Free Jump Start by Susannah McFarlane

The school gym was really buzzing that afternoon. The music was blaring and the girls were laughing, but there was still a lot of hard work being done. Everyone wanted to do their best at the state competition, just weeks away.
    Emma Jacks really wanted to do her best but right now she was standing on the beam, stressing.
    Emma couldn’t do it. She wanted to do it. She thought she really should be able to do it. And everyone else seemed to be doing it, which made things worse—a lot worse. But no matter how hardshe tried, Emma could not do the high jumps on the balance beam.
    Every time she tried, she seemed to chicken out and do a tiny jump instead. So tiny her coach could hardly see it. And if she couldn’t do the high jump, there was no way she would do well in the state comps.
    â€˜Come on Em, you can do it,’ said Hannah, one of the girls in Emma’s squad and also one of her best friends. ‘You jump high all the time when we’re just messing around. Just don’t think about it so much.’
    â€˜How can I not think about it, Hannah!’ Emma replied. ‘It’s the one part of the routine I never get right and our comps are about to start. If I can’t get the high jumps right, I’ll let the whole team down.’
    Lauren, who was Emma and Hannah’s coach, had been listening to the girls talk.
    â€˜Hannah’s right, Emma. You just need to believe in yourself a bit more. We all do. Come on, what’s the worst thing that can happen?’ she asked, and then answered her own question. ‘You fall off.’
    â€˜Yes, but then I lose big points!’ said Emma. Having just missed out on a medal last year, she really wanted one this time, for herself and the team. But that was never going to happen if she fell off—or if she didn’t do the jump.
    â€˜But if you don’t even try the jumps, you won’t get any points anyway,’ said Lauren. ‘Think about the jump, not the falling off. You know you can do this but you think yourself out of it. In fact Em, maybe don’t think at all. Just trust yourself and do it.’

    Don’t think. That was hard for Emma. She loved thinking. She thought about things all the time. Even as Hannah and Lauren were talking to her now, she was thinking how her friend’s name was spelt exactly the same backwards as forwards: H-A-N-N-A-H, like E-V-E and R-A-D-A-R and R-A-C-E-C-A-R and her favourite, Y-O B-A-N-A-N-A B-O-Y.
    â€˜Emma, are you still with us?’ laughed Lauren.
    â€˜Oops, sorry,’ said Emma. ‘I was just thinking about’
    â€˜Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh,’ cried Hannah, waving her arms in the air. ‘Just do the jump!’
    â€˜Okay, okay!’ said Emma. ‘Don’t think it, just do it.’
    It was Emma’s turn on the beam. She took a deep breath, presented, with her arms stretched up and out, and then started her routine. As always, she talked herself through it.
    Jump off the bounce board and onto the beam. Do the squat and hold—one, two, three seconds. Keep your legs over the beam. That was hard! Okay, high left kick to the front, high right kick to the front, keep upper body in and present. Not bad! High left kick to the back, both hands up in the air, put the left leg back...
    Emma was halfway through and so far, so good. She spun around at the end of the beam.
    Okay, it’s jump time. Big split jump to the right, big split jump to the left. Don’t think about it. Do it!
    But just as she was thinking about not thinking, Emma felt her muscles tighten and her mouth go dry. She could feel herself starting to panic.
    Don’t panic. Just do what you can and finish the routine. Stay on the beam, don’t fall off, stay on the beam!
    She did the first split jump to the right—not a big one but she was still on the beam. Then she did the split jump to the left, which was even smaller than the first one, but at least she had stayed on