The life of any college student can get pretty hectic. But on top of the mental stress that all students have to go through, a college athlete also goes through physical stress. The physical strain of training multiple days a week on top of competitions is enough to exhaust just about anybody. That’s why it’s so incredibly rare to come across a DI athlete who is involved in multiple sports, and that’s exactly what Valentina Lorente-Garcia does. She’s a gymnast at Rutgers, and she’s also majoring in dance.
Similar to most college gymnasts, Lorente-Garcia has been doing gymnastics since she was very young. More specifically, she’s been in the gym for 15 years. That means most of her life has been spent there, which doesn’t leave much time for anything else. Because of this, she had to put some of her other passions to the side, one of which was dance. Other than some ballet classes here and there, Lorente-Garcia didn’t have much dance experience when she was growing up. Her journey as a dancer began when she arrived in New Brunswick.
“I never went to a studio because I dedicated my life to gymnastics,” said Lorente-Garcia. “So that was the only thing that I did, like ballet classes.”
Being a part of both a DI gymnastics program and a college dance program is quite the balancing act. Lorente-Garcia is just a freshman, so she still has a lot to learn about how to manage her time and body. But even after just one semester, she’s already learned some tricks that work for her. She said that two things she likes to focus on are her sleep and her stretching. If she focuses on those two things, her mind and body will be at their best to train for both sports.
Lorente-Garcia doesn’t have to manage her hectic schedule all by herself, though. Rutgers head coach Umme Salim-Beasley has created an incredible staff of specialists that help gymnasts manage every aspect.
“We really recommend working with our nutritionist, as well as our sports psychologist, because mentally it’s very draining when you are in a major that’s having you be active all day long,” said Salim-Beasley. “The nutritionist knows these are the things she’s going to need to put in her body so that she can maintain a level of activity throughout the day and do it successfully.”
Gymnastics and dance are very different, but they have some elements that overlap. So although managing the two is physically taxing, it can also be physically beneficial. Lorente-Garcia’s gymnastics training helps with her dance training, just as her dance helps with her gymnastics.
One of Lorente-Garcia’s dance teachers, Jeff Friedman, said that her years in the gym is evident in her dancing. High-level gymnasts go through a great deal of strength training, so Friedman says that Lorente-Garcia “already has a lot of upper body strength” needed to be a successful dancer. Years of flipping upside down in the gym has also given Lorente-Garcia an advantage on the dance floor. Because of that experience, “she isn’t afraid to do inversions.”
Balancing two sports along with the academic workload that college brings isn’t for everyone. It’s hard, but people don’t just do it for no reason. In order to push through the exhaustion that comes with being involved in two sports, there has to be something that makes it worth it. For Lorente-Garcia, that something is her passion for choreography. She’s overflowing with that passion and has been creating routines for gymnasts at her club and at surrounding clubs for three years now. She also choreographed her and several of her Rutgers teammates’ floor routines this season. And in the future, she wants to take her skills to the big stage and become a stage choreographer.
“That’s what I really want to do, and I’m really interested in stage management as well as being a choreographer,” she said.
The amount of passion that Lorente-Garcia has for both gymnastics and choreography is very promising for her future. Whether she ends up as a stage choreographer or as something completely detached from dance altogether, her passion for what she does will carry her far.
READ THIS NEXT: League Rules, Forgotten Leotards and Logistics Galore–What It’s Like to Travel With Rutgers
Article by Emily Lockard, additional reporting by Emily Minehart
Like what you see? Consider donating to support our efforts throughout the year!
One comment