Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Chalked Up Inside Elite ' Merciless Coaching Overzealous Parents Eating Disorders and Elus Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics’ Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams. This yet-to-be-released book should sell a kerzillion copies. In the Olympic year. It’s written by Jennifer Sey , ex-Parkette gymnast. Recall the name? At her first major international meet, the 1985 World Championships, Jennifer Sey fell off the and broke her femur (one of the bones in the leg). At the time, she was not being spotted by her coach because the official rules prevented coaches from being on the podium during routines. As a result of this injury, the rules were changed to allow spotting (though not at Olympic competition). Whatever Happened to Jennifer Sey. I’m suspicious. Suspicious because it’s easy to dog pile on Parkettes after the brutal CNN documentary about the club called Achieving The Perfect 10. On the other hand, it’s getting some praise: “Chalked Up pulls no punches…Sey’s writing is brilliant…offering perceptive psychoanalysis of everyone in her isolated world…Chalked Up is proof that she still has alot of guts.” — International Gymnast “She has eloquently and fairly exposed a dark side to our sport that parents have long needed to be made aware of.” — Dominique Moceanu, Olympic Gold Medal Winning Gymnast Harper Collins. I’ll buy a copy when it comes out in 3 months. And suspend judgment until then. When bad things happen to good athletes. Dan Patch, perhaps the most famous racehorse ever to have run without a jockey, had a lot going for him. He was fast, he was durable, and he was amiable. While standing around in the paddock, he'd let small children run under his belly. And that's not all. According to the horse's biographer, Charles Leerhsen, after races that he'd won, which meant nearly all of them, Dan Patch "turned to the grandstand and bowed deeply, seeming to acknowledge the applause." Sounds like a horse out of Disney by Dreamworks, but Dan Patch was the real thing, and for much of the time between 1900, when he first pulled a sulky across a finish line, and 1914, when he made his last public appearance in a parade, harness racing was a popular sport, and the game's greatest star was among the nation's most admired athletes. But "Crazy Good" is more than the story of a superb competitor. Like Laura Hillenbrand writing about Seabiscuit, Leerhsen recognizes that much of the charm of the story is in the two-legged characters aiding and abetting the horse in his adventures, shady and otherwise. Regarding one of the foremost among them, Myron McHenry, often the driver of the sulky before which Dan Patch paced, Leerhsen writes that he "never stopped drinking, and so even when things were good they were awful." Leerhsen demonstrates once again that a book written about an accomplished horse can be an excellent read, especially when the author seems to be having a great time telling the horse's stories. The subtitles of some books are so thorough that they might seem to make reading the books unnecessary. In the case of "Chalked Up," once you've noticed that the subtitle is "Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams," what else do you need to know? The details, perhaps. The author, Jennifer Sey, was a national champion whose mother was apparently so invested in her career that when Jennifer said she wanted to quit the sport, Mom threatened to disown her. That would be the overzealous parent. In one of the book's most powerful passages, Sey writes about herself as she tries, fighting the complaints of her tired and damaged body, to finish a workout in 1987: "Agitation and fright is my perpetual state of existence." Less than a year earlier, she'd won the national championship. Sey first tells the reader about the pressures of "growing up in a world where underage and underweight girls were looked upon as cultural icons; as a fierce competitor in a culture where second place means losing; as a onetime winner who wasn't going to win anymore." Then she illustrates the generalities with specific stories about her own eating disorders, a doctor less concerned with the health of his teenage patient than with getting her back on the , and coaches who demean and slap their preteen athletes. People who read "Chalked Up" may be less inclined to see the female gymnasts on display in Beijing as pixies than as undernourished victims, which is perhaps what has led some members of the gymnastics community to adopt the bizarre defense of questioning Sey's right to tell the story of her own childhood. And speaking of subtitles . . . Hey, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, how do you feel about "football dementia, depression, and death"? That catchy phrase sums up the concerns of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who's