My Journey: Trust the Process

[QuietColours]

Chapter 20, Cont'd

• Back to Japan
  • Al flew back to Kansas City, Armine and Leanne went to Chicago. Armine debated upgrading their seats, but they didn't because the plane was rather empty. Got rows of seats to themselves
  • Slept most of the flight
  • Similar screening and COVID protocols–at least this time they knew what to expect
  • Released in three hours instead of six
  • Overnight layover in Tokyo, in a hotel next to where she was quarantined. Was very glad it wasn't the same hotel
  • Flew to Fukuoka, then 2 hour bus ride to Kitakyushu. Used the back entrance to avoid other hotel visitors
  • Everyone had to stay in their bubbles, just like at the Olympics. Tracking apps, COVID tests the first few days, masks. Restricted tourism or travel outside the hotel. Couldn't leave their rooms except for training. If caught wandering, would be taken to police station
  • Grateful she didn't have to share a room this trip
  • Room was very small, bed hard and uncomfortable. Chief of Athlete Wellness ended up ordering everyone mattress pads. At the end of the trip, had to pack them for the rhythmic gymnasts who were coming next
  • Hotel had a fitness center and pool, but they weren't allowed to be around Japanese citizens
  • Everyone ended up working out in the hallways on the third floor.
• Meal Experience
  • Meals in designated dining hall. Temperature checks and hand sanitization on entrance
  • Everything was packaged and chilled in small portion sizes
  • When asked how they could improve the experience, someone asked for hot meals–got those in the next few days, which was much better
  • After several days, started ordering Uber Eats from Subway, Japanese restaurants, and a lot of Dominos. Portion sizes much small. Liked the pizza with teriyaki chicken, corn, shrimp, and steak
  • Chocolate milk shake
    • Tom was commenting he wanted a chocolate milkshake. Leanne told him she'd seen it on the hotel's menu
    • After last day of competition, ordering Domino's for a 5th time, Leanne ordered herself a chocolate milkshake from there. When Tom saw it, he wished he had ordered one too. She told him it was actually for him–he was excited and thanked her for being so thoughtful
• Taxis
  • Every place they had to go, US delegation had 5 taxis
  • Rode with Dr. Marci, the team doctor, and eMjae the whole trip. Driver was also Otsuka–not assigned, just chosen
  • Driver often laughed with them in the car, and they weren't sure how much she understood or if she just thought they were funny
  • The only time they knew she understood was when they said her name, because they confirmed the pronunciation with her
  • Always had a good 20-40 minutes of laughter going into practice–felt weird not being 100% focused before walking in, which Armine insisted on, but she looked forward to it
• Training Day
  • Oct 14th had their first two workouts; Oct 15 was podium training. Had to mentally prepare for it–none of them had done Worlds before
  • Tom told then pre-COVID teams arrived two weeks before podium training; they had two practices
  • Podium training wasn't perfect, but it was about the same for everyone
  • After a few workouts she was having great training sessions and Tom said he was getting American Cup vibes from her
  • Very grateful to be given one of the AA spots with Kayla
• Fun
  • In between and after workouts they had treatment, then had fun hanging out in the hallways with each other
  • Mostly had their UberEats meals together; colored and hung up signs on each other's doors, did homework together
  • One day told they were going to the park. Were so excited until the taxi drivers couldn't find it and they were driving around for hours. Park then turned out to be closed to the public and specifically reserved for the World Championship's delegations fun day
  • The Green Park has the world's largest swing set and an obstacle course. Fun watching the coaches and staff swinging and playing on the obstacle course with them
  • Having the time of her life
  • Was taking Calc I and three other classes. Calc was challenging and she had to find time for tutoring in between everything else. She didn't mind because she wanted tasks other than just practicing and getting ready for competitions
• Competition
  • Lots of Japanese citizens but not international viewers
  • It was so stressful her parents decided not to watch the live streams but just followed social media
  • Mom started following a lot of gymnastics fans on Twitter
• Quals
  • Was 2nd after quals behind Melnikova and ahead of Kayla
  • Kayla and Leanne qualified for beam and floor finals
  • Mentions Hatakeda's spinal injury–Leanne was in the training session when it happened
• AA Final
  • Knew that Melnikova had scored 1.5 points ahead of her in quals, but still wanted to be competitive with her
  • Was disappointed her vault wasn't as good as her vault in the warm up gym
  • Bar rotation went well with good handstands; beam was also strong
  • Melnikova was ahead after three rotations
  • Leanne fell on all her tumbling passes in a rushed warmup
  • Nailed her competition routine. Highest floor score of the AA competition
  • Finished ~.3 behind Melnikova with the highest E of the AA finals; Kayla won bronze
  • Armine sat in at the press conference as a translator for Melnikova. Once accidentally repeated the question in English instead of translating for Melnikova
• Event Finals
  • Had been 4th on beam and 3rd on floor in quals
  • Knew beam would be tough
  • After warm up, had to wait for the men to compete–went to the back gm and had time to lie down. Tried to nap
  • Warmed up one routine in the back gym and then 30 second touch
  • Was the last to go, grabbed the beam–it was hard to tell from the tv angle, but she did grab it. Finished 4th
  • All six non-podium finishers had major errors
  • Men's turn to compete, took another short nap in the back gym. An hour later was floor finals.
  • Floor routine was good but not her best, earned bronze
  • Talks about the inquiry drama with Melnikova and Murakami's floor scores and how it affected placement
  • Armine said they'd been trying to earn a World AA medal for a long time, and they were proud she earned it for them
  • Tom told her he was proud of her
• Biggest Lesson
  • Learned everything goes a lot more smoothly when she avoids setting expectations and putting a lot of pressure on herself
  • Handling stress levels comes from your mindset
  • Felt Armine trusted her the most out of all their years of training under her coaching, that they communicated well and they were able to work together
  • Armine said it was one of the most fun experiences she had at a competition

