Interesting topic. I happened to stumble upon the book in the library and decided to give it a read. Usually kept my attention, but I found that waning at times. The writing made the memoir difficult to read at some points. Example: the unusual & repetitive use of 'inauspicious.' I did enjoy reading about the journey of a U.S. champion and her sacrifices toward that goal. As one reviewer mentioned, it is indeed unflattering and seems an honest account of the joys and shame of her world. ( )

Jennifer Sey was the US national gymnastics champion in 1986 and this is her book about the sport. It was not an easy book to read. She relates how they had to starve themselves – literally – to satisfy their coaches, so that she was suffering from constant hunger pains, and how injuries were not allowed to heal properly in order not to lose training time, because once a girl grows up she won’t be able to perform competitive stunts which require a small, compact body, and so time is short. Twice the author had a leg broken in gymnastics accidents and both times the training center’s doctor had the cast removed much earlier than the hospital doctor had recommended. Sey writes that by 1986 when she won the US Nationals (at 16) she felt constant pain from her various injuries and could only practice on a very generous dose of painkillers, without which she was barely able to walk. And yet nobody made her do it – it was wholly her own choice. She was a very good student and later enjoyed a successful career in marketing, but in gymnastics she could be “the best,” and no subsequent achievement could give her comparable satisfaction. However, after 1986 she had to quit without realizing her dream of making the Olympic team, because her body couldn’t take it for two more years. As it is, she practically became an invalid for life. She writes: “With each step across the pavement, my beaten ankles shock. The balls of my feet, permanently bruised from gymnastics, ache with every stride. My knees grind and creak each time I rise from the chair….” And these are obviously general aftereffects of gymnastics, not of her specific past injuries. She said subsequently in interviews that her book is not intended as an indictment of the sport of gymnastics, and that she just wanted to tell her story, but I can’t think of a more powerful indictment of the sport of gymnastics than her story. But then even watching any gymnastics competition on TV makes it obvious how extremely dangerous it is and how it would be impossible to seriously go into it without experiencing some horrendous injuries. Jennifer Sey writes that besides ambition it was the feeling of flying or weightlessness that attracted her to gymnastics and that she still misses it daily, but to experience this feeling one doesn’t need to perform the sort of stunts required in competitions. Having read this book, I began to think that they should remove gymnastics from the Olympic roster of sports and discontinue championships of any kind, and just leave it a recreational activity; then there’d be no drive for death-defying stunts and kids (and maybe even adults) would do it just for the feeling of flight. But, of course, had anybody officially suggested that, the sports community would be up in arms. ( )

This is one of those sensational memoirs that has the potential to veer into hyperbole and/or out and out lies, but I honestly believe that Sey was telling the truth about everything. She allows herself some time and energy for pity, but mostly she is giving a warning to others who would consider enrolling children in, dreaming of a career in, or even supporting gymnastics. ( )

Jennifer Sey, 1986 Gymnastics USA National Champion, writes of her experiences as an elite gymnast - the "merciless coaching, overzealous parents, eating disorders and elusive Olympic dreams".

It is powerful, unflattering, and disturbing.

Chalked Up is one of those books you will share with friends. ( )

I couldn’t put this book down, and I read it in a few hours. (This was also perhaps helped by some insomnia, but still . . . )

Apparently this was a much-talked about book in gymnastics circles earlier this year when it came out. I was not aware of it when the title caught my eye from a display a branch library the other day. Prior to actually reading it, however, I looked up the author’s website and blog. I didn’t recognize her name, though if she was in gymnastics in the ‘80s, I really might have seen her on tv at some point. I watched gymnastics back then, wanting to take part, knowing I was too old and too big all at the same time. Sey won the 1986 US National Championships. She was worn out and exhausted, and with lingering injuries before the 1988 Olympic trials.

This book really shows me that I would have never had the guts to do it. Sey says that as a kid, she really, really wanted it, and tried hard to be good enough. However, she was never good enough, at least in her mind. Her coaches all managed to point that out often as well. Even when she was little, age 7, her coaches kept telling her she wasn’t going to get anywhere if she was scared. (I would have been too scared. I might have liked the floor tumbling routines, but doing the same on the balance beam?? No way. I tried a summersault on the balance beam once in a beginner’s gymnastics class, and that was enough.)

Sey is quite critical about the coaching styles in the elite level of gymnastics. She admits that to stay competitive that she had to keep in shape even while she was recovering from injuries, but she does ask why no one in elite gymnastics puts a stop to pressuring, insisting that gymnasts keep ruining their bodies to achieve an often elusive dream. She also brings up the parents. I get the sense that her parents were not necessarily pressuring her at the beginning, but by the time Sey reached the elite level, her parents and family had rearranged their whole lives to focus on her goal. By the time that Sey was burning out, her mother was pushing her to kept trying to go on, to reach the ’88 Olympics. Sey admits that during all of those years, she did not or could not recognize the sacrifices her entire family was making for her. She feels bad now for a lot of things.

Sey is also very candid about her “diet” strategies to loose weight, and how weight was/is such a big deal in elite gymnastics. She is also candid about how she would peel the skin on her fingers as a way to cope. This is not always pleasant reading, but then I did not expect this book to be a pleasant happy read.

One part of her life that I wish she’d gone into more was her decision about a breast reduction (after she quit gymnastics, she matured and gained weight, and was not happy with the size of her chest). She does express that when she had her first son, she felt like she was not good enough because she could not produce enough milk for her baby due to the breast reduction. I feel like there is something lacking here, though. After all of the details (“despite the self indulgence”, page 279), then she kind of skips through life now. (And I wanted to know more about her BR, given that I understand, at least to some degree, because I had a BR, too.)

I do like Sey’s Afterword. She feels like a failure in everything she does now. Ever since she attained success at a young age, she says, “It is inevitable that anything less than number-one status provokes feelings of failure. . . I work myself to the brink of exhaustion to suppress the feelings of not being good enough.” However, she goes on to say that really she is not a failure, that she is trying to do her best to raise her two little boys, that she forgives her parents and thanks them.

A nice thing is that she does have an online presence, and you can go to her web site and find links to articles and pictures from her years in gymnastics in the ‘70s and ‘80s. ( )