Fiery Wings
By Alan Sheng | Grade 9 | Scholastic 2024 | Personal Essay and Memoir | Regional Gold Key and National Silver Medal
The icy wind swirls around my head, clawing at my hands and feet, snapping at my resolve. Sights and sounds of a middle school track meet ensnare me. A prim orange track. Blaring yellow lights. Endless cheers of a vast crowd. They are all firewood to feed my flame. With eyes on me and an anxious silence looming, it’s time to bring out the blaze. My arms loosen, as the tension in the muscles freefall down to my legs. Gripping the insides of my spiked shoes with jittery toes, I lean down and lock my vision onto the surface of the sand pit at the end of the blue runway I stand upon.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exh-
I explode forward, the match strikes, a loose spring, blasting forward, a fireball of the night sky.
This is the triple jump, one of the most technically difficult and least-known events in track and field. Requiring top-notch speed, explosiveness, agility, and flexibility, only the most disciplined minds can survive an encounter with the sport. The triple jump consists of four phases. The run-up is where you steel your mental armor and push to maximum speeds accelerating up to a thin white board. Then, you will reach a board where you must step perfectly in the right spot or else you will be disqualified. However, upon reaching the board, the journey doesn’t end. The hop: the first part of the actual jumping, begins when you leap off the board into the air, with a full stew of mental and physical challenges to defeat: balance, height, acceleration, and finally landing. But, oh boy, when you hit the ground, it gets even worse. That same foot you used to jump off the first time has to absorb an enormous force hitting the ground — twenty-two times your body weight, the most force a limb endures in any athletic endeavor — and spring back up for another jump. This is the step phase. Finally, you have the jump. You land on the other foot, then bounce up as high as you can, stretching your body forward to the limits, and implode into the sand.
For me, this field event is my forte, the crescendo of my day, a hot passion that runs through my veins and pulsates against the chill of the night.
` Every step I take has been built up from months upon months of training. These feelings are my closest friends: the spikes digging into the ground, the cycling of my legs, the moonlight illuminating the board in front of me: the open bullseye. Yet even as my mind is utterly locked in, my heart can’t help but remind me how I got to this point.
When I take the hop, bringing my arms to sweep in front of me, I burst up. I am now reborn, rising into the air, a glowing phoenix. My first jump is the culmination of chaotic, aggressive speed that I had just built in the last few seconds. It is also, more importantly, the culmination of years of my athletic dreams. A dream to perform at the highest level of competition.
That dream was born in my early childhood, watching soccer stars like Luka Modric and Lionel Messi making breathtaking shots in front of tens of thousands of cheering fans. Seeing the ball dance in between legs and around bodies and dominating the air made me envision myself in the same glowing atmosphere.
The dream was kindled in those tense moments I watched, when the ball could change at any moment, the game could turn at any play, the hot intensity rising with every inhuman move and explosive maneuver.
But those thoughts were doused when I looked in the mirror. I could dream, but with my five-foot, ninety-pound, tiny figure, they would never become reality. Perhaps it was generations of nonathletic relatives. Or maybe if I let the voices of the other kids into my head, it was because I was Chinese.
So I quit soccer in sixth grade and focused on my other academic and musical passions. I fashioned barriers of bitter denial to hold in my hopes, like weak wax walls. You will never be good. Everyone will laugh. You’ll only waste time trying. But fire melts wax. On every hiking trip where I could run, bound, and leap through the forests, the fiery passion thinned the wax.
However, casual exercise never gave me that early sensation of playing a sport at the highest level, like soccer stars.
But it was in those moments, the fire would escape. When sparks of an old dream hit the dry, waiting wood.
In those moments, I was a phoenix, rising out of the ashes to fly again.
The breaking point came when I absentmindedly scrolled through my YouTube recommendations and came upon a video about highlights of the Olympic track events. I saw perfection: people who had spent hours, weeks, even years, fine-tuning each muscle and each step so that when they set foot on the competition stage, they would bring the thunder, lightning, and the whole storm. In my eyes, the sprinters, long-distance runners, pole vaulters, discus throwers lit the ground in brilliant flames. There was a whole host of delights to feast my eyes upon and feed the fire in my heart.
And so, as you may have guessed, when the principal announced track sign-ups early in eighth grade, my name practically sprinted to plaster itself onto the page.
As my foot goes down to complete the hop, the start of the journey is over — taking the first leap into the air.
Now beginning the step, I brace myself for a catastrophic impact that threatens to strangle my bones and send shock waves through my muscles. When my foot makes contact with the ground, I cycle my leg through, grit my teeth, and push back against the ground. The phoenix soars once again and I return to the past.
