NMC026 Live Aboard Gymnastics

Rosa Linda

Recorded: July 22, 2016
Location: West Palm Beach, Florida
Subject: What about gymnastics? Looking for creative ways for our daughter to continue her beloved sport while living on a boat.

Hello friends!
This week’s episode is a continuation of last week’s conversation from July 2016 as we were trying to find a way to help keep Ahava’s gymnastics dreams alive while living on a boat. I firmly believe, “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and this episode is a peek into my process of figuring out creative ways to make things work. Many of these ideas did not pan out—like buying and transporting gymnastics equipment to the Bahamas—but we did find ways to support her in her sport for several more years to come despite the challenges. There will be plenty more on her gymnastics journey in future episodes, but for now consider this simply an auditory snapshot of a moment in that adventure.
I hope this finds you well and in a place where creative solutions are coming to you when you need them most. Thanks for supporting this show and sharing in our journey!
Be well everyone!
Lots of love,
Rosa Linda

 

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Episode Transcript:

Rosa Linda Román (00:00): Hello, everyone. Welcome to New Mexicast. I'm Rosa Linda Román and before we get started I want to share what you can expect here on this podcast. First, you should know that my family lives on a sailing catamaran, and this is my personal audio journal. What you're about to hear is an episode from 2016, when we were just starting our journey of moving from our home in New Mexico onto the boat. As a long time broadcast journalist, I wasn't sure how I was going to keep working while pursuing this crazy new lifestyle. This journal is where I worked through a lot of things, both personally and professionally. That means you will hear about experiments with new technologies like Blab and Periscope and testing out systems to make the move easier like Wild Tree meal prep and KonMari for downsizing our stuff. As you can imagine, some of these experiments were successful while some like Blab and Wild Tree don't even exist anymore. But I decided to leave even the failed experiment in this audio journal so you could get the whole story of how we went from New Mexicast to New Mexi-Castaways. If you like what you hear please stick around till the end and I'll share how you can find out where we are now and how you can get much more content by joining the New Mexi-Castaways crew. Enjoy! Rosa Linda Román (01:47): Hello and welcome to New Mexicast audio edition or what I like to call NewMexi-Castaways. This is where I share my thoughts and using as my family has just moved on to a 45 foot sailing catamaran. My name is Rosa Linda Román. I have a TV show in New Mexico called New Mexicast. And if you want to see any of those stories, which are feature reports about fascinating people in places that we've met along the way you can go to New Mexicast TV on YouTube or my live streaming efforts, which are sadly affected by my lack of internet connectivity lately. But the ones that I have posted are on facebook.com/newmexicast. So let's get to it. I just watched my boat sail away with my husband and his three, his two best friends aboard Nathan, Eric, and Don. Rosa Linda Román (02:54): Nathan is my husband and he's having his first guide weekend that I can remember in quite some time. So I got kicked off the boat. My daughter, who is in gymnastics, got kicked off the boat and our nanny Linda also got kicked off the boat. The other two Samuel and Ziva are up in Chicago having Grammy week. So it's a good time just to chat a little bit. We stayed at a hotel last night, the ladies and I, but Linda is heading to Sarasota for a weekend with friends and Ahava and I are going to fly to Chicago tonight on an airline that I've never flown and I probably will never fly again, but I could be wrong. Spirit Airlines. I'm used to flying on Southwest and there's certain things that I really like about Southwest. Basically, you pay one fare and then everything's included. You have to pick your own seat. You have to check in 24 hours in advance, but once you kind of get to know the Southwest system, it's nice because you can bring up to two bags and I don't carry a lot of stuff, but still it really irks me the way that airlines now charge for every single bag. Well, Spirit takes it to a whole new level and they charge to print your boarding pass and they charge to get a seat to select a seat. So I'm a little nervous because I'm traveling alone with my daughter and I'm not sure they're going to put us together, but if they don't, it's okay. She's a well-traveled child. In fact, I might as well say now I'm really looking at starting my at least blog and maybe more to it than just a blog called A2Z Travel Kids. We talked about it for a long time. Ooo, trains going by. Listen. Rosa Linda Román (04:49): Huh. Nice. we've talked about it for a long time. In fact, that's the train reminds me, my daughter and I just took a train trip from Orlando. I'm sorry, from North Carolina to Orlando. And we had such a great time taking that train that