 

[Seyonne]

Thank you, QuietColours. I know this had to be time consuming. I really appreciate it.

 

[QuietColours]

Okay, the last two chapters were short and my brain is shot from meetings, so I'm finishing it up here before the next meeting. I'll try and do some big picture reflections later tonight

Chapter 21

• Wore her LW bows to practice and competition every day for four years
• Had always dreamed of selling them, but had to find the right time. NIL rules changing helped that
• After the Christmas intrasquad at UF, flew home to sell her bows at Al Fong's Secret Santa Invite. Mom and brothers sold them with her while she was at UF. Sold over 300 at the meet
• Designed her website: leannewongbowtique.com using Squarespace, learned how to be paid on PayPal, and how to create shipping labels
• Mom has a small ebay business and taught her about orders, accepting payment, and shpping
• Took pictures with over 50 colors and designs of bows. Has gotten better at editing pictures with all the practice
• Mom takes care of the business and helps manufacture all the bows by hand, sells them at the local competitions
• Supports Kansas City's Charity Toys for Tots

Chapter 22

• My Life: Part 1 - School
  • Balancing school and gym is challenging
  • 3-4 classes in person and left early for practice
  • Did online and summer courses to fulfill requirements
  • Online courses were self paced, requiring discipline and determination
  • Always stayed on top of her work and learned to use her time wisely
• My Life: Part 2 - Gymnastics
  • Began training 30 hours a week at age 10
  • Standards are high and mistakes are unavoidable–works to see the positive in every situation
  • All her gymnastics up and downs were worth it
  • Credit to Al and Armine for teaching her everything the did and experiencing the journey with her
  • Family always supported her
• No Highs Without Lows
  • 2016-2017 goal was to qualify as an elite gymnast; broke foot. Learned to cope with injury
  • 2018 fall on her head - learned to get up and try again
  • 2019 - Worked through pain at American Cup, patient, gave it her all on meet day
  • 2019 - Missed the Worlds team - took the time to upgrade her skills for 2020, learned her double double from scratch
  • 2020 - Pandemic
  • 2021 - Many accomplishments by end of the year, two-time world medalist
• Hopes to share experiences going for 2024 in another book

 

[daniTS]

Thank you for summarizing!

