Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jason Iraheta. I am currently a student at City Tech, in my first year as a student in college. I’ve learned many things throughout my education and introducing myself is something I’ve had to do every now and then. As a person, I have been influenced by many things. I’ve had a multitude of interests that are some of my favorite things to do. These include reading comic books, playing video games, using my computer, drawing, doing gymnastics, and watching television, to name a few. In addition to these interests, gymnastics is an important part of my life. I’ve had a lot of success doing gymnastics in high school for three years. To me there is nothing like the thrill that you’d get when you compete. Along with this thrill, I’ll be talking about some of the memories I’ve had the chance of making. These include my first year doing gymnastics and being named the Rookie of the Year, having had one of the highest scores on my team, my last time competing as a part of my team, being one of the top 5 competitors in the city on a specific event, and the overall influence that gymnastics has had on me and how I’ve changed over the three years I’ve done gymnastics.

As I mentioned before, there is a certain feeling that I would get each time I would go up to compete and perform my routine. In the beginning, I would be very nervous and I could feel my hands shaking. After some time had passed and I had competed much more, I was no longer nervous. The feeling had been replaced with a sense of confidence, something I hadn’t always had, and it had affected me outside of gymnastics as well. It made me more talkative and no longer insecure about myself. The thrill of competing was something I couldn’t really explain but it was something I enjoyed, it was a feeling I couldn’t find anywhere else, which made me treasure it much more than I already did. The thrill I got from the competition was something that, in a sense, became a part of me just like my limbs are a part of me. I feel like that thrill I’d get was, more or less, one of the main reasons why I consider gymnastics to be such an important part of my life.

Continuing from that thrill, it eventually led me to work harder during practices in order to find an even bigger thrill. This eventually led to having been named the Rookie of the Year. For me, it was very gratifying to know that all my hard work had finally paid off and it was being acknowledged by everyone on my team, including my coach. The award is something I hold very dear to myself, I consider it to be my most treasured accolade as well as one of my biggest achievements in my life so far. The award is as much a part of me as my glasses. To this day, I still believe that I wouldn’t be as proud of any other award I received if it wasn’t the Rookie of the Year award. Earning that award made me more sure about myself, it made me confident, less insecure, and overall it made me happy. After I had gotten the award, I had decided to push myself to work twice as hard in order to live up and exceed the expectations and standards that I felt were put upon me after I had received the award. The award is also one of the main reasons I had become passionate about gymnastics and ingrained gymnastics as an important part of my life.

The Rookie of the Year award had made me much more passionate about gymnastics and definitely made me focused on scoring as high as I possibly could. I started to focus more on gymnastics and it lead to me reaching my goal of scoring a specific number. It turned out that this number was one of the highest that anyone on the team had ever scored, and it made me realize that having set this goal made gymnastics such a huge part of my life. I was starting to notice that gymnastics had become more than just a sport I participated in and that it became part of my everyday life. I would catch myself thinking about practices, competitions, and watching videos about gymnastics. To me, gymnastics has been such an integral part of my life.

In my last year as a competitor for my high school team, the most memorable moment was the final team competition. The final competition was, in a sense, a “rude awakening”. It turned out to be the last time I would be able to compete alongside my team.  However, this moment lead me to fully realize just exactly how much gymnastics had become an incredibly important part of my life.  The final team competition was what made me appreciate all the years spent with the team, working hard to be one of the best on the team, having fun during the practices, enjoying the competitions, and being grateful for having had the chance to be on the team at all. This moment was what led me to realize just how much I enjoyed gymnastics and how much I enjoyed the fact that it was such an important part of my life.

At the end of it all, one final individual competition took place and I placed second in my specialty event (although the person who had scored first place was a club gymnast, so in technicality I would be first place out of all the non-club gymnasts). Although this was an individual event, I consider it to be a team event because I credit all of my success to my teammates and my coach because of their support and encouragement. For me, I have accomplished as much as I possibly could and after all this time, gymnastics will still be an integral part of my life and I don’t see that ever changing.

Explaining how important gymnastics is as a part of my life is difficult to do without going into immense detail about it all but I believe that I’ve been able to do it as best as I can here. Although the stories are from previous experiences, there is still the future left to look forward to. A hope for the near future is that I will be able to share my experiences and be able to give an insight as to how much a part of me gymnastics is. Within the near future, I hope to also be able to return to my old team and support them in any way possible and share my knowledge of the sport and hopefully the same passion I have for the sport. In the distant future, I hope I can eventually pass on these stories and appreciation for gymnastics because of the overall influence it has had on me and how it’s helped me to become the person I am today. To me, gymnastics was, is, and will continue to be such an important part of my life that without it, I would feel like there was an important piece of my life missing. If I was given the chance to relive the time I’ve spent with my teammates, relive the very first time I competed, and relive the very last time I competed, I would do it in a heartbeat.