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Spectrum Gymnastics
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E M M A
(last edited Jan 25, 2014 06:30PM)
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Jan 25, 2014 06:18PM
A gymnastics center in Los Angeles. Take lessons, work part time as a staff member, go o open gym, etc.
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Tony pulled open the door to Spectrum and walked inside, his good over his head and his music blasting in his ears. Today was his day off of work so he was planning on training most of the day. Normally he trained at night so he could have the whole place to himself but he figured that the more time he got in the better chance he would have at placing in nationals. He tossed his duffle bag onto one of the benches and shrugged out of his sweatshirt. He wrapped his hands before making his way over to the rings.
Rose was already training for the day, she didn't have to do any classes or lessons, so she was running through her routine, trying to perfect it for nationals. The segment she was working on at the moment was on one of the balance beams, a series of flips and cartwheels. She got to the end of the beam and dismounted, waving at Tony, who had just walked in.
Tony saw Rose working on her routine on the balance beams. He raised a hand in greeting before focusing back on the rings. This was his best event and he needed to perfect it because his other events weren't as solid. He reached up and grasped the rings before flipping up so he was supporting all of his weight in his arms. He did a series of flips and holds before dismounting with a double flip.
Rose stopped with the routine for a minute to go through stretches again. She was almost able to do an overspilt, which meant that she couldn't only do a full split, she could stretch her legs further up. She wanted to add that onto her balance beam event, just before the dismount, doing it upside down on her hands. She watched Troy as she stretched, always amazed by his skill on the rings- it was undoubtably her worst event, despite having adequate upper body strength, she had trouble pulling of the holds. She stretched a bit more, touching one ankle before doing the other, a hamstring stretch.
After his dismount Tony walked back over to his bag. He drank some water before sauntering over to Rose. He joined her in her stretches. "Hey." He said reaching forward to grasp his feet. "Your beam routine is looking pretty solid." He complimented. He admired the fact that Rose was as committed to gymnastics as he was. Most people thought that gymnasts just paraded around in leotards performing flips and tricks but it was much harder than that.
"Thanks. Your rings program is looking amazing, as always." She told him, a bit jealous, but she knew that area wasn't where her talent lied. She pointed and flexed her toes, then started circling her feet to do an ankle exercise. She had done all of those stretches when she had arrived, of course, as a warm up, but she didn't want anything to start cramping, or even risk it, so she tended to do a stretch session about every half hour or hour. "Is it your day off as well?" She asked, making conversation since there wasn't much need for focus at the moment.
Tony cracked a smile. "Thanks. It's taken me awhile to perfect that routine. Longer than I anticipated." He said spreading his legs and leaning forward into the stretch. "Yeah it's my day off. I haven't had as much time to train during the day lately." He said a bit sadly. He liked day time training because that have him time to relax and rest up during the night.
"Yeah. While I prefer to work here as opposed to waitressing or something else stupid and unproductive, sometimes giving lessons just takes up too much time, ya know? I have a career to go after, in the end." She said, a bit more to herself than to him. She hadn't decided to skip university just to coach gymnastics all her life, and the only way she knew she'd be able to professionally compete was if she had training - a lot more training time than what she was getting. She wondered if it might be better to take a night job and be able to train through the day, but at least with her current schedule it allowed her to look more critically at herself and what she was doing wrong, as she spent all day helping and correcting others. Most of them were beginners, yes, but still.
Tony nodded in agreement. Those were his thought exactly. He felt like training others was cutting into his own training time. Yes he could probably ask for more independent time throughout the day to work on his routines but then that would cut into his paycheck. He needed the money just as much as he needed the training. "I like working here but I don't know how much longer I can put off my training. Nationals is soon ya know?"
"Yeah, but I'm barely paying for food and my apartment as it is, I should be doing more classes or something, but I can't. It's a really sucky dilemma." She knew that they were both basically in the same situation with money and training, although she liked to talk to him more, she didn't view him as competition. They both specialized in separate events, and he was a guy, obviously, so they wouldn't compete against each other even if they were in the same event. "Stuff really changes once you move out of your parents' home."
Tony nodded. He liked not livig at home with all of his siblings getting into his stuff but once he moved out his dad cut off all funding. "I tried getting a roommate but haven't had any takers yet. If I could split the costs of things then I could afford more stuff for training." He stopped stretching and leaned back on his hands. He didn't view Rose as competition since they never competed together and he liked that she was as determined as him. "Maybe there's a way to train and work at the same time." He mused.
"You know, I'm looking for a roommate as well." She commented, if all else failed she wouldn't mind living with him, she thought. They would need to set up boundaries and such of course, but she would have to do that with any roommate. "You could start 'demonstrating' for your students." She half joked, making air quotations with her fingers around the word 'demonstrating'. She changed stretches, standing up and stepping into a deep lunge.
Tony squinted up at her from his position on the ground. He had never considered living with her. He didn't know why but he had never thought of it as an option. They were both in the same position and needed someone to split the bills with. Maybe it could work. "If you want we could move in together." He ventured. He didn't know if that was what she ha been implying but it didn't hurt to put it out there. He snorted. "Yeah like they are even in league with what I can do."
Rose nodded, "Okay, who's going to give up their apartment?" She said half jokingly, in her mind she'd go with whichever one was more convenient. That meant location, and size, for the most part. She agreed with his statement about their students, most of the people she was teaching were barely beginners, and didn't have much skill either. "I'm still trying to teach someone to walk the balance beam, let alone do anything that actually looks good." She said, it was sadly true.
