Competition is still thriving in 2020

This year has been a challenging one for many people with a variety of reasons. Personally, my “work at home uninterrupted” time shrank to zero when all 6 of my kids began doing school at home. For the 5 teenagers I was mostly unaffected, but for my youngest who recently turned 8 I quickly learned that he would not be “in class” unless I was with him.

We have been working on finding balance and setting expectations so I can still work and he can get his class work done. There have been compromises but I’ve been learning how to teach 2nd grade math and reading. Most of the other material I’ve opted out of so I can have some time to work. During this time he watches clips from PBS kids on his school Chromebook.

Since the fall semester started I’ve been working with Virtual Stars and GymACT to enable live virtual competitions. These competitions have ranged from a simple back tuck contest to a pommel horse intersquad between non funded college men’s gymnastics teams.

After enabling a few of these competitions I was itching to get back in the gym. So I took my 8 year old son Willow and we began having weekly field trips to the gym.

Scott Barclay helping Willow do a handstand

Willow and I have both enjoyed getting out of the house and I had just enough time to pull together my floor routine in time for the annual Sun Devil Gymnastics ASU Intrasquad. As an Alumni I get to compete whatever I’m ready for, and this is something like my 15th ASU pre season competition so I’m glad I was able to compete.

Breeze Olsson and Kevin Riggle did a great job narrating the meet through zoom streaming to Facebook and there were over eleven hundred people who watched it live. I reviewed it today and they both did a great job engaging with the audience. My routine starts somewhere around an hour and 13 minutes into the live stream:

Below is a video of just my routine with no narration. 🙂

My contribution to the 2020 ASU Maroon Gold and Black Intrasquad

About Robert

I competed in gymnastics for 16 years through college at Arizona State University. After 10 years and 5 (now 6) children, I have returned to gymnastics as a competitor. I am a lifetime gymnast. :)
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