Release (Off Balance 3)

Pirouette Used in both gymnastics and dance to refer to a turn around the body's longitudinal axis. It is used to refer to a handstand turning moves on bars.

Rips In gymnastics, a rip occurs when a gymnast works so hard on the bars or rings that they tear off a flap of skin from their hand. The injury is like a blister that breaks open.

Release Leaving the bar to perform a skill before re-grasping it.

Relevé This is a dance term that is often used in gymnastics. In a relevé, the gymnast is standing on toes and has straight legs.

Reverse Grip A swing around the bar back-first with arms rotated inwards and hands facing upwards.

Round-off A turning movement, with a push-off on one leg, while swinging the legs upward in a fast cartwheel motion into a 90-degree turn where legs come together before landing on both feet. The lead-off to a number of skills used to perform on vault, beam, and floor.

Salto Flip or somersault, with the feet coming up over the head and the body rotating around the axis of the waist.

Sequence Two or more skills performed together, creating a different skill or activity.

Shaposhnikva A clear hip circle on the low bar then flying backward to the high bar.

Stalder Starts in handstand with the gymnast moving backward and circling the bar with legs straddled on either side of their arms or inside their arms.

Stick To land and remain standing without requiring a step. A proper stick position is with legs bent, shoulders above hips, arms forward.

Straddle Back An uneven bar transition done from a swing backwards on the high bar over low bar, while catching the low bar in a handstand.

Switch Ring Performed on floor and the balance beam. The gymnast jumps with both feet, lifting their legs into a 180-degree split with the back leg coming up to touch their head.

Tap Swing Performed on bars, an aggressive tap toward the ceiling in a swinging motion. This gives the gymnast the necessary momentum to swing around the bar to perform a giant or to go into a release move.

Toe On Swing around the bar with body piked so much the feet are on the bar.

Tour Jeté A dance leap where the dancer leaps on one foot, makes a full turn in the air, and lands on the other foot.

Tsavdaridou Performed on beam, a round-off back handspring with full twist to swing down.

Tuck The knees and hips are bent and drawn into the chest. The body is folded at the waist.

Twist The gymnast rotates around the body's longitudinal axis, defined by the spine. Performed on all apparatuses.

Yurchenko Round-off entry onto the board, back handspring onto the vaulting table and Salto off the vault table. The gymnast may twist on the way off.

* * *

I was stuck in a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.

Locked inside a dark box, I sucked up my oxygen. My lungs burned for fresh air and my heart beat faster and harder. That harrowing moment cruelly replayed in my head over and over, mocking me for my gullibility. I begged for someone to pull me from the darkness suffocating me, but no one could hear my fists hammering on the wall.

Kova was married.

He'd deceived me, and continued to, after I’d given him every fiber of myself. He’d married Katja three months earlier in secret.

My mind flashed with innocent moments we'd stolen over the course of a year. I tried to recall every instance we were together and what I could have possibly missed or mistaken for something else, but I drew up blank every time.

He was Konstantin Kournakova and I was Adrianna Rossi. He was my coach, and I was his gymnast. Nothing more.

I’d made the frantic call to Hayden, knowing he wouldn’t waste any time. He was at World Cup in less than five minutes, pulling me into his arms and holding me tight. I fisted his shirt, fitting so perfectly into him, as if our bodies were made for each other. In a way, we were, but not in the way that mattered.

"Why do I have a strong sense of déjà vu?" he asked, compassion filling his voice. There was no judgment coming from him. "God, you're shivering."

Hayden was there for me when no one else was. Not my mom, my dad, Kova, or even Avery. They all had deliberately lied to me without a second thought. Yes, we all told little white lies, every one of us, but there comes a point in time when we make the conscious decision to bleed those lines red.