Andre shook his head in frustration. I swallowed hard and tried my back walkover on the beam again. Tighten up, I silently commanded my legs and my stomach. “Stop! Stop!” Andre cried as my feet touched down in a perfect line on the four-inch-wide beam. “Floppy! Why are you so floppy? Like a rag doll!” “I don’t know.” Daria had never called me floppy. She said our bodies had to flow. “Again! Again!” Andre folded his arms. “You have a lot to correct.” “Correct?” I’d only been at the gym for an hour and a half, and already my legs were trembling. He’d had me do vault and now beam. Over and over. “Everything is wrong. Your feet are too flat.” Andre continued to list all the parts of me that weren’t working—my extension, my posture, my landings. Pretty much everything. My eyes searched out Sofia. She practiced her leaps alongside the beam, waiting her turn. I shot her a pleading look. She shrugged and kept on leaping. Each one higher than the one before.
What do You think about Bending Over Backwards (2014)?