been studying the brains of men who've had those brains scrambled playing pro football. "Play Hard, Die Young" collects the evidence Omalu has found that in many cases, multiple concussions suffered by players have seriously compromised their post-football lives. Perhaps as discouraging as that conclusion were the initial responses to Omalu's work by physicians associated with the NFL, who characterized his findings as "preposterous," "fallacious," and "purely speculative." The families of Mike Webster, Terry Long, John Mackey, Andre Waters, and various other former players who have died young or suffered irreversible brain damage would disagree. Ironically, given the abuse that's been heaped energetically and unfairly upon his research, Omalu is a football fan. Toward the end of a chapter titled "What Should We Do?" he writes, "Let us all come together and solve this national problem, for what would life be in America without football? Football is the soul of America." Writing in The Washington Post , Leonard Shapiro suggested that "Play Hard, Die Young" is "must reading for every player, coach, trainer, and team doctor in the league." Given how close-minded some of the above have been regarding the acknowledgment of the problem Omalu has been exploring, it might be more productive to suggest that the parents of children eager to play Pop Warner football should check out the book. Bill Littlefield hosts National Public Radio's "Only a Game." His most recent book is also titled "Only a Game." TIVOLI Library. New PDF release: Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, By Jennifer Sey. the real tale of the 1986 U.S. nationwide Gymnastics champion whose lifelong dream was once to compete within the Olympics, until eventually anorexia, accidents, and training abuses approximately destroyed her. Fanciful desires of gold medals and Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to turn into a gymnast on the age of six. She used to be a common on the recreation, and her early luck propelled her relations to sacrifice every little thing to assist her develop into, by means of age 11, one in every of America​s elite, competing at prestigious occasions all over the world along such destiny gymnastics​ luminaries as Mary Lou Retton. yet as she set her attractions better and higher—the senior nationwide staff, the area Championships, the 1988 Olympics—Sey started to switch, placing her wishes, her healthiness, and her future health apart within the identify of profitable. And the adults in her lifestyles refused to note her downward spiral. In Chalked Up Sey finds the tarnish in the back of her gold medals. a robust portrait of depth and force, consuming issues and level mom and dad, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, denial and the seduction of luck, it's the tale of a tender lady whose goals may develop into eclipsed through the adults round her. As she recounts her studies, Sey sheds gentle at the destructiveness of our winning-is-everything tradition the place underage and underweight ladies are celebrated and at the desire for stability in children​s lives. Read or Download Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams PDF. Best individual sports books. Even if you’re new to the sport yet don’t are looking to put it on the market it or a great golfer who’s having a nasty around, this booklet is helping you resolve your golfing difficulties correct at the course—before your subsequent shot. The ebook indicates you the “Five Faces of definitely the right Club,” an idea that is helping you hit the ball out of any lie, from anyplace at the direction, no matter if you don’t have a world-class swing. 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Jeff Galloway, a US Olympian in 1972, has helped millions of individuals make this trip whereas decreasing or taking out aches, pains, and accidents suffered in the course of such a lot education courses. Jeff constructed the Run-Walk-Run approach to education, during which operating is many times interrupted through stroll breaks, and provides a step-by-step software that's effortless to exploit and straightforward to appreciate. Extra info for Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams. Example text. I aimed to get to a 20 in the all-around by the end of the season. We drove home in the white van, cradling our winners’ tokens, counting them over and over. Despite my imperfection, I won a few ribbons. They handed out the flimsy satiny kind that came in blue for first, red for second, and white for third. There were three more colors all the way down to sixth, a regal purple. 