On February 25 to March 1, I left for Trail-Rossland, for a thrilling, new experience - to participate in the BC Games! BC Games is a competition you have to qualify for and is very special. You get to travel and live with your teammates in a school with other clubs and sports. I went to compete in Rhythmic Gymnastics which is the sport I do, and came back with 2 bronze, 1 silver, and 1 gold! Unlike artistic gymnastics, we don’t use vaults or bars, but instead apparatuses like ball and ribbon. I competed in 3 events: free, ball, and clubs. In each event/routine, you have a set number and rules to follow to make these routines, and it must be accomplished within 1 minute and 30 seconds alongside music. It is scored based on how difficult your routine is, how clean it is, and the artistry of it, such as expression.

I have been doing gymnastics for just over 5 years now, and every year I have gotten better and better. I have learned how to control and manage my time well, as gymnastics is a very time-consuming sport. Something else I learned is how to control my nerves better. I have many competitions in a year, and every time I get less and less nervous, as it becomes a habit and feels more like training than anything else. Usually, I think about a perfect routine to calm me down, alongside drinking lots of water and asking my friends for hugs.

Gymnastics has also taught me to get back up and keep trying. In this sport, it is almost impossible to get something on the first try and that can be very frustrating, but since I have done gymnastics for a while, I have noticed my patience and resilience growing beside my skill. Originally, I joined gymnastics as my older sister joined as well, but then I realized the elegance and beauty of the sport. My passion for gymnastics has only grown, and now I realize how much it means to me.

In the future, I am looking forward to more out of town competitions because they help show the strength of the bond between my teammates and me. This includes BC Games, and it showed how fun competitions can be under all the stress and nervousness. It was an honor to go participate in BC Games and so fun! As mentioned before, they had many other sports like hockey, judo, curling, and more, making it a fun opportunity. 

Contributed by Andrea M, Grade 6 Student