It’s been a really busy weekend for me.  Just got back from Day Two of the Stanford Open (there’s three days of competitions in all) but I’ve gotta say that I’ve been having a blast being able to coach, judge, and watch some high-level/entertaining performances! Like I’ve said before, this meet started waaaaay back when I was just a junior gymnast on the Stanford Club team (JDR Gymnastics today) so it’s always fun for me to see how much it has evolved over the years to become one of the biggest competition on the west coast.

Banner from the Stanford Open

As always it’s been great to see a bunch of familiar faces.  I’ve gotten to know a lot of the kids through coaching at clinics, as well as judging these past few years, so it’s been great to see them working hard and competing well.  It’s also been fun to catch up with the judges and coaches.  The great thing about the gymnastics community is that it’s so close-knit.  A lot of us have been involved with this sport for a long time so we are incredibly close.  The biggest surprise for me though was seeing my old teammate/roomate from the Olympic Training Center, Grant Osborne.  We were together when we were just teenagers so we’ve known each other for a while.  Anyway I totally didn’t expect to see him here, and as a judge!  Nevertheless, it was awesome to be able to catch up with him and learn that everything is going well with him.

Me and Grant!

For the competition side, the NCAA session on Saturday night is definitely one of the most exciting.  This is because the best junior gymnasts from the Fridays sessions have the opportunity to compete against the college guys.  Today, Stanford ended up finishing ahead of Cal Berkeley, however, both teams were resting their best guys due to injuries/preparing for a big competition next week, so both squads weren’t at full force.  It’ll be exciting to see them towards the end of the season though when they have the A-Teams going head-to-head!

Anyway, one more day of judging tomorrow.  I’ll be there the whole day but it should be a fun one.  Thanks to everyone that’s come up to me and given me words of encouragement.  Thanks also to everyone that’s purchased a ShoNakamori.com patch to support my journey to 2012!!!