The Bin Laden Plot

Christine had Maddy move to the normal beam, and she noticed the girl’s body tense before the move. She executed it fairly well, but lost her balance at the end and fell off. She tried a few more times, unable to stabilize herself after completing the move, falling off the beam each time. The first thing Christine noticed was that Maddy was landing the move with her first leg straight.

“You’re peg-legging the landing,” Christine said, hoping Maddy understood the term. “You need to land with your first knee slightly bent, to absorb some of the rotation before your back foot lands. If you don’t, then your back foot has to hit perfectly to stop the rotation without losing your balance.”

Maddy understood the issue and practiced landing with her first knee slightly bent. It helped, keeping her on the beam after she landed, but she was still quite wobbly, which would result in a major point deduction.

Christine watched her more carefully now that her leg landing was fixed and noticed that her hips were twisting a few degrees while she was upside down during the move, which Maddy had to compensate for after the landing.

“You’re not keeping your hips square,” Christine said, explaining that Maddy was introducing a slight twist as she bent her knees to begin the back flip. While preparing to execute the move, gymnasts stood with one foot in front of the other on the beam, so it was difficult to keep hips square during the bend, but it was a crucial element of the move. Twisted hips resulted in an off-center flip through the air, which made the landing wobbly as Maddy tried to right herself.

Maddy understood and spent the next thirty minutes trying to fix the problem, to no avail. The twist was ingrained into her muscle memory, and it would likely take a few days or even weeks of practice to correct the issue. Maddy didn’t have that much time — her meet was on Saturday — and Christine could see the emotion gathering on the girl’s face as she repeatedly failed to land the move properly.

She was about to burst into tears when Christine had an idea, watching Maddy’s hand placement during the move. She used a standard side-by-side placement, providing an inch or two of margin in case the hands didn’t come down centered on the beam. But some girls used an alternate technique, which might correct Maddy’s hip twist.

“Have you ever tried a staggered hand placement?” Christine asked.

Maddy shook her head, so Christine held her hands in front of her, demonstrating the technique, placing one hand two inches forward of the lead hand, in the curve between the thumb and index finger of the first hand. Maddy seemed skeptical, so Christine climbed onto the beam to demonstrate, taking a moment to think through her normal technique, adjusting it to match Maddy’s.

She executed the move at normal speed, showing how a staggered hand placement could work just fine, landing the move perfectly. She then executed the beginning of the move at half speed, showing how she began with a slight twist in her hips, like Maddy. She commenced the back flip, halting her rotation as her legs went vertical, her toes pointed to the ceiling. She held her pose on the beam, essentially a handstand, pointing out to Maddy how her shoulders were slightly twisted due to the staggered hand placement but that her hips were now square.

Maddy nodded her understanding, and Christine finished the move, landing solidly on the beam without a single wobble.

Christine had Maddy practice the staggered hand placement on the low beam for a dozen back handsprings until Maddy consistently planted them correctly. She then had Maddy move to the high beam, and Christine noticed her body tense again.

“Just like the low beam,” Christine said. “No different. Relax and think about each element of the move in sequence, then execute.”

Maddy stared ahead and focused, then took a deep breath and went for it.

Her hands hit the beam on target, one slightly ahead of the other, and by the time her legs landed, her body was perfectly aligned. She finished the rotation without even the slightest wobble. Maddy extended her arms to finish the move as her face beamed with excitement.

“Again,” Christine said. “Do it nine more times in a row, correctly, and we’ll be done for the night.”

Maddy executed the move perfectly nine more times, then she jumped down from the beam and rushed over to give Christine a hug, squeezing her tightly.

Christine checked the clock on the wall, assessing whether they had spent enough time at the gym for Harrison and his wife to have a proper romantic evening. It seemed that they had.

She thanked Caitlin for the use of the beams, then changed back into her work clothes and returned to the SUV with Maddy. They were soon on their way back to the hotel.

57 WASHINGTON, D.C.