Last year she (she was 6) broke her radius and ulna in her left arm doing a stunt that she became terrified of bc she kept getting dropped - many times.. on her head. She was always a very confident flyer, but once that happened she became fearful. I was very concerned bc she told me she didn't want to do that team anymore bc she was too scared of just that one stunt. They even switched her bases (who are very good), but bc of that fear, she still went up shaky and many times continued to fall. Then her fear started affecting flying/stunting period. It was before our showcase last year. Anyway, I honestly considered asking the coaches to pull her from it bc it seemed obvious to me as her parent, that something bad was going to happen; but I didn't. I tried to let them do their job.
Then we had our showcase and she actually did the stunt w/o falling (albeit a bit shaky). She maybe had one competition last year after showcase before she broke her arm. She broke it during practice trying to brace herself from hitting her head. We have the parent viewing room, so of course I saw it..but it looked like all of the other times she had fallen to me...Until someone came frantically running up the stairs saying the coaches wanted to see me. I took one look at it and knew it was broken. She's so tiny (all of 36 lbs) that I watched the dr. try to reset them twice at the hospital bc her bones kept slipping out of place. Long story short, she wound up requiring surgery (she needed pins and screws to hold them in place). She was out for most of the season. I never wanted her to fly again. She had told me after she broke her arm that she didn't want to and I told her that was perfectly fine.
She also required a second surgery at the end of the school year to get the screws removed. Well after her first comp back (maybe February) she told me sadly after watching the playback how she wished she was still in the pyramid. She absolutely could not tumble or do anything that required any kind of weight on her arms. As apprehensive as I was, I told her that if she wanted to fly that she had to tell her coaches herself (bc A- I figured if she was serious and not really scared, that she would tell them and B- I didn't want them or anyone to think I was pushing for her to do it. ) Well after a couple of weeks went by, she finally did ask her coaches, and to my dismay (lol) she was flying again period- INCLUDING the stunt where she broke her arm. I couldn't believe it! She was so brave and wanted it so badly, I just couldn't believe it!!!
Additionally, she was always super encouraging and showed incredible sportsmanship to her fellow teammates. Earlier this season, one of the other flyers really bit the dust one day after starting to have some issues stunting herself, and you could tell she was scared to go back up (my CP told me after practice that the girl didn't want to go back up after falling). Anyway, you could hear my CP yelling "come on Susy, you can do it"!! "I believe in you, etc". When Susy finally went back up (and every other stunt group that went up when they'd practice them one at a time in front of the team) she would yell, "whoo hoo!!!, or "come on you can do it", Yay, I'm so proud of you "Susy"!!!, or "good job!", etc. I had quite a few parents upstairs compliment me on her sportsmanship. It made them so happy. Especially bc the first "Susy's" mom severely dislikes me (actually that Susy was quite mean to my CP on a couple of occasions, like pushing her when my CP went to hug her one time after practice to congratulate her , for example). I don't bring that nonsense home and I especially don't talk about other kids and their parents in front of her (in a negative way, that's just wrong). They were her teammates and they needed to get along and be supportive of one another, regardless of personal issues.
Anyway, the point is I'm super proud that she was so encouraging and showed good sportsmanship, even when people didn't afford her the same and I'm amazed at her courage and willingness to go back out there and fly after what happened to her!!! I'm not sure I could have. <3 <3