1. The stinky dank gym, the low scores, the absence of my parents in my shining moment, were eclipsed by the thrill of stepping onto the winner’s podium—a makeshift step with three levels (places fourth through sixth stood on the floor, at the winners’ feet)—and accepting my prize. Inevitably, I’d fall. I’d lose my bearings, eject from the twist midair, and land on my back. ” the audience would gasp. I’d stand and wave, convincing them I was okay, that even if I wasn’t the best, I was the toughest. After the show, we’d get to stay wherever we were and play. If it was a swim club, we’d go swimming; if it was the mall, we’d eat at the food court. If it was an amusement park, like Great Adventure, where we went every summer, we’d go on CHAL KED UP 33 the rides. Most kids visited Great Adventure at least once during their summer vacations, but for us, because we were part of the day’s entertainment, the entry fee was waived. I was in a vacuum. My focus honed to the point where I saw nothing but that horse and myself landing on the on the other side of it, fully upright. And I did. I landed on my feet. Straight and proud. So lightly I almost didn’t feel the impact. No steps. Perfect. I was walking on air. With a pat on the back and a whisper of encouragement from Marty, I flew to the end of the runway to perform the same again, a requirement, the score, in this competition, an average of the two attempts. I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Former National Champion Says Girls Gymnastics Is Not All It's Chalked Up To Be. In 1986, when Jennifer Sey was 15, she lived on fruit and laxatives. She also won the U.S. National title in gymnastics. Sey has written a book about her experiences as a top-tier gymnast called Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams , which came out this week. In an interview with Salon , Sey discusses her experiences boarding at the Parkettes National Gymnastic Training Center under notoriously-brutal coaches Bill and Donna Strauss, who were hellbent on producing winners by "any means necessary." Sey's responses to interviewer Julia Wallace's questions are satisfyingly balanced — Sey points out that the coaches encouraged disordered-eating and dangerous training (and sometimes sexually abused their charges) but also acknowledges that "I was willing to take [the abuse] because I wanted to win." The thing is, Sey, and the majority of her fellow trainees were children ages 10-14. Girls (and boys, too) at that age usually want to please their superiors, whether they be parents, teachers, or coaches. Sey writes about a "coach who hurled a folding chair at a girl who couldn't perform a difficult maneuver on the uneven bars, and the one who used the gym's loudspeaker to humiliate a 10-year-old for gaining one pound." Who among us wouldn't be susceptible to eating disorders and competing with injuries with coaching techniques like the kind Sey endured? Chalked Up isn't the first book to explore the seamier side of women's gymnastics. The 1995 expose Little Girls In Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters by Joan Ryan covered much of the same ground that Sey treads on. In a chapter called "If It Isn't Bleeding, Don't Worry About It: Injuries," Ryan talks about Julissa Gomez, a girl who looked "ten years old even at fifteen. She stood 4 feet 10 inches and weighed 72 pounds." Gomez is a gymnastics cautionary tale: at a competition in Japan in 1988, she did a dangerous vault called the Yurchenko. According to one of Julissa's teammates, Chelle Stack , said, "You could tell it was not a safe vault for her to be doing. Someone along the way should have stopped her." But no one did, because the Yurchenko meant higher scores. Gomez hit her head on the vaulting horse during warmups at such a speed that she became paralyzed. She died of an infection three years later. Some gymnasts, like former Olympian Betty Okino, were extremely offended by Ryan's dim view of the gymnastics world. Okino wrote a response to Ryan in 2001, "When the goal is extraordinary, so is the work and sacrifice that has to go along with it. How dare anyone call gymnastics 'celebrated child abuse.' Victims of child abuse aren't given a choice. We as athletes are. We should not blame the USAG, coaches, and the sport of gymnastics for turning out bitter, broken down athletes. Instead we should search for the answers a little closer to home. Those of us who came out of the sport unscarred weren't living our parent's dreams, we were living our own." But how can one know her dreams so deeply at the age of 10? And anyway, to absolve the coaches of any responsibility creates a dangerous situation where the girls without supportive homes are left to the proverbial wolves (like Romanian gold medalist Nadia Comăneci, who has talked about her eating disorder in recent years). Sey is not calling for an end to gymnastics, she says. But she adds, "All coaches have an obligation to realize that they're not just raising champions, they're raising young women. Hopefully they'll maybe think twice about some of the practices they might