January 21, 2010

Hey y'all,

It has been a great week on The Farm, aside from the unusual rain that is coming now. However, we are all styling our Stanford raincoats that we got this year! It was our second week back in school, so by now we have our classes and schedules pretty much solidified.

We started weight training again this week, but still had a great week of training. Monday was a light day, but the girls that didn't compete last week showed everyone that they are ready to go. Some highlights were Allie Skoly's huge Yurchenko full and Ming Ya with her sky high double Arabian which she walks into on floor. Wednesday, the team was back at work and had a great practice! It was a confidence-building day, ending on a high note, with the fastest agility of the year. Thursday was a quick practice, then we headed over to the women's basketball game (they won of course :]) where we had the opportunity to perform at halftime. We did some tumbling and had fun (as we always do). Friday, we were all tired from a long week of school and hard conditioning, but proved that we are going to be great by rocking our intrasquad. This carried over into our competition Sunday.

We were all fired up for our first home meet in our favorite competition spot. We kicked off the meet with our usual dancing and laughing and had a great vault rotation! Blair started us off with arguably the best vault of the lineup and we built from there, finishing out with an awesome vault from freshman Nicole Dayton! We moved to bars and had another great rotation, building of each other's routines. The highlight of bars was Nicole Pechanec's flawless and stunning routine. Cat Nguyen also showcased her grace and beauty to close out the rotation. Beam highlights were Dani Ikoma's and Alyssa's calm and confident routines. It was another good rotation, but a place where we know we are better and plan to prove just that! Floor was lights out. It is the place we shine. We have so much fun as a team on the sidelines doing people's dance moves with them. And the performance of the routines overall was outstanding. Blair started us off, as the awesome senior she is. Freshman standout Ashley Morgan, provided a flawless routine. Nicole Pechanec danced her heart out. And Carly Janiga had huge tumbling and an exciting new routine. Allyse Ishino closed out the meet for us, performing her jaw-dropping routine (one that she made up herself and is full of dance moves that we all only wish we could imitate).

That's about it for SWG. We are already back at work, fixing all the little things that we can do better, and getting excited for UCLA to come on Sunday. It will be our second home meet of the year and will take place at 2 p.m. in Burnham! Hope to see y'all there!

Thanks for checking in,

Shelley Alexander