Wow. I was speaking to coach the other day and he said do you realize Bobbie we have almost been working together now for three years. Three years. We started training on my birthday Aug 14, 2009 when I just turned 19. What a journey it has been. One of the biggest achievements of that has been the incredible back flexibility that I now have. It has been a long and gruelling process including breaking three ribs multiple times and separating ribs in two places.

I have difficulty fathoming NOT being able to lean backwards and place your hands on the ground effortlessly now. It is getting easier and wasier every day that I do it and I keep pushing the envelope of my flexibility as I invent new skills and drills to open it up even more.

A series of slinkies is not routine. This morning I did a pentaslinky as my warmup. Tomorrow will probably be an Octoslinky to warm up. That is definitely coming the way my back is opening up. I then did some Double Slinkies using my off leg. The first one was horrible but I did the next three well and the last was a Triple Slinky. First time I have done a Triple Slinky using my off leg. As I keep conditoning it I will be doing Quad slinkies with it. Yet only five weeks a single one was impossible. I love this sport!!! Miracles are a daily occurence.

I then did a new technique I call my Rockerbridge. This is where I backbend into a bridge and then rock back and forth between  kickover position and standup position. It is training my back to be used to the movement and allow my hands to get get closer to my feet. I will get to a point where I can grab my own feet. I still have a while to go but I am on the journey.

After that I did my beam slinkies followed by back walkovers. I did a perfect set of 5. It is amazing watching how this has progressed. I remember when even doing a Back Walkover was scary. Now I do the slinky in beam position and then an effortless Back Walkove after. This will eventually become Back Walkover-Back Handspring on beam. So cool.

I recently ordered a Mini-Beam and Floor Bar and will get more so I have one of each in each location. I need to be able to do the drills regardless of location. I took my mini-beam with me to LA Fitness and then started doing back bends onto the beam. This is to train my body to go back and get the hands into the position to land on the beam. This is going to require a lot of conditioning but the idea is turning the motion to instinctive where I see a beam I immediately prepare hands to grip it solidly. I did 10 solid bends onto the beam. I still have more work to go to be able to kickover on the beam but I will train more tomorrow and keep drilling it.

I had a frustrating last day with coach on Friday. I just was not clicking like I wanted to be and it was capped off by my bar routine in which I just plain sucked. I know that the more I train the better I get and there will be days where things just are not working. It is part of the process.

So after almost three years I see how far I have come and I am very excited to see where the next three year of intensive training and flexibility work will bring. Go Heroes!!!