing in the same session as Kayla Williams, who would later be named to the 2009 Worlds team and would capture the vault title; but Kayla Willaims would not win vault during JO nationals in 2008, Kelsey Morris took that title.




It seemed there was much in store for this talented athlete. Going into her second year as a level 10 she would capture vault and floor titles at regionals but would come up short during nationals, placing two spots lower than she had the prior year and placing on only one unlikely event. A 6th place finish on her weakest apparatus, the balance beam.

Nonetheless, she headed into 2010 with high hopes. She would win both state and regional all around titles, going into Nationals she seemed poised to finish in the top three but on her final event, the balance beam, she had an uncharastic fall that would prevent her from even finishing in the top 10.

Late in 2010, however, Kelsey Morris would sign to Boise State University with a full ride scholarship.

Her gymnastics career has been filled with ups and downs, but gymnasts, judges and coaches of Region II would argue that she is possibly the best gymnast in the region. She is a gymnast with a talent and drive few can compare to in this addictive yet unforgiving sport, and at 17 years old, she still has a few more years in gymnastics to impact us all!


http://www.broncosports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9900&ATCLID=205040442

http://www.gymdivas.us/profile_morris.htm

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20101123/SPORTS/711239848/1004



Kelsey trains at one of the top level gyms of Region II with some of the top coaches in the nation.

I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for this gymnast!
Good luck Buff!

Elite Bloggers

Kyle Shewfelt, Canada's '04 Olympic floor medalist wrote a blog post that really resonates with what a lot of people in the world are feeling right now.

To read more follow this link:

http://www.kyleshewfelt.com/

Leap of Faith...

It's amazing the type of people you find in your area, in your sport, that you had no idea have a physical disability. More inspiring is the people who don't let anything stop them.

Lola Walters, of Black Hills Gymnastics is legally blind. Not only that, but she is already a level 6 competitive gymnast. At 11 years of age, by gymnastics standards, that makes her quite average. However, this makes her achievement HUGE! There are hundreds of other 11 year old, level 6's that don't have a disability and are not even at her ability level.

Her accomplishment has put her on national news. To hear more about this incredible story, click the link below or watch the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-pFngGnBe4

Happy Late Thanksgiving!

Not much is going on that I know about in the gymnastics world at this present moment, but in only a few weeks, the JO gymnastics competition season will be under way!

This year will be the first in two years that I will once again be at the very first gym I grew up in for the first 16 years of my life. I am excited to once again be training and competing there. And for the first time at this gym I will get an level 9 team to compete with! I am fired up and can't wait to start posting footage of this season!

More to come in a few weeks...
:)

Cirque Le Masque

Last night I was thrilled to get to experience a fantastic performance by cirque! It was the second one I had ever seen live. The show was captivating and exhilerating, not quite as incredible as the first one I had seen, but still a performance I will never forget!



Over the past few years I have thought about following a career path toward performing in a circus-like atmosphere, mostly due to the fact that I have been training my whole life in a gym. Since gymnastics is something I want to be doing my whole life and the chance of me getting to do so is not very likely, then why not follow a similar dream? However, getting the chance to follow such an epic career is going to have to take some sacrifices. Unfortuantly, there is nothing nearby that would allow me to learn any form of circus acts. Plus performing in the circus is definintly no easy task in any way, shape or form. In other words, I'm gonna have to want it more than anything! And another issue will be the injured wrist I've developed that wont seem to heal.. :/

We'll see where my life leads. For now I am content with gymnastics training, coaching and being a barista. Maybe one day I will write a fictionalized story about the circus too. :)

Life has no limits!

"Chalked Up"-Have you read it?

Lately I have been busy reading the book, "Chalked Up", a memoir of gymnast, Jennifer Sey. Not only is the book an honest reflection of how elite gymnasts had and are still being trained today but much of the story mirrors my own life. The way Jennifer writes of her personal struggles, partially caused by outside influences and partially by her own personality, brought back some of my own heart-breaking memories growing up in a gym.



As a child, gymnastics was what I did for fun. I never could seem to get enough of it; I always wanted to be in the gym. There is nothing compared to the feeling of flipping off of a 10 ft. bar and landing as soft as a cat on a mat beneath, the magic in being able to stick a dismount from a four inch wide, 4 ft. tall beam, the feeling of springs beneath you, throwing you high into the air. Everything about gymnastics is both exhilerating and yet terrifying. It is definintly the most captivating sport for any dare-devil child, but gymnastics is no longer defined by women. Once you hit puberty and learn that the body is not as limber as it was as a child, gymnastics becomes something different altogether. For some, it can become a nightmarish sport of eating disorders, constant training, injuries and addiction. Even though I never reached elite, or even level 10 for that matter; the psychological, emotional and physical issues Jennifer writes of, have all been a part of my past and still linger with me to this present day.

There is one anecdote she writes of, at the beginning of part III, in her memoir that particularly tore at my heart. The reason soley being that I too, have felt exactly as she did in my own life. In fact, I am still recovering from my own personal experiences of being a high level and considerably good gymnast, to literally feeling as though I had fallen from the face of the gymnastics world. Her story writes of returning to one of her earlier gyms, somehow still holding onto what was left of her Olympic dream yet inside she knew that there was no way of recovering, both mentally and physically, to get her back to where she left off at. She discusses her struggle with trying to remain thin at that time as well as feeling her own personal desire of continuing gymnastics thwarted by everything she has been through.

The short three pages of this peice of the story also sums up exactly the way I felt after my first initial wrist injury in the year, 2008. Both she and I will forever have a deep wound in our lives, the realization that nothing went as planned and we can never go back to the way things were. She couldn't let go, like I wouldn't let go. The desire to be the best was much to great, etched in both of our hearts and minds. Erasing it continues to be a struggle in my life, as I'm sure it is in her own. The difference I think is that even though both of us remained sucked in our addiction to the sport of gymnastics, she eventually let go when she realized she couldn't go back. I cling to the sport still, at first it was to solidify in myself that I could get back to where I left off at. Now that desire has left, I have come to terms with my heart and my body. I cannot go back to the way it was, but I can still have fun in gymnastics. I know now why I fell in love with gymnastics. It wasn't soley to become an Olympic athlete or to be the best, instead it is that incredible feeling of being able to do what so few can do, the joy of flying through the air, denying gravity of it's existance for a brief moment. Gymnastics is the one peice of heaven that I can hold on earth during my lifetime and I'm gonna hang on to it for as long as I can.

Region 2 Gymnastics Clinic-Day 1

I have gotten so behind on blogging. Life has been crazy! Here is a glimpse into what happened on day 1 of region II's first gymnastics clinic of the year.



Most of the footage is of my teammates but there are a few other level 9 and 10's thrown in there.

We had some awesome clinicians there including:
Tammy Biggs
John Carney
Todd Gardner
Yulia Hancheroff
Guennadi Komissarov
Nola Ayers
Patti and Neil Resnick
Tom Koll
and many, many others!