employ. I love the sport — I don't want the sport to go down. I just want people to think differently." Share This Story. Get our newsletter. DISCUSSION. I was a gymnast for 6 years, between the ages of 6 and 12. I loved it. LOVED IT. When I was 12, I was learning a new vault, missed the horse, and broke my arm badly. I tried to return (for love of the uneven bars. Seriously. I miss, to this day, swinging around and around and around on those), but my fear of falling was too great — I was also convinced that any pressure on my arm would break it again. It was heartbreaking. To this day I miss it. I still have dreams about being in the Olympics, even though the ensuing decade-plus means it'll never ever happen (I mean, getting back into tumbling would be a great start, but I'm already way too old to even hope). I watch gymnastics on television, and absolutely freak out when the Summer Olympics come around. I had rips, sprained joints, pulled shoulders, awful blistered, turned ankles, bruises and cuts 'till the cows came home. Our coaches, while nicer than the Olympic-level ones, were still pretty brutal. I LOVED IT. I will never say a bad word about it. The truth is, coaches can only push you as far as you want to be pushed. There were girls who clearly did gymnastics just for fun, and if the coaches tried to push them, they pitched fits, or quit, or walked out. You couldn't make them do the harder skills — those were saved for us girls who when you said "Hey, you're only 8, you wanna learn a release move on the high bar?" screamed "YEEEAAAHHHH. " at the tops of our lungs. Being an athelete is brutal. You do unnatural, unhealthy things to your body in the name of sporting perfection. It's an unrealistic world, and it's why Olympic atheletes do things like retire at 20 years old. It's not a life-long sustainable situation, which is why it ends. And yes, some coaches take it over the top. But as young as these girls may be, DO believe that when you enter high-level competition, they're doing it because they WANT to. The Overeducated Housewife. Just another boring blog about a boring housewife… I reread Jennifer Sey’s book, Chalked Up… Back in 2008, when Bill and I were living in Germany the first time, I used to order actual physical books from Amazon.com. I’d wait a few weeks for them to get to me, then eagerly plow through them so I could review them on Epinions.com. Epinions eventually died in 2014, so I continue to read and review books for my blog. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of books about gymnasts and women’s gymnastics as a sport. Most of the books I’ve read recently are about gymnasts who were victimized by disgraced former doctor, Larry Nassar, who now sits in prison for the rest of his life. One of the books I most recently read repeatedly mentioned former elite gymnast, Jennifer Sey, who published a book called Chalked Up : Inside Elite Gymnastics’ Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams , back in 2008. I read and reviewed Jennifer Sey’s book just after it was published. I reposted my original review of Chalked Up on my original blog, back in 2014, for one of my regular readers who was curious about my opinion. I’ll repost the review in today’s post, just for reference. One thing I noticed off the bat is that I read the book in a matter of hours in 2008. This time, it took me a lot longer, but that’s probably because I didn’t get constant distractions from Facebook. Sometimes physical books are more expedient to read because I’m not also on the Internet being pestered by emails and such. Sey is a few years older than I am and was competing in the 1980s, before the time when I paid attention to gymnasts (that didn’t happen until around 1988). In 1986, Jennifer Sey was the United States National Champion. A year later, her desire to train and compete for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea had completely fizzled. She quit the sport before the trials, which I do remember watching live as they happened in Salt Lake City, Utah. Although Sey was never courted by Bela Karolyi because she was too old and not enough of a hot shot, she did train with the Parkettes, another well-known club out of Allentown, Pennsylvania, owned by Bill and Donna Strauss. I remember Hope Spivey, who was on the 1988 Olympic Team and eventually was a gymnast at the University of Georgia, trained with the Parkettes. Hope Spivey was from my neck of the woods in southeastern Virginia. Sey repeatedly referred to Spivey as a “girl from West Virginia”. I noticed that was wrong, since I distinctly remember Spivey being from Tidewater, and a quick Google check confirmed that my memory was correct. The next thing I’ll comment on is that in 2008, and in 2014, we didn’t know anything about what Larry Nassar was doing to elite female athletes. Jennifer Sey’s career happened before Larry