Hard work is always hard work, for young gymnasts and old gymnasts. Whoever can handle this will be a champion.
The coaches today should realize that they are, after all, working with children who sometimes have to stand up to physical and moral stresses which not even all grown-ups could bear.
I just stay focused, and I always think about gymnastics. I am just doing what I always do... working really hard and pushing myself to the maximum and keeping myself motivated.
Wake up every day knowing that today is a new day and only you can determine the outcome of that day. So dream big, accept the challenge, and never look back.
Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition.
Gymnastics is the type of sport where you can't take something that gives you more energy. Something may be great for the vault, but then you have the bars after it and you have to be more sedate for that.
The Dance can, with the aid of music, rise to the heights of poetry. On the other hand, through an excess of gymnastics it can also degenerate into buffoonery. So-called "difficult" feats can be executed by countless adepts, but the appearance of ease is achieved only by the chosen few.
If you do the best you can, you will find, nine times out of ten, that you have done as well as or better than anyone else.
Gymnastics is not only a good thing to live by, but it is important to understand how it does help you in life.
Even if kids don't love gymnastics, if they start at any age with some classes, they can learn so many different things - they can build a lot of character, strength, flexibility, and courage. Hopefully, they can also develop a sense of fearlessness.
I did gymnastics when I was growing up and to this day I can still do the splits.
In high school I never went to the prom because I was too consumed with gymnastics. Also, with my hair in pigtails and looking about 10, I wasn't exactly date material.
I always joke to my dad and thank him for giving me this little boy body. When I was 6 or 7, my gymnastics coach looked at my quads and told the other coach to come over and see my quads. They were big then and still are. But I've kind of embraced it through the years.
It might have been easier to retire, to say my knee couldn't handle it and let that be that. At the same time, the prospect of not being able to compete in gymnastics anymore was heartbreaking.
Something my mom taught me when I was little is that everything happens for a reason. Retiring was scary and it was tough to give up gymnastics, but so many great opportunities have come from it that I never expected. And those wouldn't have happened had I not accepted my injury as a way to try something new.
Gymnastics has given me everything in my life. I will continue to stay involved and try to give back to the sport that has given me so much.
I worked hard in gymnastics since the time I was six years old until I retired at 23 years of age.
Heart is what separates the good from the great.
In gymnastics, everything is a competition. You want to have your hair look the best and your makeup look the best. You want to be the best, and you want to have the prettiest leotard.
I was seven years old when I learnt the back somi on beam.
After quitting gymnastics in 2000, I was looking for that next thing where I could defy gravity. I was looking for something that had the flipping and the twisting and allowed me to be acrobatic.
The best way to show respect to your fellow athletes is to give the best performance you can.
I know gymnastics. It's always been a subjective appreciation.
In gymnastics, smaller will always be better in many ways. The stress in the head, that will be the same for all. But the stress on the body and the concussions it must endure, that will always be easier for the little ones.
This is how [the] sport has contributed to my personality, toughness and discipline. I have a plan, and I work on it. I was going to add [the] before the word sport since I thought was either a typo or a problem translating what she said, but then I thought it made sense without it too , so I left it as is. Just know that that's not a typo on my part.