 

[rlayt]

Gallardo is a POS. We could have had Shilese for Tokyo
.

 

[hav12gym31]

thank you so much

 

[IratePanda]

Adding my thanks! I really appreciated the summaries.

 

[Puffin]

Thank you for summarising this book

 

[RedBirdie]

Thank you for all the extensive summaries! Simone Biles level achievement!

 

[QuietColours]

Some broad thoughts:

The writing style is a very simple, direct prose, and it's very readable. You can definitely tell it didn't go through a professional editing process--the pacing was kind of off, and there are a number of typos. Awkwardly, the only names she is inconsistent with how she spells are Ja'Free and eMjae. But they seem to have done a good job with their fact checking, and she definitely seems to understand the rules and processes of the sport. I'm pretty sure Leanne (or at least her parents) actually read all the paperwork they get, and she's probably read the COP. It also seemed like she checked with people to see if she could name them in the anecdotes she relates (and that the answer was usually no), which is in good taste even if I'd love more specifics.

She never really directly criticizes, but Al and Armine don't come off great. It's probably telling that she basically trained herself for the competition she was most successful at, and there are a lot of small notes that are very unimpressive, like Armine just stopping speaking to her when she's doing poorly at a competition. I'm also extremely unimpressed that there was so little injury assessment after she fell on her head, and it feeds into the story of Aleah being pulled from a competition because she failed concussion protocol very nicely. Leanne doesn't go into the drama surrounding that, but both the Finnegans and Al were quite upset that she wasn't allowed to compete with a concussion. A lot of pieces of how they coach also seem to come back to what works for them in the end, not necessarily what's best for the athlete.

I'm not particularly surprised she has largely continued her elite training through UF. By the end of the book, it really sounded like her training style and theirs wasn't a good match anymore.

The Tokyo quarantine sounds like absolute torture, what a horrible experience for someone to deal with. I'm not sure she'd forgiven Kara for it at the time of writing, although obviously Kara didn't test positive on purpose.

Her mom sounds very much a gym mom. I can't imagine being in the gym watching for most the hours an elite practices. I'm already looking forward to the day I can just drop my kid off at activities... But it's clear her parents are very supportive and it sounds like they let her lead the way on her goals. I feel a bit for brothers--I wonder how welcome a part of their lives gymnastics was. She dose make it clear they have their own sports and activities, though. They don't enter the story much--hard to tell if that's for privacy's sake or because they aren't super close (they are much younger). Some parts of what she talks about with her family were a bit odd, like when we got several paragraphs on what water pHs they use for different things.

I laughed every time she called Tom out for just going in AA order for team selection. She seems more or less fond of him, but not necessarily terrible impressed. That's not really an ideal way for an athlete to view the National Team coordinator. This is also the first book I've read from an athlete who didn't really go through the Karolyis at all. Part of it's Leanne being someone who is just very self driven and puts a lot of pressure on herself, but it was definitely interesting in seeing the almost casual approach she had to the National Team staff even though the camps and competitions themselves were highly stressful. Very, very different from what you read in Jordan, Simone, Aly, Aimee's books; also different from what you read in the older biographies, even people like Miller who were peripheral or adjacent and not Karolyi athletes.

I do hope she writes another book when she's done with the sport. I'm interested to hear about her college experience, balancing college and elite gymnastics, and the 2024 experience, as disappointing as I'm sure it was. The book does make me root for her a little more.

 

[makam]

Man, it sounds like she was trying to be nice about Al and Armine but talk about damning with faint praise. Her basics seem better than most gage gymnasts but they did never seem to get to her top potential--from the summary it definitely seems they spent more time working against her than with her. And as invested (kinda overly so) as her mom was, you'd think she would have shopped around for a more compatible situation.