Nassar was a threat, but there were still some creeps in the women’s gymnastics world. For instance, former elite coach, Don Peters, was rumored to be having an affair with one of his gymnasts. Sey writes about it in her book. Later, the rumor proved to be true, and Peters was eventually banned for life from coaching, because he was having sex with three gymnasts (though I doubt he was doing it at the same time). One of Peters’ victims, Doe Yamashiro, is mentioned in Chalked Up . I remember watching Doe at the ’88 Olympic Trials. I seem to remember her, and her teammate, Sabrina Mar (who went on to be an animator on South Park ) had to drop out of the competition because they were injured. Other than that, my opinions about Sey’s book remain similar to what they were in 2008. I think her book is well worth reading, particularly if you have any interest in what women’s gymnastics were like in 80s, and what it’s like to work so very hard for a goal like the Olympics, only to burn out a year too soon. It sounds like Sey was pretty miserable during what should have been the best time of her life. She did eventually go to Stanford University and is now a successful career woman living in San Francisco. She writes articles about elite gymnastics, including this one for International Gymnast Magazine , in which she writes about the imbalance of power that occurs between coaches and gymnasts. Jennifer Sey has since divorced the man she was married to when she wrote her book, and now has two more children with her current husband. Below is my original review of Sey’s book, Chalked Up . I’m bolding the text to separate it from today’s comments, since twelve years have passed. Since I was a teenager, I’ve had kind of a morbid fascination with the sport of women’s gymnastics. Never having been able to turn so much as a cartwheel myself, I usually experience twinges of jealousy coupled with amazement as I’ve watched the sport. The tiny women (or girls) who participate in gymnastics seem to have the ability to fly. It’s easy to forget that in order to “fly”, women who participate in elite level gymnastics often pay a hefty price. I was reminded of the price elite gymnasts pay when I read Jennifer Sey’s 2008 book, Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics’ Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams. Jennifer Sey was an elite gymnast in the 1980s. In 1986, at the age of 17, Sey was the United States National Gymnastics Champion. She had reached the pinnacle of her career and had aspirations of attending the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. But like all of us, especially like all elite female gymnasts, Jennifer Sey was a slave to Father Time. The years of endless practices, disordered eating, depression, and serious injuries took their toll. Sey’s Olympic dream ended a year shy of the 1988 Games. Now in her late 30s and married, Sey is a successful career woman and the mother of two sons. She begins her memoir from that perspective, with the dream/nightmare that she’s gotten a call from the head of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation, asking her to go back to the gym and start training again. At the ripe old age of 38, having gained over 40 pounds since her gymnastics days and birthed two children, Sey imagines what it would be like to attempt an uneven bars routine or the simplest moves on a balance beam. I have to admit, this “dream” intrigued me and I was immediately hooked. Then *poof* the dream is over and we’re back in reality. Sey begins the story of her ascent up the ladder of elite competitive gymnastics, detailing how gymnastics went from being a way to get some exercise to a driving obsession that ended with a sudden crash at the end of her adolescence. Sey’s background. The daughter of a successful pediatrician and a stay at home mom, Sey had a relatively privileged upbringing, with parents who were willing to devote a substantial amount of time and money to their daughter’s gymnastics career. Sey’s younger brother, Chris, was also a gymnast, though he did not have the same amount of success in the sport as his sister did. Consequently, Chris had a somewhat “normal” upbringing by comparison. Sey is a bit confessional when it comes to her relations with her brother. She knows that he was jealous of her success as an athlete. However, she points out that at the same time, she was jealous of his ability to be normal, to socialize with friends his own age from school. Jennifer Sey had a number of coaches throughout her career, but during her heyday, she was trained by Bill and Donna Strauss of Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Strausses, with their team, The Parkettes, are well known in gymnastics circles. Sey doesn’t present her former coaches in the most positive light. In fact, she reveals that most of the assistant coaches she