7. Ch 7- Taster Session

As Lincoln looked around, he saw a variety of different apparatus- some that he recognised from gym classes over the years, and some that he wasn't as familiar. Nearest to the door was a large, square section, which when he walked onto it, he realised that it was some sort of foam. Nearer to the right wall, he saw two runways that led up to small, square, angled trampolines, with crash mats after the trampolines, and a vault after one of them. On the other side were two more runways, which appeared to be made of the same foam foam as the big square, and had crash mats after them. Further away from the square floor, he saw a number of different beams and bars, as well as some rings that hung from cables, plus another pair of runways leading to a foam pit.

"Like what you see, Lincoln?" Jordan asked, snapping Lincoln out of his gaze. When he turned to her, he noticed that the others were heading off, probably to get changed.

"So… this is gymnastics, right?" He asked, to which she nodded.

"Still wanting to give it a go? You look a little… uncertain."

He shook his head. "That's just based on… well, everything else I've tried." He looked back at the equipment. "I'll be honest… this was probably the last thing I was expecting."

"And why's that?" Her voice suggested that she was mildly annoyed by his comment. She was only teasing him some more, but he didn't noticed and became flustered.

"N-n-not because of you, I-I meant that-" He stopped his stuttering when he noticed her trying to withhold laughter, though it eventually slipped through, and he realised that she was just messing with him. His cheeks heated up more as a result, turning away to mutter, "very funny."

She rolled her eyes at the pouting boy. "Seriously, though, what do you think? Think you might enjoy this?"

Turning back to her, he saw in her eyes that she was at least a little hopeful. "Well… I might as well give it a go, right? Sure, let's do it!"

"Awesome!" She pointed behind her to two doors. "The changing rooms are over there- girls on the left, boys on the right. When we're both changed, I'll get Chris to tell you more. He's the instructor here."

"Okay, thanks. Quick question- what was the point in not telling me that it was gymnastics?"

She smirked. "Just wanted to see how you'd react."

He stood there for a second while she jogged away to catch up with the others, then felt a smirk grace his own lips as he shook his head. 'Guess I'll go get changed too,' he thought, before doing just that. As he walked through the door that was marked as the men's locker room, he noticed that it was quite spacious, maybe fifty percent larger than the one at school, and there were plenty of lockers available to use. Since it was just him at that time, he didn't see any point in waiting around, so he simply got changed, swapping his regular clothes for a white tank top and black shorts. He sat down to take his socks off, when he heard the door open. Looking up, he saw a boy with a brown pixie cut hairstyle, wearing a red sweater with a black horizontal stripe, blue jeans and white sneakers. "Lincoln?" He asked, surprised to see the white-haired boy.

"Hey, Artie," he replied as the brown-haired boy walked to put his bag on one of the hooks.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, Girl Jordan suggested I give this a try, since my parents want me to take up a sport, so I thought, why not? Although, she didn't tell me it was gymnastics until I got here."

Artie chuckled at this. "Well, I've gotta say, it's nice to have another guy here, you know? I mean, there used to be one boy a couple of years younger than me, but I think his family moved or something. Either way, it's been just the girls and me for a few months."

"So, how many other girls are there?"

"Well, usually, there's about twelve of us who turn up, though there are a couple who come every now and then, but other than the girls in our grade, most of them are a few years younger, so we'll be the oldest ones."

"Right…"

Artie noticed the apprehension in his voice when he said that. "Don't worry about it. I imagine you'll have fun."

Lincoln smiled. "Thanks." He then saw that Artie was beginning to put on a black leotard, with red stripes on the sides. "Uh, should I be wearing a, uh… uh…"

Artie smirked. "It's a leotard. And it helps, but if you're only practicing, you don't have to. You'll be fine in what you have."

He felt relieved at this. "Okay, good. Well, Girl Jordan said I should meet her once I was changed, so I guess I'll head out there."

"Sure."

So, Lincoln walked out of the changing room and back into the gymnastics hall. He saw Girl Jordan, now dressed in a yellow sleeveless leotard with a blue diagonal stripe, and white gymnastics pants, talking to a black-haired, slightly muscular man, who seemed to be in his mid-twenties, wearing a grey skintight tank top and black tracksuit pants. Jordan saw Lincoln walking over and smiled at him.

"Lincoln, come here!" She called, alerting the man to the white-haired boy's presence. "Chris, this is my friend, Lincoln. He's here for the taster session."

"Nice to meet you, Lincoln," he said, smiling and extending a hand for Lincoln to shake, which he did. "Jordan tells me you're a first timer. What made you want to try gymnastics?"

"To be honest, Jordan didn't tell me it was gymnastics," he glanced at her and noticed that she had a smug grin on her face. "Long story short, my parents want me to get into sport, so I figured it was worth a shot."

"Well, it's always nice to see kids giving it a try, and don't worry. There'll probably be a few other newcomers giving it a try, so today is just looking at the basics of TeamGym." He noticed how the boy became confused at that. "I'll run you and everyone through it once the session gets going, so just relax for now."

"Thanks." Chris nodded, then walked away, leaving the two sixth graders to themselves. "So, how many kinds of gymnastics do they do here?"

"There's artistic and TeamGym," she explained, "which use apparatus. The other kind is rhythmic, but I don't do that. Not a fan of ribbon dancing and batons, to be honest."