 

[RedBirdie]

You can definitely tell it didn't go through a professional editing process--the pacing was kind of off, and there are a number of typos.

Not that having a professional publisher always makes a difference in editing. Jordan Chiles' book is exhibit A.

A shame a real publisher didn't take this project on. Sounds like it could have been excellent with a great editor to tighten up some parts and improve the pacing, given Leanne and her mom's commitment to getting the facts right.

 

[QuietColours]

Not that having a professional publisher always makes a difference in editing. Jordan Chiles' book is exhibit A.

A shame a real publisher didn't take this project on. Sounds like it could have been excellent with a great editor to tighten up some parts and improve the pacing, given Leanne and her mom's commitment to getting the facts right.

I'm guessing Leanne just wasn't a big enough name. Or maybe they wanted to move faster than they could with a traditional publisher. Chiles book severely lacked in the fact checking, but they didn't spell her teammates' names different ways in back-to-back paragraphs, and it was paced better.

But Leanne actually knew how the selection process works--officially and unofficially.

 

[Matilda23]

@QuietColours did Leanne write much about Kara and their relationship as teammates?

Thanks so much for the time and effort you’ve spent on these summaries and your opinions!

 

[RichardL]

Man, it sounds like she was trying to be nice about Al and Armine but talk about damning with faint praise. Her basics seem better than most gage gymnasts but they did never seem to get to her top potential--from the summary it definitely seems they spent more time working against her than with her. And as invested (kinda overly so) as her mom was, you'd think she would have shopped around for a more compatible situation.

I mean, I agree with this in general, but at the same time she would have been a member of the 2019 World team if not for a random fluke fall on her DTY at selection camp, and then she would have been a member of the Tokyo team if she'd done her day 2 Trials beam routine on both days. I don't blame either of these on the Fongs.

 

[Kittentoes]

@QuietColours Thank you so much for doing this!
I hope even more that she has had an utter blast at Florida.

 

[crdubb17]

I'm guessing Leanne just wasn't a big enough name. Or maybe they wanted to move faster than they could with a traditional publisher. Chiles book severely lacked in the fact checking, but they didn't spell her teammates' names different ways in back-to-back paragraphs, and it was paced better.

But Leanne actually knew how the selection process works--officially and unofficially.

Jordan’s audiobook is almost unlistenable. The narrator’s tone of voice and general demeanor is quite different from Jordan’s, so it throws things off. Also, she frequently mispronounces names. It was like they just threw her in a recording studio with no guidance and accepted the first edit.

 

[OnlyBeansOnToast]

Just how thick is the hard copy of this book? Even your heavily abridged bullet points are longer than Laurie Hernandez's entire 2017 autobiography.

 

[QuietColours]

@QuietColours did Leanne write much about Kara and their relationship as teammates?

Thanks so much for the time and effort you’ve spent on these summaries and your opinions!

She didn't; she didn't mention her social life or relationships with other gymnasts much at all, except for times when they were excited or proud as a team. She probably talks the most about Simone as an individual gymnast--an idol, someone she admired, etc. The tone suggests they were good teammates but not really friends (which is fair), and that every modern US gymnast is obligated to talk about Simone in their books.

ETA: Mostly with regards to Kara she talks about having felt just behind her at some of the early competitions (Kara was a year older), and during the quarantine section she says that they were always teammates and how they had always been roommates at competitions and camps, so they were either friendly or at least compatible roommates compared to their GAGE teammates.

 

[QuietColours]

Just how thick is the hard copy of this book? Even your heavily abridged bullet points are longer than Laurie Hernandez's entire 2017 autobiography.

It's 337 pages of fairly large type. I'm curious now if me summarizing Laurie's book would be longer or shorter than the original, as I've been accused of never seeing a detail I didn't think was vital.