You might not guess that I’m an athlete by looking at me, after all, I can barely do five pushups and I tend to get winded after only ten minutes of jogging. To be fair, I haven’t done any sports in almost four years, but being an athlete is a part of who I am. I will always view the world through the lens of the things I learned in the gym. Being an athlete changed me, it shaped me into a person that I am proud to be, it gave me confidence and taught me the value of hard work; I honestly don’t think I would be the same person I am now if I hadn’t been a competitive gymnast for three years. Gymnastics was the first thing I was ever truly passionate about, until then, I wasn’t a very driven person. I had several fleeting hobbies, but I would …show more content…
When I first joined the team, I was painfully shy, I was so afraid that people would see me fail, and that they would judge me for it. Nevertheless, getting up in front of an entire gym full of people, including three people who literally had the job of judging my every move, and doing a complicated routine of flips and handsprings, forced me out of my comfort zone, and helped me to get over being shy and self-conscious fairly quickly. Likewise, I found that nothing gives you a confidence boost quite like standing on top of a podium with a gold medal around your neck. Gymnastics made me believe in myself, it gave me a sense of who I was, and what I was capable of, and from that point on I was a lot less concerned about being …show more content…
I also had to learn how to fall, both literally and figuratively. One of the first things you’re taught in gymnastics is how to safely fall, if you get scared and put your arms out to catch yourself, you risk breaking your arms and injuring yourself even worse. During one practice, my coach even instructed me to stand on top of an eight-foot-tall platform, and to fall backward onto the soft mat below about fifteen times, just so that I would get over the fear of falling. I learned to live outside of my comfort-zone, and now, whenever I take any sort of risks in my life, whether that be texting a guy I like or standing up for what I believe in, I think back on that; I push past my fear and I remind myself that I know what it feels like to fall and that I can handle