On March 31, 2023, Jossalyn wrapped up her first season as an optional level gymnast. Her age group was in the second session (3:00pm) of the day and she started on vault. Here are her stats:

Level 6 State Meet Scores:

• Vault: 9.325 – 7T
• Bars: 9.100 – 7
• Beam: 9.250 – 10
• Floor: 9.025 – 13
• AA: 36.700 – 10th

Meet Week Preparation

The week leading up to the meet is always weird. I have learned that Joss wants to have a good practice every day, but also wants to have an “off” practice to get the nerves out. While she wants an “off” practice, she doesn’t actually want to go through that practice because it challenges her confidence in her skills. Luckily, or unluckily, Monday was a little off and Tuesday was good. After learning from the previous meet that getting in an extra practice the day before a meet does not always help her, she opted to focus on making Wednesday the last day of practice so she could have Thursday to build the anticipation. Instead of Thursday practice, we focused on family time, board games, homework, and packing.

Travel Day and Meet Day

Travel day and meet day happened to be the same day. I don’t usually like to travel and have Joss compete in the same day, but sometimes it just has to work out that way. Friday morning, big sister and baby sister were off to school by 7:30am. After that, I braided hair, packed up the car and we were on our way by 8:45am. We arrived in Wesley Chapel just after 12:30pm and decided to have lunch at Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen. Cheddar’s is known to be quick and has several menu items Joss likes. While we ate lunch we brought a board game, Upwords, and played one round to try and keep Joss distracted. After lunch, Joss changed into her competition leotard and warmups and with it came a big smile, indicating she was super excited and ready to compete. After she changed, we headed over to the Wiregrass Sports Complex for the meet.

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