My first competition

When I was in first grade of elementary school I started practicing Rythmic Gymnastics. I do not know why but I always wanted to do it, since I can remeber. Maybe because everybody used to tell me that I would be good at it, maybe because the teacher was so nice to me. The thing is that I was really excited when I was finally old enough to start training.

And one thing that I will never forget is the first competition that I attended. I remember that I was not supposed to go, because of my age, but one of the older girls got sick, and of course I did my best to replace her.

Once I was there, I could not believe my eyes. Everything the girls had told me was true, there were real judges (pretty scary actually), and lots of people in the audience. In fact as I look back it all comes back, the anxiety, the nausea but most of all the joy of being finally there. It all happened so fast, suddenly it was my turn. I had to perform and individual routine that lasted one minute and a half. Fortunately I didn't forget my moves (like most of the girls that where my age), but I was so excited that instead of doing it during the time that lasted the music, I took my time to do everything really carefully. The music stopped and I was in the middle of the routine, so I decided that I could just leave, I had to finish it. And I did, people started to applaude, they did not understand that I was not quite done yet.

I did not get any medals that time, but I learned an important lesson, always go with the music! And so I did...