So the Olympics started on August 5, and it's the first time in years that I will watch them without being involved in any sports. My gymnastics career ended in late June, with a week of exhibitions followed by a dead week I knew I would never return from. It was a miracle I'm able to do some of my more "fun" skills after not doing anything for a month.

But it's not a miracle that I learned a lifetime of lessons out of gymnastics. No matter how long you're in the sport, you're bound to get something out of it. It may not have had a huge impact on some, but it definitely had a huge impact on me. For example...

Gymnastics taught me how to balance my time.

Gymnasts are notorious for long practices that take place quite often in the week. Luckily for me, my club gym had me practice two days a week. It was when I took up high school gymnastics in Connecticut that I would be at the gym six days a week. My senior year, I was at the gym every day during high school winter sports season because I took up a coaching job as well. So yeah, things got pretty busy.

This was especially stressful because my practices mostly happened late in the day and ended at nine at night. And I had to factor in getting up at seven in the morning. I didn't have the luxury of putting off all of my homework after practice either since my mom insisted I get a good night's sleep each night and especially before competitions. Factor in competitions as well, and there went a lot more of my time too. Long story short: I learned to get my homework started in school and finish before practice. It gave me pretty good practice, I admit.

Gymnastics taught me to make the most of my time.

Well, this is kinda important if you're going to be stuck in a place full of gymnastics equipment for periods of time ranging from two to four hours. It's worse if you live half an hour away from the gym and can't drive, like I did and couldn't. Did I mention that high school practices are required with few exceptions?

Gymnastics is a sport where execution of a routine relies mainly on muscle memory and perfecting that muscle memory. That means most of your time there is to be getting in your numbers and getting your conditioning numbers in as well.

Get an injury? Condition everything but your injured body part! It's a pretty good time to improve strength and flexibility. At least that's what I did when I hurt my back. The practice was ice, ab circuit, ice, over-stretch, ice, condition, repeat some combination of the above for two weeks. So yeah, had to make the most of my time during that two week period.

Gymnastics taught me to be a leader.

As you get older and older in gymnastics, the leadership roles get put upon you. It doesn't matter whether or not you're a team captain; you're expected to lead. In my case, I had to learn to get a team's attention and get them focused. I had to learn to use my voice and learn what it meant to be a leader. In my case, I learned to lead by example. I didn't tell my teammates to get their conditioning done; I cheered for them during the small things and did my work alongside them. It really is best to lead by example.

Gymnastics taught me how to be respectful.

In media, gymnasts are stereotyped as catty divas who will do anything for a spot on the podium. For example, the film "The Bronze" chronicles a diva of an Olympic gymnast (portrayed by Melissa Rauch) who reluctantly takes up coaching (despite disgust at the idea because she's "not a coach, [she's] a star"). It's really not that cutthroat in real life. Gymnasts don't wish for someone to take a deduction for a fall because it'll be an advantage to ourselves. Gymnasts focus on doing our best and supporting our teammates. That's what I remember doing. And if my team didn't come out on top, we were respectful of the winning team and knew we had some work to do next practice.

I didn't just learn how to respect other athletes. I also learned to respect the judges. Judges have to take time out of their schedules in order to come to meets and spend several hours watching routine after routine. Judges aren't obligated to do this, so you learn to smile at them after you perform and to thank them. If you so much as have a nasty attitude towards a judge, you risk being removed from the meet and setting a poor impression for your team.

It's the same with equipment too. I also learned to respect the facilities I compete in. Not every gym has the luxury of having the excellent equipment or the luxury of having a private gymnasium area to compete in. I've competed in middle school gyms for high school competitions before because there wasn't a private club gym in the area. I eventually realized that we can't change the equipment that I compete on at a meet, so I may as well deal with it. I ended up making this point to some younger gymnasts at a meet once when they started complaining about the quality of the floor.

"This is the equipment we get. We can't change it, so we may as well work with it. Would you like it if someone came into our gym and started complaining about the equipment that we practice on?" If you wouldn't want it in your own gym, don't do it in another gym. That's the philosophy I adopted in my final years of competing.

Finally, gymnastics taught me how to succeed...

Success for me includes defining my goals, pursuing said goals and finding happiness in the journey. As a gymnast, you always have a goal whether you like it or not. It could be something big such as getting a college scholarship or as small as perfecting a single skill. Either way, any sort of goal requires work in order be obtainable. When you're in a supportive atmosphere where coaches and athletes alike are cheering you on during practices, those goals seem attainable.

...And how to fall.

Gymnasts are literally taught how to fall. In practice, we learn to fall by rolling onto our backs in order to prevent injury. We also learn to catch ourselves with our hands when falling forward in order to lessen the impact of our fall.

But I also learned how to fall, figuratively speaking. Failure is something that's to be expected in life and gymnastics. There were rough practices and rough meets, but like a fall in competition, I had to stand back up and move on. Dwelling on the bad days was pointless when I had the ability to improve on my rough areas.

Basically, I learned that it's OK to fall as long as you get right back up. Failure is OK as long as you learn from it and try again. And that's probably the biggest lesson I got from gymnastics.