I realized, you know, I really enjoy traveling in general and I don't get caught up in, like I try not to get too worked up about the little things that sometimes may annoy other travelers. But one of my pet peeves is what a Spirit is doing today and that is just nickel and diming you for everything they said. We don't give peanuts. We don't give water. We don't do anything like that um to keep the fares really low. But they're not significant, so much lower that it's worth it to me. I'd rather kind of pay, you know, a little bit more and I'm talking a little bit, it's not that big of a difference between what the quote was on Southwest and,uthis one. Rosa Linda Román (05:48): So anyway, that's, what's on my mind. I just spent the whole morning, three hours trying to get my boarding pass and I still haven't gotten it printed, but at least I've been able to check in. But I still have to go find a way to get to print the boarding pass or pay $10 per ticket more which just annoys me. So I'm because we live on a boat, we don't have a printer. I think we're going to get one. But so anyway, long story short, I don't think I'll be taking this airline again. Maybe I'll get to the airport and they will be lovely people and it will be worth it. But we'll see. What else is on my mind? So gymnastics. I'm on my way to pick up my daughter. I've got a, I actually have a rental car right now because Ms. Linda headed to Sarasota and with our car. And so we're gonna just have this rental car for the day because Ahava had to get to gymnastics. She is a competitive gymnast. She's a training level five, which means she's trying to work really hard to get to level five before the competition season begins. They have their first meet in September and at the time of this recording, it is July, the end of July. And because of that she's really trying not to miss any gymnastics and she's working really hard to get to that next level. That meant that she had to forego what the other kids are doing. My Ziva and Samuel. My other two kids are at my mom's house in Chicago at Grammy week, which is super fun and awesome and so that's why we're going. Nathan's got his guys weekend this weekend. Ahava and I are gonna fly up to Chicago to get out of Nathan's way and to allow Ahava to have the weekend at Grammy camp. Uso I'm going to pause right here because I have a new headphone and I wanna hear how it sounds before I get too much further into this episode. So I'll be right back. Rosa Linda Román (07:58): Interesting. That is very echoey. I have now moved to the headphone location from behind my head to in front of it. And I'm going to record just a little bit right now to see how this is, this sounds. So these are my new wireless headphones that I got at a Sports Authority. I guess it's going out of business and I got great discount on these. And I was excited about them because they come highly recommended and I was looking for some wireless headphones so I could run and still talk and potentially use them for recording as well. But depending on how it sounds, I may or may not be able to do that. So let me pause one more time to hear what I just recorded to see if this is any less echoey than it was a second ago. Rosa Linda Román (08:55): Well, It's not much better this way. Ubut I'm going to just try to finish up. I'm about to get to gymnastics and I'm going to watch my daughter for a little bit. One of the things that is heavily on my mind right now is gymnastics because, because Ahava is trying to really work hard to get to that next level and she wants to stick with the sport. Ufor awhile, I was thinking, well, by the time we move on to the boat she will not really want to do gymnastics anymore so it'll be fine. You know, we'll, she'll move on. We'll move on. We'll say all the way and go explore these islands. Well, she doesn't want to give up the sport and we certainly have invested as a family, a ton into her gymnastics career. And she's right on the cusp of where she's going to decide if this is like, I'm going all the way, or this is something I'm going to stick with for at least to try to become a collegiate gymnast. Rosa Linda Román (09:56): She's only 11. Okay. But gymnastics is one of those sports you have to make choices very early, at a younger age. So it's, we're struggling with this. There's a lot of other sports that you can do just about anywhere, but gymnastics (a) is a very solo sport and it also requires very specific equipment that you can't, you know, it's not like going to somewhere where you can just hit a tennis ball and learn form or I mean, still you need a tennis court or some, even a basketball court, I guess you could work on same thing with basketball or swimming, but with gymnastics, she needs coaches and she needs equipment. And you know, it's quite an investment of time and money. So we have been struggling with this for a while, but I, I kind of put it on the back burner because I figured it was hard, it was all I could do to get our family to Get the boat and to move on to the boat. Right? So that was my main focus. And I, I really believe that when you get clear on what you want, the rest of it can work out. You can figure out, you