Tony shrugged. "I don't mind giving up mine. It's way to expensive anyways." He said. Plus it wasn't in the best place. To much crime going on for his liking. "One of my students can't even hold his own weight on the rings let alone do a flip." He shook his head. Most of these kids weren't even serious enough about gymnastics to come to practice regularly. It was disappointing.
"Don't even have him on the rings." She suggested, if he couldn't hold his own weight he needed to be doing serious upper body training. In her opinion, he shouldn't even be attempting something like rings until he could prove that he was strong enough, not just to hold his weight, but to do flips. "Honestly, I swear half the teenagers that come in here are just here because either they want to be better cheerleaders or because their parents made them pick a sport to get exercise and they thought it would be easy, while sounding cool." She was actually upset by that thought, because people didn't consider all of the hard work that they did. "My apartment's pretty nice." She said, "It has two bedrooms, and it's pretty cheap, so that should work, I think."
"I've been considering making him work on only upper body strength until he's serious enough to actually try, but I doubt the parents would be happy with me." He didn't care about the parents but if they complained to management then he could get a write up and he didn't want that. Tony raised an eyebrow. "Why do you have two bedrooms? I only have one but I was going to have to move to a bigger apartment if we picked mine."
"I bought the apartment planning to find a roommate, and since it had such a good price on it I decided to stick with it once I had moved in, even though I was having trouble finding anyone to actually stay with me, even if it was hard to pay for. I just don't have cable. Or internet. I have a pretty good phone plan, on the upside." She said, realizing how pathetic her reasoning and logic was. She shrugged. "And see, now I have someone considering to be my roommate. Problem solved." She smiled a bit, switching to another stretch.
Tony laughed. "Okay I guess you did think things through." He stood and stretched his arms. "I just have to cancel my lease and then figure out how to get my stuff over to your place." He said. He didn't know if this would work out but it was worth a try. He figured it couldn't hurt since they both know what it was like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"Sometimes I wonder about people on the balance beams." She mused, "They're always fine on the low beams but lose it on the high beams. There's really no difference. All the heights are equally stable, it's just physiological. The only reason we actually start them on the low beams is because they'll injure themselves less if they fall." She was mostly talking to herself, thinking out loud. "Sorry, I'm being weird. And let me tell you, about two months ago I wasn't thinking that I had done a very good job of thinking things through." She had managed to pull a muscle in her leg, and had to take time off of both training and work.
Tony shook his head. "No I get what you're saying. I don't get it either. Sometimes I don't get why people even try if they know that they're afraid of falling. Falling is part of the job." He said, walking back over to the bench that he had set his stuff on. He took another drink of his water before throwing it in his bag. "We all make mistakes. Some worse than others." He shrugged going over to the rings again. He needed this perfected before he went home tonight.
"I'll stop distracting you." She told him, noticing that he intended to get back to work. She should do the same thing, she thought, so she retied her ponytail, and got back up on the balance beam she had been using before, one of the higher ones. She probably shouldn't be attempting the oversplit she had been planning on one of the higher beams- she hadn't done the move in a while. But if she went on a lower beam it would contradict everything she had just said, only minutes ago. So she took the move slowly instead, starting with a simple handstand on the beam and then stretching her legs out into the split. If she could pull it off well, she'd add it to the end of her balance beam act.
Tony coated his hands in chalk before reaching up and swinging himself in position. He held himself aloft and watched Rose for a moment. She was good. People could really learn from her if they took the time to. After a moment of watching her he flipped and started his routine. It was getting easier now that he had done it so many times but with Nationals looming so close it had to be flawless. He couldn't afford bad scores.
Rose swung her legs forwards, standing back up on the balance beam, then jumped off, going to dust her hands with chalk before going to run through her beam routine again, this time adding the split at the end before doing her flip dismount. When she was done she paused for a second, watching Tony. His routine was amazing by itself, and he pulled it off with a grace that made it look easy. It was odd how quiet it was there at the moment, there were a couple other people working, but not a lot, especially considering how close they were to nationals. It was almost surreal. With that thought she got back onto the beam to go through her routine for the sixth time that day. People said that if you spent 10,000 hours on something you became an expert. She figured she was pretty close to being an expert at that point.
Tony landed his double flip dismount flawlessly. He stood there watching Rose. He could tell that she had been working on that routine as much as he had been working on his. It was like watching water. Her moving from trick to trick fluidly without fail. He watch for any mistakes and couldn't find any. She was going to be great at nationals. He glanced around the gym and noticed that they were practically the only ones there. People really didn't take this sport serious enough.
She dismounted, and saw that he had been watching her. "Your routine looks great." She told him, sitting on the edge of one of the lower beams, resting for a minute. Her hands were hurting a bit, generally a sign to at least take a break for a few minutes, if not stopping for the day altogether. She shook out her wrists, and got her waterbottle to take a drink.
"So does yours." He complimented. His shoulder joints were starting to ache so he decided to call it a day. "I think I'm gonna go home. I have to fill out all the paperwork to cancel the lease if we truly are going to move in together." He said picking up his duffle bag and stuffing all of his stuff inside.
She smiled. "Alright then, enjoy." She told him. "I'm gonna go through it a couple more times, then call it." She got back up on the balance beam. "You have my number, right? So you can call me and we can talk about when and stuff? Also we'll probably have to reorganize everything."
"Yep. I'll call you soon." Tony said flipping up his hood and putting in his headphones. He didn't know how they were going to make this work but they could try. He needed a roommate and he didn't care who he had to live with.
