Quick hello!

Hi, I don't have any hopes for a great readership of this especially as there are so many great gym blogs already, but I need this outlet! Nobody I know has any interest/obsession in the sport, so I will pour it out here instead.

My name is Catherine and I live in Ireland (Republic of). This is not a gymnastics country at all. We do have gyms and we do field gymnasts to the European Championships but there is no money poured into it (in fact, few Olympic sports here really do have money poured into them. We DO have a good track record in boxing, athletics and canoe sports though) and no national interest in it. I did do it for a few months at the age of about 6/7 but I quit pretty soon after hurting myself. I do regret giving it up but not a huge amount as to progress properly in it would mean moving to the UK or some other major upheaval. Not sure when I was exposed to the sport again, possibly seeing a bit on Eurosport. I did watch the Sydney Olympics on TV but was a bit young to really get it, 11, and I missed the vault controversy for some reason. Make it or Break It is probably responsible for throwing me into artistic gymnastics obsession. Since about this time last year I have watched pretty much every major competion since the 1970's, (shout out for the amazingness of Youtube) all of the most famous routines and gymnasts and plenty of unknowns and have amassed a good store of knowledge. I am still distinguishing moves all the time, my technical knowledge is by no means perfect. I am very much looking forward to the London Olympics, they are shaping up to be fantastic. I enjoy all types of great gymnastics, from elegant, artistic routines with great expression to wonderful powerful routines with unbelievable tumbling. So Aurelia Dobre, Olga Strazheva, Lilia Podkopayeva, Mo Huilan, Fan Ye, Shawn Johnson, Nadia, Olga, Courtney Kupets, McKayla Maroney...I love them all and lots of gymnasts in between.

Not forgetting the blogs that I live for! Most of them are very well known and rightly so.

http://spannysbigfakesmile.blogspot.ie/
http://www.examiner.com/gymnastics-in-national/blythe-lawrence
http://www.thecouchgymnast.com/
http://gymnasticscoaching.com/new/
http://www.gymnastike.org/
http://fulltwist.net/
http://gymtruthteller.wordpress.com/
http://theepanel.blogspot.ie/
http://gymqueenzlive.blogspot.com.au/
http://auntjoycesicecreamstand.blogspot.ie/
http://getagripgymblog.blogspot.ie/
http://davaistoi.wordpress.com

So welcome any readers! For now with the impossibility of getting a job in this country I will be updating very regularly especially as there is sooo much to write about now.

This blog is of course showcasing my opinions and predictions. You are welcome to disagree, I don't mind. I have never written a blog before so my writing style will come across a little bit juvenile, it's a bit harder to get across what I want to in blog posts when I'm so used to just writing huge essays!