know, the, the rest of the details once you get clear what it is that you actually want. And so I got clear that I wanted to move on to a boat and then, you know, the universe or whatever you want to, however you want to call it, things start to fall into place when you, at that point. Right? So now that we're on the boat and starting to get settled, now we have to decide about what to do with the gymnastics factor. I'll would love, so right now, let me back up. So she was at a gym in New Mexico,ua very nice gym and she trained very well there. Rosa Linda Román (11:48): So we had to find something comparable here. We're in right now the boat is in Riviera Beach Marina and she needed something somewhat close so that she could train here in Florida. So we've moved on to a nice gym here called Palm Beach Gymnastics, and the people are really nice. And she really ,the trick, the coaches really push her. So that's really great. She's been really improving and she's excited about that. We have a lot of prep work to do on the boat anyway. I'd say at least another month worth of things that need to be done. Upgrading the radar adding netting for the safety of my son, who's five and our little German Shepherd, who's a puppy. We need to get locator beacons or this thing called Spot, which you put on wrists or ankles and that helps to track and alert if anyone falls over board. There's a number of things like that, that we need to, to still do on the boat. Rosa Linda Román (12:52): So there's a good month left here anyway. And plus Nathan's still has to travel back to New Mexico for work. He does his clinicals in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and there's a number of things that still have to happen. So I'm not trying to rush the process. But at some point we need to figure out how are we going to live on a boat and go sailing if we are tethered to one location and it could be just that we take day sails and stay in this area through competition season, right? But we would prefer to be, if we're going to have to be in one place, we would like to be on this island in The Bahamas called Elbow Cay or the little town is called Hope Town. It's a place that when we lived on a boat the first time, about five and a half years ago we sailed to this island and we absolutely loved it, loved the people. Rosa Linda Román (13:50): And in fact, I just reconnected. One of our friends just came. I think I may have mentioned it this on another episode my friend Rachel just came from The Bahamas to visit us. So this place, Hope Town, we adore it. We love it. It's a great jumping off point for a lot of other things. And my husband can do his he can fly out to New Mexico relatively easilyas, as easily as you can get from a small island. But still the gymnastics question remains. So there have been some there's been some progress on that. I will continue this episode another time, cause I'm going to go and watch her for the last 15 minutes of her practice. And then we're going to have they have their team party this afternoon. So I will just consider this a pause and then I'll come back after the break, which will probably be another day when I record this. So bye for now. Rosa Linda Román (14:59): Okay. I'm back. And it's been actually another four days since I recorded the first part of this episode. And a lot has happened in those four days. I went to Chicago, to take my daughter to Chicago for a quick weekend,Grammy week weekend, where she got to hang out with the cousins at Grammy's house. Grammy's house is a Wonderland for kids. They have trampolines and spinning things and tree house and you name it. And then we had a massive water balloon fight and it was a really great fun trip for all. Uand I also got some time with my three of my four siblings. So I really enjoyed that as well. Ubut I wanted to kind of wrap up the gymnastics discussion. And,ualso let me say, I'm listening back just to kind of catch up where I was and I realized this audio,uthese headphones do not sound good on the recording, which is such a bummer because I just got'em they're brand new they're fancy schmancy, JX2. And I got them with the express purpose of being able to do this. Be able to record quality audio that I had hoped, but,udoesn't look like it's going to work. So let me just say,utell you really quickly about the rest of the thoughts swirling around in my head about the gymnastics thing. So when my friend Rachel came to visit, I talked to her because she knows a lot of people in Hope Town and just in general in The Bahamas. And I said, we got to figure out how to get my daughter to... Sorry. Now my GPS is talking in my ear at the same time which is very strange. Uhnyway, we, so Rachel, m asked Rachel, I said, "Do you know, anyone that knows anything about gymnastics and if so, man you put me in touch with them?" She also, hut me in touch with actually one of our mutual friends, mhose daughter, his daughters are competitive swimmers and who used to live in Hope Town, moved from Hope Town so that their daughters could have more intense training and, hrep work as far as competing in swimming competitions. And that move served them very well because, mheir oldest