"You say that to my sister Lola and she would not be happy, to say the least."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You say that like I know which one she is."

They both shared a laugh at this, before Jordan saw her friends coming over, now fully dressed in their own gymnastic attires- Mollie wore a dark purple, sleeveless leotard with black gymnastic pants; Joy wore a purple short-sleeved leotard with a pink vertical stripe down the middle; Kat wore a red sleeveless leotard with white gymnastics pants; and Sadie wore a pink long-sleeved leotard with a lighter pink gymnastics pants and white gymnastics slippers.

"So, what are you two chatting about?" Mollie asked with a bemused grin, the other girls giggling.

"Oh, nothing," was all Jordan replied with, leaving a confused Lincoln to just shrug it off.

'Here we go again, I guess.'

"Welcome, everyone!" Chris greeted, now that the session had begun. Like Artie had told Lincoln earlier, most of the kids that turned up were at least a couple of years younger, the only ones his age being Girl Jordan, her friends and Artie, and the younger ones had their parents watching. He also noticed that he and Artie did end up being the only boys, though he wasn't too bothered by any of this. "I'm Chris, and I'm the instructor here. Now, we're going to have fun today as I show you some of the basics of TeamGym, but at the same time, we need to be safe, as injuries can happen. Therefore, you need to listen to what I have to say and pay attention, okay?" After everyone either nodded or replied to show they understood, he smiled. "Good. Alright, let's start by warming up, then we'll do some stretching, and then we'll get started. Everyone, up on your feet."

So, over the next few minutes, Chris led everyone in a quick warm up to get everyone's blood pumping, followed by some stretches to try and make sure that no one pulled a muscle later. "Alright, now that we're warmed up, I'm going to introduce you to the three disciplines of TeamGym." He stepped back onto the large square section of the floor. "The first one is the floor. Everyone learns a choreographed routine with a combination of elements, which focuses on keeping in sync with your team." He led everyone to the two tracks on the right. "Over here is the trampette. This works by running along the track, bouncing off the trampoline at the end, and performing a somersault. For some runs, you propel yourself using the vault horse, other runs, you just land on the mat. This comes down to precision, in rotating and in landing." He then walked over to the left of the floor, toward the other tracks. "On this side is the tumbling tracks. Like the trampette, you run along the track, only this time, you do a series of acrobatics as you go along it, with your last one landing on the crash mat at the end. Again, the focus of this is precision, not only with landing each twist and flip, but keeping straight along the track." He saw one of the younger girls, possibly eight years old, raise her hand. "Yes?"

"Which discipline is the best?" She asked, prompting the instructor to chuckle.

"Well, there isn't one that's better than the others. Some tend to better at one discipline while others tend to do better at another, but each discipline can be just as important, and just as fun." He then turned to another of the younger girls who raised her hand. "Yes."

"Which discipline will we try first?"

"That's a good question. First, we're going to try the trampette so I can show you how to fall properly- that way, when we try it properly, you won't get hurt. Then, we'll do the same with the tumbling track. We won't practice the floor today, since we usually spend a whole session doing that due to the choreography, but some of our more experienced members will show an example routine. Sound good?" Again, everyone nodded. "Alright, let's get started!"

The group walked back over to the trampette, this time going up to the trampolines themselves. "Now, the best performances end with someone landing on their feet, but when you're a beginner, it's easy to land on your front or your back instead. To reduce impact, spread your arms out with your palms flat. Watch me." He took a small run up, leapt on one of the trampolines and landed on the vault horse, then fell forward with his arms out wide. While a couple of the newcomers gasped, those who had been before knew he was okay, and sure enough, he got straight back up. "You see? By doing that, it reduces the impact. Now, let's all give it a go." He scanned the group, then settled on Lincoln. "Why don't you go first, Lincoln?"

"Me? Uh… yeah, I can go first," he replied.

"There we go!" Lincoln walked onto the track. "Now, take a little bit of a run up, steady yourself on the horse and fall forward." Lincoln nodded. After taking a deep breath, he ran towards the trampoline, jumped onto it and sprung up to the vault horse. His right foot initially slipped, but he recovered. As he prepared to fall forward, he realised how high up he was now, and felt a bit nervous. "You okay, buddy?"

"Y-Yeah…"

Girl Jordan noticed his nerves. "Lincoln, it's okay!" She told him. "Don't worry about the height, you'll be okay!"

He looked at her and felt reassured by the look she gave him, so he nodded back to her, before facing forward again. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he counted down in his head. 'Three… two… one…'

With that, he fell forward, with his arms out wide. A second later, he felt himself hit the mat, but opened his eyes when he realised that it didn't hurt after all, and quickly got to his feet. "There we go, Lincoln!" Chris commenced, giving him some applause which was matched by the others, making him smile as he got off the mat. "Now, the height can be scary for the first time, but with practice, you'll get used to it."

While Chris decided who would go next, Lincoln turned to Jordan. "Hey, thanks for that," he told her.

"No worries," she replied. "I was like that when I first tried it out, so it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Still, it made me feel more comfortable, and I appreciate it."

Her smile seemed to perk up when he said that. "Aww… thanks, Lincoln."

He simply smiled back, before the two returned their focus on what was being shown before them.