- Oh my god!
- This week, we're training like gymnasts.
- Simone Biles and Aly Raisman are incredible atheletes.
- I was in gymnastics and I was advancing pretty well,
but when the teacher looked away one class,
fell on my head and my mom took me out.
- [Stacie] Nope, you went the wrong way.
- I think I have a little bit of a different perspective
today because I was a competitive gymnast to the age of 18.
And so I'm just really excited to get back
in a gym and have some fun this week.
- I'm just hoping to get more in tune with my body
and figure out what those beams things do,
because they don't look that scary,
but they're probably really scary, let's be real.
- This week, I'm gonna put you guys through
a lot of core and basic training.
So you guys are gonna learn all the fundamental parts,
all the things that you don't even realize
a gymnast has to do.
The basic movements, all the stretching,
all the conditioning.
- The first day was really hard.
- Our coach was really great
and she didn't baby us and she took us very seriously.
- [Stacie] Girls, when you're ready,
get back up and join us.
Sit, and jump back.
Good, extend, now squeeze your legs,
hands come down and legs come over.
- [Michelle] I found myself getting frustrated
a lot because we were at the gym,
there are all these little girls
doing backflips and making things look so easy.
And I was having trouble with simple stuff.
- Jumping into gymnastics at the age of 23
was not the easiest thing in the world.
In fact, it was probably one of the hardest things
I've tried in my life.
- I was always mad that I could never get a round off right,
there was just something about it,
my legs wouldn't come together at the same moment
and it was so frustrating.
And I was doing it throughout the week
and I still wasn't getting it.
- It was surprising how much of it I retained,
just from muscle memory.
Like my body was just like doing it and I was like,
"Oh, I can still do that?
"Like, weird."
- Coming into the second day I was really exhausted
and also really nervous about fatigue
and just having fun.
I feel like my stomach is ripping apart.
(sighs)
- I hated beam, always.
I think that's a lot of people's sentiment about beam.
- Working on the beam reminded me of those
Victorian-era movies where the women
have to learn manners by carrying a book on your head
and I can't believe that, at the Olympics,
these girls are doing back handsprings and flips
when I was just having trouble walking across it.
That's hard.
- [Kelsey] It was hard, mentally to trust myself.
- [Stacie] Are you okay?
- Mid-week I was a little bit more tired
but I was still having a good time
learning new skills every day.
- So yes, in artistic gymnastics,
someone invented running full-force
to a stationary object.
- It looks so counter-intuitive, like,
trampolining into the unknown.
I know, but...
Okay, that's fine.
- Arms are straight, kicking up to a handstand
and holding our hollow shape we worked on
to a flat back.
- [Selorm] She was really pushing us
to do what we needed to do.
To accomplish what we were capable of accomplishing.
- [Stacie] Get your arms all the way squeezed
and get your body completely straight.
Hands down.
Gotta get those legs up more.
- I enjoyed the fact that she gave us a little bit
of a taste of everything so each day I could come in
not knowing what we were going to do.
And building on other skills
and seeing how we've progressed.
- Here, this is your front support,
squeeze your legs, point your feet.
- All the nooks and crannies of my body
were being pushed to the limit
and we were still learning new things.
(grunts)
- Back and circle.
Good, and lift the hips up and toes right up.
Good.
- [Jordan] Poop.
- Good.
- I miss my glory days.
(dramatic music)
- What we're gonna work on now
is our floor exercise, or our floor routine.
We're gonna do a much shorter version,
we're gonna do just two tumbling passes,
one with forward skills and one with backward skills.
Okay?
And in between your skills, I'm gonna let you guys
choreograph how you get from one corner to the other.
- Once Stacie told us that we had to choreograph
our own routines I was was like (sighs).
- I was really nervous. - Go for it!
Pick a pose right now, find a space on the floor.
Yeah, there you go, there's your pose.
Okay, now show me your ending pose.
So, now we've got to get from that first position
to this last position.
- I was really nervous on the final day.
It was our time to really show off our skills
and what we had learned, what we had gained.
- I felt like I hadn't grown enough
to really wanna show anything off.
- Growing up, I always hated having
to choreograph my own routines.
I didn't feel like I was very creative and I thought
I was gonna end up with a boring routine.
- I was excited because my goal for the week
was to get a round off back handspring
and I had accomplished that a couple times.
But I was nervous about having to do it
on command in a choreographed routine.
- [Stacie] Okay, are you ready?
(upbeat music)
- [Kelsey] It made me more aware that I need
more movement and play in my life.
- [Selorm] I wanted the last day to really
symbolize all the heart that I had put into it.
If I couldn't show off these crazy moves,
I wanted to at least show off that I really did try.
- [Michelle] I am really thankful for the opportunity
that I had, that I don't think many adults have,
and that is to do an activity that forces you
to really trust your body.
- It's a great way to keep your body healthy
and movement and active.
And it's difficult, that's all it is,
is you can't pretend like it's easy,
it's not, it's not easy at all.
If it was easy, everybody would flip.
- [Jordan] Gymnastics is a sport
that I loved so much growing up
and to be able to do it again was so fun
and I think a lot of the times, as adults,
we forget to have fun like that.
(upbeat music)