The story behind the 1996 National Championships for me can only be summed up one way - Déjà vu. When I was 9 years old, I competed in my first State competition. I had been training hard and wanted so badly to compete alongside my team. My first event was Balance Beam. I went up ready to go and promptly FELL right off the beam on my first series of skills - a back handspring layout stepout. This was at a time in gymnastics when the saying was always, "you cannot fall and win." In those 30 seconds before getting back on the beam, I remembered what my coach had told me. "Don't think about the mistake, think about what comes next." I did my best to minimize deductions and push out the negative thoughts. For the rest of the competition, he was in my ear, talking about the next move, the next routine...not the past. At the end of the competition, I had won the State meet! Little did I know that 10 years later, at the 1996 US Championships, the competition that would decide whether or ...