LONDON FESTIVAL OF GYMNASTICS 2008

At some ridiculously early hour in the morning of Saturday 11th October, I was dragged out of bed to get dressed and breakfasted ready to catch the coach by 5:00 am. If you think that’s your idea of fun, try surviving 3 hours on a coach with about 40 other people telling horror stories. The stories were fun, but we were shattered by the time we got to Brentwood. It’s called The London Festival of Gymnastics but for some reason it was in Essex.

When we arrived, we had to get changed and do our make-up before our practice and team photo. We had to put on our leotards, our brand new black and red spider web skirts, our red and black hair feathers followed by the leg warmers. Then our coaches, Rachel, Karen, Claire and Lisa had the difficult job of applying our mascara and our eye liner, followed by the painful backcombing of our hair. Getting the tangles out afterwards was very difficult.

We went into a specially erected marquee for our warm-up and team photo. Wasn’t quite sure what the photographer had in mind when he asked us to lie on top of each other. Even Rachel had to hold the backdrop up! But he got there in the end.

We walked onto the stage through the archway to a spectacular applause. The crowd was so big; we couldn’t pick out our own parents! At least there were some friendly faces from Rowan cheering us on. As the clapping died down we began our routine. Apart from a couple of small mistakes, we did our Scissor Sisters routine very well. We have a lot to be proud of including back somersaults, free cartwheels, flics and punch front somersaults. I was proud of myself because I did my free cartwheel in front of so many people. Performing on stage isn’t really scary at all, just the waiting is. Our bit was over very quickly so we could sit back, relax and watch the rest of the clubs.

Our day was extremely fun but very tiring. I hope we can do the same next year.

By Katie Foye

Video of gymnasts in action

See the Cotswold gymnastics in action, click on the play button below. Note: you will need Windows Media Player installed. If the play button or windows media player controls are not shown right click on the video clip and select play.