daughter, Aubrey, is now headed to University of South Carolina for swim team. And, hheir middle daughter, Lily is also breaking lots of records and doing super well in the swimming arena. So they were very familiar. Rosa Linda Román (18:03): They' re very familiar with what it takes to help a child continue their sport that they love with knowing that, you know, the place that they love, Hope Town namely may not be conducive to making, you know, giving them the best chance to move forward in this course. So she was a great resource. We, I also talked, basically when we were skyping with Pleasant we talked about gymnastics and she reached out to a friend who she has, I think in Grand Bahama (i think that's where she is) anyway, Pleasant's friend is has a gym somewhere on one of the bigger islands in The Bahamas. And she got back in touch with me and told me that she has been looking to start a gym in the Abacos, which is where Hope Town is, and that she had some equipment that a friend wanted to get to her. Rosa Linda Román (19:11): And then she would bring it over having to ship it over to The Bahamas. And I said, well, would it be possible for us to bring it on our boats? So anyway, long story short there's conversations going on about the possibility of trying to get the equipment to the Abacos so that this woman who is interested in starting a gym, might be able to do that. And that would allow us, that would be the solution to have Ahava be able to continue gymnastics and allow us to be where we would like to be. And so I really, it, it makes me smile since right before the break, I talked about how the universe line things up, not only was there, this friend of Pleasant, but Rachel has a friend who owns a gym in Freeport, I think, and there's a chance that she might be able to come over and help coach my daughter, at least maybe every other week or something like that. Rosa Linda Román (20:11): So there's possibilities, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. None of it is set in stone. There's still a ton of work that has to be done. But I think that the lesson is when you really get clear on what you want and you start to make that known the right people and resources show up. It's just the way it works. I have that, you know that little saying on I always keep that like on a plaque in my notes and I need to, I need to put it somewhere on the boat because it's so, so true "when you get clear on what you want, the right resources and people show up" and that's, I think that's just so, that sums up, you know, the whole law of attraction. It, it really works. It really works. If you focus on and really get clear on what it is you want, because the thing is we, we want so many things that sometimes you confuse your own mind and you confuse the you know, the powerful parts inside of yourself that help make things happen, right? Rosa Linda Román (21:16): If you aren't clear and don't really boil down what it is you're after, how do you know what the target is? How do you know if you're actually meeting your goal? You have no way to know if it's very vague or do you have too many ideas and goals, and it would be great to do all of these things, right? So this street is very loud isn't it? I'm on I95. I heading to the airport now to pick up our next guest? My niece, my nephew and sister-in-law, and also my daughter, Ziva and son, Samuel, who had been gone for the past two weeks. So I'm on my way to the Fort Lauderdale airport to go get them. Anyway, so I just want to tell you, when you decide, get clear on what you want the right people and resources show up, remember that as you're trying to decide what you're going to do. Alright, I am going to let you guys go. Rosa Linda Román (22:15): And I really appreciate you listening, especially with this audio, lousy audio quality I'm working on it. I think I have to revert to going back to my road Lavalier mic and the ZoomH4N recorder to get better sound because I do not want to torture your earbuds, your ears. And I guess this wireless headphones will just have to be for listening to music and when I'm running. So I hope you guys are all well and having a fabulous day. I just did a broadcast this morning on Facebook live. So if you have any interest in seeing the occasional live reports that I'm doing from living on the boat, feel free to go over to facebook.com/newmexicast. And I will definitely put the replay up on New Mexicast TV on YouTube. All right, thanks for listening to New Mexi-Castaways. I'm Rosa Linda Román. Rosa Linda Román (23:43): Thanks for listening to my audio from 2016 as our family prepared to move on to the sailing catamaran Dawn Treader. If you want to see where we are at the moment, just search for New Mexicast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Patreon, or for New Mexicast TV on YouTube. Also, if you want to see the videos, photos of the things I'm talking about on this podcast, please consider joining the New Mexi-Castaways crew. You can do that at New Mexicast.com/crew. Thanks again for listening and for supporting our enchanting adventures. I'm Rosa Linda Román and this is New Mexi-Castaways.

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