NO MORE

I watched as Simone Biles was brave enough to stand up for not only herself but her teammates and step down and it brought back memories that I had buried long ago. You see, I was a gymnast for 14 years. I started at 8, which was late for most, and competed all the way through college. I had talent. I had passion. I had drive.?Gymnastics paid for my school and allowed me to be the first person in my family to graduate college.

The inherent nature of competitive sports teaches you life skills. I can say that a large part of who I am personally and professionally I owe to the sport. I strive to be the best version of myself. If I fail or fall, I get back up and work harder. Practice makes perfect.?If it’s broken, I fix it. I look for unique, efficient, effective ways to do things bigger, better, and faster.?I train and encourage staff to grow and develop even if that extra stretch means it might be uncomfortable. These skills directly translate to performance at work.

Now I’m not saying that there aren’t lazy people that will take any opportunity to quit or give up or cause extra work for others because it does happen. What I’m saying is that this is not the case with Ms. Biles and anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about.

You are talking about young ladies at the oldest, and just children at the youngest. These athletes have worked their entire lives to pursue the dream of being an Olympic champion. To those of you who say Simone is a coward or a quitter I say, beware of your judgement.?You have no idea what she has gone through. You have no idea how hard she has trained and what she has endured just from a sports perspective, not to mention the sexual assault she endured because of the sport. This is also someone who was in foster care on top of all of this. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders and it was crushing her. The media and having people in your face at all times acting like you are there to serve them is not normal for someone who has basically been what I affectionately call a gym rat and isolated from the world as you are locked in a gym training to pursue your dream.?Most people have no idea what it is like for your head and your body to not be in sync. Imagine flipping and flying through the air and getting lost and having no control.?Been there. Done that. It is absolutely terrifying. Gymnastics is much more mental than physical. It would have been easier just to keep going, to risk getting hurt, or worst yet, to risk dying. What most don’t understand is that when you are competing at the complexity of her level a split-second hesitation, I’m talking tenths of a second, could cause you to land on your neck or head resulting in paralysis or death. Think about that for a second. She had the courage to say, “NO MORE” and step down. All of the hard work, the long hours to do something you love, that you have dedicated your life to, do you have any idea how hard to was to give all of that up by choosing to walk away? Then there is the backlash that she knew would come from it.?I can’t image the anxiety she had announcing that she would not finish the team competition and that her teammates would continue on without her.?Sometimes it’s better to lose the battle so you can fight another day. She had to admit that she was having challenges which was difficult enough and now I see people attacking her for it and it’s just wrong. Just because she makes it look easy doesn’t mean that it is. She is still the GOAT and having the courage to step down makes me love her even more.

I’ve had the “twisties” before. I called it vertigo. I couldn’t tell where I was. I remember practicing my routines and feeling like I was sideways even though I was vertical. Imagine trying to flip on a beam four inches wide, four feet off the ground and not knowing the position of your body. Proprioception is required to do gymnastics. If it’s off, and you can’t figure out where you are, it’s dangerous, plain and simple.

My sister and I were discussing all this the other day. She remembered watching when she was little, and I fell, and I didn’t immediately get up. She said for a second, she actually thought I was dead. She said her whole childhood she watched this kind of thing happen to me and all my teammates over the years and us being told to keep competing in terrible pain and that it was awful. Her question, “How could this have been normal for so long?”?This is a very good question indeed. Dozens of gymnasts all coming out with the same basic story.

McKayla Maroney: Now coming out to say that the infamous doctor now in jail for abusing gymnasts he was supposed to be treating lied to her coach in 2012 at the Olympics and she competed with a broken foot.

Dominique Moceanu:

Watch this and understand how dangerous this sport is.

