Throughout the gymnastics season and summer months, several UK gymnasts and coaches will keep a diary about their thoughts and experiences of the 2004 season and upcoming year.

October:
November:
December:
January:
March:
May 11:

took charge and assigned everyone a task in order for dinner to be completed. After dinner, we enjoyed some gooey smores by a camp fire and talked about our goals for the season. We then enjoyed the peacefulness of the country air and the darkness of the midnight sky. The darkness always seems to bring out the craziness in gymnastics coaches. We were scared to death by Coach Mo and Coach Tom when they snuck up and jumped out behind us! Don’t worry guys, pay backs are never fun!

The next morning we arose so early that the roosters were still crowing. (This was much more soothing than the karaokeing in the vans.) The next adventure was the low ropes course at Asbury College. Here our leaders “House” and “Parks” taught us the importance of our team working together as a team through many tasks such as leading our partner through the woods blind folded and learning how to balance a boat through team work. We did some other activities to also help promote teamwork.

The high ropes course was next! These activities took a lot of trust and concentration but were definitely the most fun. There were many obstacles we had to successfully complete in order to reach the zip line. Zooming down that little cord was the most fun! The Leap of Faith was next. Each member of the team climbed up to a platform 20 feet off the ground and jumped out to catch a bar suspended about 9 feet in front of her. The leaders of the course commented that not very many girls ever catch the bar. We proved them wrong as we all caught the bar with ease!

Dinner and a wrap up of the weekend’s events were the completion of the trip. All of the activities made us work as a team and bonded everyone even tighter. We went on this retreat as a team and came back a family! GO CATS!!!