Letters to a Young Gymnast by Nadia Comaneci

a mixed grip. Immediate full twist, drop to low bar, glide kip, catch the high bar. Straddle over the low bar, and with hips on the low bar, kip up to the high bar to a cast handstand one-half pirouette. Beat the low bar back, uprise to a free hip, circle to handstand, then another free hip circle to a handstand to an immediate toe-on to a Comaneci Dismount.

    Friend, my 1978 decision to return to Deva was tougher than you might imagine. I had no one to help me make the choice. My mother always had a stock answer—“If you want to do it, do it. If not, quit.” If she’d said otherwise, if she’d ever tried to push me, I would never have become a gymnast in the first place. That is
the way I am. If someone tells me to do something, I won’t do it. I firmly believe that if you do anything solely because somebody else wants you to do it, then things won’t work out.
    After weighing my decision and balancing out the pros and cons, I agreed to go to Deva on the condition that I no longer had to live in the dormitory with the younger gymnasts. The federation and Bela agreed to the compromise and got my mom and brother a temporary house nearby. It was small—only two rooms, with my brother and I sharing one—but it was ours. We got a dog, Becky, who was my tiny best friend. Being home with my family gave a balance to my life that I hadn’t had before.
    Bela was true to his word. My training was torture. Before dawn each day, we took a run, just Bela and me, and I wore lots of layers of clothing and did conditioning exercises while running. The following three hours were spent in the gym training, and afterward, I’d go for a second run, followed by a massage. After the rubdown, I did weight training, took a sauna, and did a shorter run. Bela was with me every moment. Most of the extra weight on my bones fell off, but I was exhausted. I’d roll out of the gym . . . I could hardly walk.
    We didn’t do much gymnastics at first because Bela didn’t feel comfortable having me try to perform skills when I wasn’t conditioned. He was a stickler about that because with a different body, I might have hurt myself. I sucked it up and did everything as he instructed; it was like the old days. My meals consisted of salads and fruits at first—nothing else. I craved everything that was bad for me. And unlike the old days, I now knew what ice cream and other desserts tasted like. For the first few
weeks, I had to stay at Bela and Marta’s home so that they could keep me under strict supervision. If they hadn’t, I would have sneaked food.
    I am not saying that my eating regimen during those first few weeks was right for anyone trying to get in shape or lose weight. You have to remember that I’d had years of healthy eating that had made my bones and body strong. A few weeks of lighter food couldn’t hurt me. I realize that body misperceptions and eating disorders are an enormous problem for young girls, but I don’t believe that depriving a body of the protein and fats it needs will help anyone achieve overall health. I am not a doctor, so I can’t give much advice on this subject except to say that eating a balanced diet and getting exercise is the only way I know to maintain a healthy mind and body. Once Bela and Marta had gotten me back on track with my eating, I was permitted to live at home with my mother and brother, and I resumed following a well-balanced diet.
    You asked if there were moments when I was ready to give up. Yes, there were, but Bela wouldn’t let me. I had made a commitment to him and to myself, and he would see that I met it. Slowly, I started to dream more of my glory days, the Olympics, and other competitions. I began to dream about skills and realized that I missed being a great gymnast. I’d tried a “regular” life, and it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t happy being like everyone else. I missed the thing that made me