encountered had never actually participated in the sport themselves and more than a couple of them were young men who seemed a little too eager to spend time with little girls. I was a little unnerved by this revelation, though I guess I wasn’t too surprised. Sey also dishes a bit about a rumor that went around when she was still competing. A well known gymnastics coach was supposedly having an affair with one of his gymnasts. I was a little put off that Sey chose to include this little tidbit since it was apparently never substantiated. Throughout the book, Sey explains the impact her gymnastics had on her family, particularly her mother, who eventually bought into the investment aspect of the sport. When Sey started to burn out on the sport as a teen, her mother insisted that she keep up with it, even ignoring the signs that her daughter was engaging in dangerous practices to stay thin enough to compete. I guess I can understand why Sey’s mother was so eager to see her daughter win. Again, the family had invested a lot of time, money, and energy into seeing Sey succeed in her sport. But I couldn’t help but feel a little sad for the fact that Sey never had the chance to appreciate her accomplishments, since there was always another competition around the corner and always the threat of a competitor overtaking her. Before she had reached the legal age of majority, Jennifer Sey was over the hill and looking at a scary future. Gymnastics was all she knew. My thoughts. I managed to read Jennifer Sey’s story in a matter of hours. I found her story very compelling, even as it echoes the tales told by other elite gymnasts who left the sport with nagging injuries and bruised egos. It seems to me that this book was very cathartic for Sey. At times, she comes across as bitter and angry, as she remembers some of the less pleasant aspects of life as an elite gymnast. It didn’t seem to me that she ever really enjoyed the sport much, though she was evidently very good at it. Overall, I got the sense that she only competed because it was expected of her and because not competing meant that she would have to find something else to do. I also got the sense that Sey is the type of person who would not be satisfied with doing something else if it meant she would be mediocre. It occurred to me that in order to make it as an elite gymnast, a person has to have incredible drive, a very high tolerance for pain, and more than a liberal amount of pride. That sense of pride also must be tempered by a personality that will withstand susbtantial abuse from other people as well as the desire to please them. I remember myself as a teenager and can imagine being subjected to some of the verbal abuse that Sey alleges in this book. I probably would have been kicked out of the gym because I doubt I would have taken it gracefully. While I sometimes felt this book was a bit self-indulgent, I also felt a little sorry for Jennifer Sey. It’s easy to be jealous of elite athletes and overlook what they go through to become elite. It’s also easy to forget that elite gymnastics is very much a dog eat dog sport. Everyone is a competitor, even when gymnasts compete in teams. Everyone has dreams of glory, but that shot at glory seems very elusive and, in my opinion, hardly worth the aggravation in the long run. On the other hand, some people may think Sey has no right to complain, having lived the dream that many have. Sey also discloses that though she wrote some very negative things about her parents (particularly her mother), she did not make this book available to them and writes that if they want to read it, they will have to buy their own copy. I don’t know Jennifer Sey’s parents, but I imagine they might not have appreciated her disclosure of some of the less flattering details of her upbringing, especially without prior warning. Moreover, even though Sey writes negative things about her parents, they don’t come across as monsters. In fact, they seemed to be good parents who got caught up in the circumstances. By that token, it seems like they had their daughter’s best interest at heart. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. I also appreciated the generous photo section. I thought Jennifer Sey’s writing was very candid; indeed, writing this book was probably very therapeutic for her, even though I sense that she still harbors some anger and resentment over the whole ordeal. Just looking at the title, I can see that Sey still has some strong feelings. I would recommend this book to those who like memoirs. It might also serve as a warning and reality check to anyone who gets carried away by the prospect of an Olympic dream. Of course, now having read this book, it will be hard for me to continue looking at female gymnasts in quite the same way. As an Amazon Associate, I get a small commission from Amazon from sales made through my site.