Weekly diary by Valorie Kondos Field, head coach for UCLA's women's gymnastics team.
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September 27, 2004
Preseason is here!!!
Our team reported on September 13th, and since school doesn't start until September 30th, we've had quite a bit of time to set the foundation for our new '04-'05 team. We started our preseason at Woodward West. It was great to get away for a week, train in a beautiful mountain setting and have a lot of time for team meetings, building, and bonding. After our gymnastics training, we've even ventured into a bit of "cross training"... it's actually more like "comic relief". To start with, I've taught them an oh-so cute team dance - replete with lots of attitude and chairs. It's great fun. Also, every so often we warm up with a round of team volleyball. We are "pathetic", to put it bluntly. We have no rules, no teams, no net, no out of bounds. Our only objective is to try to keep the ball alive for over one minute. We've actually gotten to 2:50 once. It's interesting to see the different individual "competitive" personalities emerge in a non-gymnastics sport. We also had a bit of pool time, swimming, conditioning, jogging and seeing who could "slide and dunk" the mini-basketball the best.
We came back to L.A. last week and jumped right into training in the mornings and conditioning a few days a week on the beach in the afternoons. To say it's been beautiful out at the beach is an understatement. It was especially fun our last trip to the beach because at the end of our conditioning circuit, our team ran into our swim team, who was also training down there. And, Bart Conner happened to be on a bike ride from his home in Venice (Nadia was shopping) and stopped by to say "hi".
With regards to our "new team" .... it's always important for me to lead our program with the basic foundation and principles that I feel are essential ... basically to have integrity in everything we do, not just gymnastics. However, it is as equally important to "etch-n-sketch" the canvas of what our team had built in the past and clear the way for the current team to make their own mark in UCLA history.
Even though we return quite a few Bruins, it feels like not just a new chapter for us but a new era. I think it's because for the past five years we've had the majority of our heavy hitters come from two classes, most of whom have now exhausted their eligibility. While those were GREAT years, it's fun to start painting a new canvas.
~miss val