September 29, 2008

Hello SWG fans,

This week has been yet another exciting week at Stanford. Classes officially started on Monday, and the campus came alive with the usual surge of bikers at 9 AM, scrambling to find classes and figuring out new schedules. By the end of the week, everyone seemed to be settling into their daily routines.

The gym has also been a fun place to be... well, of course, it always is because fun is what we do. :) This team is simply a joy to be around, and the work that was done this week in terms of actual gymnastics, execution, and conditioning was truly inspirational. Special shout-outs to Shelley Jo, Jenny, and Nikki for their awesome lay-lays on beam, and to Gretch for her aggressively MOBE (SWG's version of "huge") release move on bars. Right now, we're doing lots of work on drills and basics at the beginning of each rotation but leaving time in the last half of the rotation for skills, sequences, and endurance routines. Simply looking around the gym, it's hard not to find motivation in everything being performed.

As mentioned briefly, we've been doing a good amount of conditioning and strength training, especially outside the gym. On Friday, we had a morning pool workout, which primarily proved that most of us (with the exception of a select few) should stick with gymnastics and stay as far away from swimming as possible. Our workout consisted of warm-up laps, leg kicks against the wall, treading water, and relays. There were a couple creative exercises we did like linking arms to form a circle in the middle of the pool and treading as a team. We also linked arms in a straight line and used only our feet to backstroke across the entire length of the pool. We completed both of these tasks efficiently, and I think it further displayed our unity as a team. To cap it off, we finished with relays, which were... interesting. Let's just say that the team I was on had all the best swimmers! Props to Dani and Skoly for some awesome jumps/belly flops into the pool.

I guess that about wraps it up. Thanks for stopping by. Tune in next week to hear more about SWG 09. Go Card!

Blur (Blair)