On Friday, March 10, 2023, Jossalyn competed in the Charity Challenge Cup in Wesley Chapel, Florida. She competed in Session 3 (3:00pm) and started on Bars.

Her Charity Challenge Cup Meet Scores:

• Vault: 8.950 – 5th
• Bars: 9.250 – 3rd (tie)
• Beam: 8.325 – 10th
• Floor: 9.000 – 7th (tie)
• All Around: 35.525 – 8th place (age group)

Meet Week Preparation

Jossalyn had a typical meet week experience during the practices leading up to the meet. She had an off day, a couple of okay days and one great day. She felt a little off on bars during Wednesday practice and she decided to come in to practice on Thursday just to work bars.

Travel Day and Meet Day

We had full Friday that included travel, competition and more. The morning started with parent teacher conferences for both Madalyn at Jossalyn, all before 8:00am. After that, we headed back home to get the car packed, braid Jossalyn’s hair, and get Gwen off to daycare. We were on the road about 9:45am. The drive was smooth, and we arrived in the Wesley Chapel area about 1:00pm. We stopped at Publix to pick up lunch and snacks. Then, we drove south to shop at Uptown Cheapskate – Tampa, a very cute, upscale used clothing store for teens and 20-somethings. Madalyn enjoyed it the most and while she shopped Jossalyn used a dressing room to change into her competition leotard and warm-ups. Madalyn found a very cute top and then we headed to the Wiregrass Sports Complex for the meet.

Charity Challenge Cup

The Charity Challenge Cup offers gyms the opportunity to raise money for their selected charities. Our coaches selected the American Heart Association and our girls got to get in the spirit of the charity by wearing hearts when they were introduced. Most of the season Joss had competed with two teammates, but today was down a teammate – Mack was out due to a foot injury.

Bars. Joss felt good warming up bars and her competition routine was clean.

Beam. Warm-up went okay. Joss said she started thinking about the two falls she took at the last meet and was determined to kick butt this time. She started her beam routine very clean and strong. Then, when she did her handstand, she said her left hand slipped and slid just enough that there was no other option than to come down and off the beam, which she did with grace and ease (as in – no scary fall). She took a deep breath and got back up on the beam and finished her routine. She was super bummed about falling, but knew it wasn’t for lack of skill and that she did the right thing to come out of the handstand and come down. She was surprised to see her score and to see the fall cost her so much.

Floor. Joss said she was the most excited to compete floor as she had been hitting her routines so good in practice. It was a day when warm-ups went great but a few weird things happened during her floor routine. During her front pass, she stumbled when she came out of her front tuck and had to take a few steps. Then, she rotated a bit wonky on her spider cartwheel and then didn’t come to full handstand on her last acro series. However, her back tumbling pass was beautiful, and she nailed her double turn.

Vault. Joss finished on vault. She said she felt like she had good vault warm-ups but did not have the “power” she wanted when she vaulted.

Post Meet

After the meet concluded, I bought Joss a blue and white Quattro leotard and a t-shirt/pajama pants combo. We do not normally pick up leotards at meets, and it was nice to add a special leotard to her training line up. After the meet, we went to Sonny’s BBQ for dinner and one of her teammates joined.

Travel Day: Homebound

On Saturday morning we planned to eat breakfast at the hotel (Sleep Inn). Apparently, a youth band event was going on and a bunch of the kids from the event stayed at the hotel as well and the breakfast area was very crowded by the time we got there. We opted to grab breakfast from McDonald’s (which was around the corner), filled up with gas, and headed home.

Notes and Lessons Learned

• On Saturday afternoon, Joss met with her mental training coach to talk about the meet. After breaking down the meet, she had two takeaways: (1) Opting for one last practice the night before seemed to take away some of the excitement and anticipation of competing. She felt like she let her guard down and this affected her overall performance. (2) Joss’s coaches had been very tough on her the two weeks leading up to the meet and she was nervous about how they would treat her on meet day. They were very nice, encouraging, and even joking with Joss throughout the meet. In reflection, Joss felt like this also contributed to letting her guard down. Going forward, Joss plans to try to give a full day between the last training and meet day and will plan on the last two weeks of practice being very tough, knowing meet day is the light at the end of that tunnel.
• I feel like we did too much stuff on meet day. We got up early to pack, went to school early for parent teacher conferences, set aside time for hair, got the toddler off to day care, drove to meet location, stopped and went shopping/picked up lunch. All that before the meet. I did the best to not have the day go this way, but there was little I could do so I tried to make the best of it. In the future, I will try to not travel the day of the competition and if we have to, to minimize and reduce stress where possible.