Local gymnast back on beam
Dewey participates in Developmental Camp
El Dorado’s Anabelle Dewey competed at the USA Gymnastics Developmental Invite Camp in Crossville, Tennessee last week. The four-day camp featured 35 elite-level gymnasts, who arrived by invitation-only.
Dewey, a fifth grader at Washington Middle School, performed in front of Olympic coaches, who critiqued her skills.
“My goal was to just do my best and see what it’s like to be on the invite team and to just show what I can do,” Dewey said of the camp, which ran from Monday through Thursday.
The 4-foot-4-inch tall, 10-year-old said the days consisted of waking up at 6 a.m., and going to bed at 9 p.m. In between, the gymnasts trained from 8:30 in the morning until noon and from 4 p.m., to 7 p.m.
“I had to do all four events, vault, bars, beam and floor and we had to verify skills that we could do to show what level we are,” she said. “They taught us the correct techniques to do things and drills to get all of our skills better. I just took what they said and tried to make it better.”
The camp was the next step after the Tops A Camp that Dewey went to last year. The girls were invited based on skills and videos. The camp was for potential Elites that are competing in HOPES Optionals this season.
The beginning of the camp included a Physical Abilities Competition. Some of the tests included performing 10 press handstands in a row, holding a handstand for a minute, 20 leg lifts hanging from a bar, climbing a rope without using their legs and cast handstand on a bar.
Dewey described the final drill as, “You do a chin up on a bar, then you swing your body around until your thighs hit the bar and then go back to a chin up and you do this 10 times.”
There were also flexibility drills and “stick” drills. The stick drills consisted of sticking the landing on various apparatus, including a back flip off the beam, front flip on beam and back twisting full or lay-out off the vault.
Dewey finished seventh overall in the Physical Abilities Competition. She had the highest score in the camp in the hanging leg lifts, holding hers for 20.75 seconds.
“They gave me lots of corrections about how my body line is on skills. They said you’re super good at this. This is a good skill for you,” she said. “The vault coach said he loved how powerful I was. It was lots of different kinds of feedback.”
Dewey’s season begins early in December with another compulsory meet in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Once she earns her mandatory compulsory score, she will start competing in optional competitions, doing routines designed especially for her that show off her individual strengths.
“It’s really exciting because you get to show your personality a little more,” said Dewey. “You can have something different than everybody else.”
Dewey trains at North East Texas Elite Gymnastics in Texarkana. Since the spring season ended, she said she’s been busy preparing for the next step in her career.
“We try to work more upgrades and try to make our lower skills better than they were last season,” she said.
In her first year, Dewey stood out on the vault and floor exercise. She said the uneven bars was her weakest event.
“We’re not super worried about it but we’re still trying to get my bars up some,” she said.
The first season as an elite gymnast saw Dewey perform in huge arenas around the country. She also took her first airplane ride.
One thing she learned that could improve was, “Her confidence, I think,” said her mother Christy Dewey. “Get her in front of more judges and improve her confidence. Because, she hasn’t done any of these big skills in front of anybody, yet.”
Some of the skills she’s currently working on include a Double Arabian on the floor, which she described as “a double flip with a half twist.” She’s also polishing up a skill on the vault, which is a round-off onto the board, half twist onto the table and a front layout off. On the beam, she’s working on a handspring layout or a front tuck and she’s perfecting a double pike on the floor exercise.
As she moves into the Optionals stage of gymnastics, the degree of difficulty on the skills increase, which is particularly nerve-wracking for the parent.
“I’m always nervous. It’s scary,” said her mother. “For me, always, from when she started gymnastics, the scariest thing for me watching her do has always been vault. When your child is running full speed at a stationary object, it’s just kind of scary.”
Anabelle giggled at her mother’s statement. But, she admitted sometimes having a bit of apprehension when performing a new trick.
“Sometimes you’re like, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t know about this skill.’ And, you do it once and you’re like, ‘Oh, that was way easier than I thought it was going to be,” she said. “It builds it up a lot because then you think, ‘Oh, I can do this skill so now I can probably do this higher skill.”
Dewey completed through Junior Olympic Level 5 last season. She will do some more Junior Olympic events along with Elite compulsories and Elite optionals this season.
“At the last camp, at each event we had a different Olympic coach that teaches Olympians,” said Anabelle. “They would give us drills and skills. We had to verify. In the future, I’m hoping to make it to HOPES Championships.”
As for her optional routines, the Michael Jackson (Thriller version) fan said her coaches have already selected her music.
“We don’t get to pick,” she said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
Instead of her music, she’s content focusing on her skills, body line, toe point and, of course, her school work.
“All her teachers have been wonderful and super supportive,” said Christy Dewey. “I couldn’t ask for anything better. The school system here has been great. They’ve all been really nice.”
"Her progression has been really fast. She went from doing level four to doing elite level stuff. It’s unbelievable." —Christy Dewey