I’ve had numerous concussions. I’ve blown out my ankle, had surgery on my right knee (twice), left knee, and reconstructed my rotator cuff in my shoulder. I dislocated my right elbow (twice). One time the elbow was so bad that the lower part of my arm was up next to the outside of my tricep. I don’t know what was worse, the pain when it dislocated and seeing my arm look like something out of a Si-Fi movie or being at the hospital and them having to jerk it back into place.?I’ve had discs replaced in my neck and partial discs removed from my back. See photo of my neck below:

I’ve had more strains, sprains, tears, and fractures than I care to count. I have plates. I have screws. I have cadaver parts. I hurt every single day. I can tell you with greater accuracy than any meteorologist when it’s going to rain or snow.?I remember my chiropractor telling me when I was 12 that I should consider marrying one (another chiropractor) when I was grown. It seemed funny at the time, but I’d seriously contemplate it now if I didn’t have a great husband.

My last year I competed the entire year with my knee taped up to the point it was like a cast. It hurt. I could feel it shift sideways every time I tried to punch or take off. I couldn’t do the things I could normally do. They did MRI’s and said all four main ligaments were fine, ACL, MCL, PCL, LCL and I think they thought this was something I was making up in my head and I was just “complaining”. I even began to question my sanity. The thing is when you are on scholarship you feel even more obligated to perform. It’s basically your job. You are expected to produce.?I would push through until I couldn’t bear it any longer. When I would say that I needed to stop they would shoot me up with cortisone add some more tape and I’d just keep going. I found out a year later after my gymnastics career was over and after I was still having difficulty doing normal things, you know, like walking and running, that a tendon had torn loose. A very atypical injury that needed surgery to repair. I should have stopped. I should have trusted my body. I should have demanded that they run more tests to figure out what was wrong. I competed an entire year with half a knee. If you can’t punch to get altitude to do the skills the risks of catastrophic injury are multiplied. I’m thankful that something dire didn’t happen. I should have said NO MORE.

I can say with absolute certainty that every major injury I sustained was because I was tired or because I hesitated.?I hesitated because for a split second I doubted myself or the action at hand. That doubt, that mental lapse, can be your complete undoing. Looking back now, it’s a miracle that I’m not in a wheelchair.

I tell this personal story because it directly correlates to my professional career, and it serves as a reminder that I constantly need to tell myself that I have to take care of me. It’s something I struggle with every day.?Don't get me wrong, I'm going to make sure that everything that needs to be accomplished will get done. That being said it needs to be done appropriately, by the right people, at the right time, without sacrificing yourself as a human being. You are no good to anyone if you are broken. Remember you should be the best version of yourself. That’s all you can be.?You owe it to your family, your friends, your coworkers, your company, and everyone around you but most importantly, you owe it to you.

The past year with the pandemic has been challenging for all of us.?Trying to balance work with most of us doing it from home, homeschooling, trying to be caregivers to our families is not easy.??We all had to pivot.?We all had to adapt and become agile. Some of us did better than others.?Some of us completely fell apart.?Some of us got sick.?Some of us lost loved ones. Things have happened during the last year to all of us and our lives will never be the same.?The world will never be the same.?Regardless of our various lives and situations, remember it is up to you to determine what you want and are capable of pushing through. It’s also up to you to determine when you need to stop and say NO MORE. It is your responsibility to make the call. You and no one else.

Oh, and by the way, now that I’ve thought about it, the part where they had to yank my arm back into place was worse than the initial dislocation.?You know why??Because I knew it was coming.?I knew what they were about to do.?They were about to hurt me on purpose, and I knew that it was going to hurt as bad going in as it did going out.?Even though the hurt was to right a wrong, I knew it wasn't going to be any less painful. The anxiety of knowing what was about to happen was far worse than the three people that held me down while the others forcefully put my arm back where it was supposed to be.??I bent the metal bar on my hospital bed that I was holding onto bracing for what was about to come. The mental aspect was far worse than the physical pain that lasted for a couple of seconds.?

To my fellow professionals, my advice is this: If you need a break, then take it. If you need support, ask for it. If you ask and are not supported by your leadership, then walk away. There are companies and people who care. We are all human beings with different levels of tolerance for different things. It is our responsibility as humans to be just that…be HUMAN to one another.

I leave you all with this. I don’t have to know you. I don’t have to like you. If you are struggling, reach out to me. If you need someone to listen to you, then I am here for you. I’m not saying that I have all the answers, what I am saying is that I’m here for you if you need someone.?