BALANCE

Our daughter Victoria was a competitive gymnast for a number of years. She was exceptional! I think Mandi and I were more nervous watching her compete than she was. During her floor exercise she would get so high in her tumbling passes, watching her fly around the uneven parallel bars was major white knuckle time, and seeing her head down the runway at top speed and then pop that vault and twist and turn her body in ways I could only dream of – yikes! But the event that was the wildest for me personally was the balance beam. It’s so unimaginable that not only could she walk across this 4” wide, 16.5’ long beam but she could jump, tumble, dance, and kick without falling off. I think that was the event that she had to work the hardest at in training. Clearly the key was for her to develop extraordinary ‘balance’ and strengthen her ‘center’. When she competed she had to maintain that focus and balance with the crowd cheering for other competitors at other events, music blasting from the floor exercise, coaches and parents encouraging her, etc. So not only did she have to balance her body, she also had to process out all of the distracters around her.

In life, one of my biggest challenges is finding and maintaining the right balance. Balancing quality family time, work requirements, physical fitness, coaching, etc. is seemingly a daily challenge. When I get out of balance I know pretty quickly because I “fall” in that area(s) of my life that I’ve neglected. Much like Victoria would fall off the beam – not very often :) - if she got out of balance up there. This would happen typically if she let a distracter come in and take her off her center. She would get up, regroup, regain her center and balance, and finish the routine.

I think the bottom line for me is, keeping a healthy balance in life is a ton of work! But it is well worth it. If I get out of balance, life will let me know quickly. All I have to do is get up, dust myself off, regain my center and balance, and finish the routine!