Bob Check!

It was April 1996...I was about to graduate from college with my degree in Mathematics. I was stressed and over school. But I had one thing to do before I finished...one final performance. The nerves were there the moment I woke up. We had an early rehearsal, just going through the show one more time. Everyone was cohesive and yet really quiet in their thoughts. We tried to eat some sort of lunch but it was just too hard to swallow. We saw friends and competitors the entire afternoon...everyone wearing the same plastic look of fear, excitment and anxiety. This was World Championships. This was our moment -- our final moment as a unit and as a team! Would we medal? We could, we were in place to do so after preliminaries. We all began to get dressed in our yellow bell bottoms and crazy hairdos. "Does this look ok?" "Is my makeup dark enough?" We had been doing this for 5 months-- of course it was perfect. My mom and sister came up to me and said, "this is it...are you ready?" I remember thinking, How can I be so ready and so NOT ready for this at the same time? I knew what it was though -- I was already fearing the end -- the finality of it all. Pushing those thoughts out of my head, we went through our warmups...warm ups had become so ritualistic -- and even moreso this night. We could do it in our sleep. Every performance we did our little sayings - and oh how I wish I could recap them all here. It was special. We walked down the tunnel. I will never forget Chad's face at that moment. He looked like he couldn't be more proud of 16 people. He was excited and he shared our anxiety of what the next 4 minutes and 11 seconds would bring. It was our time to go. We set up our stage. The crowd was loud and excited. I looked up and saw my Mom and my sister. I was so glad they were there. The lights were beating down on us and it was time for us to let it all out. I barely heard the words, "BOB CHECK" where we all pretended to check our hair to see if we were ready. And it began...the music flowing through our arms and legs creating a melodic symphony of color and movement. I looked up the crowd was silent all of the sudden...everyone was just clicking with us, with the audience. What is missing? And then I realized -- the nerves had left. It was me and this music and our peformance. It was a performance to last a lifetime -- it was my final performance.

We medaled that night...a bronze medal at World Championships.

Remember: Be confident in what you are doing and the nerves will just disappear.