I finally had hope again, a flame burning in my soul. But that didn’t mean finding the right hearth for the fire would be easy. First, I tried the high jump. I couldn’t clear my own height, and that wasn’t saying very much to begin with. I ventured over to the shot put pit, but they turned me away after I rolled up my sleeves. Finally, I did the sprinting and long-distance time trials. My times were slow, and my lungs were throbbing before I’d even reached the halfway mark. At best, you’ll be average, the coaches said. The other kids didn’t need to confirm; their faces were enough. The old thoughts started to return. But my coach saw the forlorn look wracking my face, and he took me over to the long jump pit. After a few measurements and some plyometric warm-ups, he lined me up with the rest of the other kids trying out. I watched in amazement as different people exhibited pristine technique, raw explosiveness, and blinding speed.
Then, when it was my turn to go, I stepped onto the runway and looked forward. I glanced at the coach. A thumbs-up. I turned my eyes down to the ground and placed a foot back to steady my position. Instead of worrying about the outcome, I took off, flying at speeds I had never reached before, straight to the takeoff board, desperately willing it to push me up with my mind. When I hit the white border, I took off at maximum strength, hung in the air for a second, and then crashed down into the sandy mounds. With a wide grin, I waited beside the coach for my result.
A strong wind brushed my ears right as he spoke.
“ — teen.”
“What was that, coach?” I chirped. Probably fourteen. Maybe fifteen or sixteen if I was hopeful.
“Ten.”
“You mean — ”
I faltered in my speech.
The coach worked his jaw for a few seconds.
“I — , yeah. Ten feet.” he finally said.
The wax walls were starting to reform, but now beginning to harden into cement. Ten feet. It was practically nothing. The other kids were starting to go home, and I began to follow. I yanked my backpack up and kicked a stray Gatorade bottle to the side. I knew I would not be coming back.
“Wait,” said the coach.
I turned to glare back at him.
“If you really care about this, then come back tomorrow. I don’t care about people with crazy talent if they don’t want to work hard. If you’re willing to put in the effort, I can help you get a lot better. You won’t win any meets, but at least you’ll have something to show for your hard work.”
Now it was my turn to work my jaw.
“Come on, man. Trust me, sports aren’t just about winning.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Ok, maybe a little,” he laughed.
I shifted my backpack on my shoulders and turned to face him. “All right, then.”
He smiled. “See you tomorrow.”
Back to the tense moment of this outdoor track meet, the triple jump continues. As my right foot touches down a second time to the ground, my body convulses from the impact. Getting through the step is hard, and you can never truly be prepared, but it can set you up for the final push to glory.
Reaching out with my left foot, I stretch my legs to the maximum interval they can go, With this final leap of the triple jump, I am reaching the most beautiful reward at the end of the journey: the jump phase. This is my chance to reach toward the stars, to spread my wings, to paint the blazing mark across the sky. And every muscle fiber, every neuron in my brain, every spark in my heart, built upon the bricks that were weeks of hope and determination to get better.
Near the beginning of my outdoor track season, I eventually stumbled into a new event that popped up in my YouTube recommendations; the mysterious yet enthralling triple jump.
Like a newborn bird, I dashed over to my nearby high school track and ripped off the cover of the sand pit. My first attempt was chaos: I was out of breath after two miles of crazed sprinting, I hadn’t even warmed up, and my technique was obscene. After a few reminders of throbbing ankles and tingling hamstrings, I reluctantly endured twenty slow minutes of warm-ups and plyometrics to set my body in the right state to perform. Step back. Breath in. Step forward. Breath out. Step back. In, and CHARGE! I sped forward and attacked the takeoff board. Hop, step, jump, and then — . I landed hard on the blue runway and toppled sideways into the sand, talons of pain clawing up my legs.
Weeks of rehab and recovery ensued. After that, I continued working on my technique and drilling every part of the long jump. Occasionally, I would rep a few triple jump exercises, but I never stepped onto the runway to officially do it again. That was until Coach pulled a blank sign-up sheet for the triple jump team. At first, I hesitated, but watching other people swarm to fill up the paper, I realized my chance would soon be lost. Long jump had been a blast, but it was time for me to embrace new trails too.
When it was finally time for me to make the jump, I began to hyperventilate. Visions flashed through my head, thoughts of broken bones, missing the outdoor season, disappointing my coach —
A thumbs-up in the distance. Coach smiled at me and nodded his head. I remembered the walls, the pain, the despair. But then I recalled the dreams, the fire, and the hope from the chance that one coach gave to me. So I loosened my muscles and let go of the thoughts. It was time to bring out the flames and spread my wings. I had become a phoenix, flaring with pride in the air. I soared down the runway, gliding through the air. When I hit the board, I flew through it, embracing, inhaling, intaking my new domain of the sky. I never even felt the impact when I touched down. I absorbed every ounce of that last moment of bliss that ascended my soul to a new dimension; then I returned to the physical world, sliding into the sand, dragging astonished eyes with my body as I rolled up to my feet.
The following weeks were full of new invigoration and passion. With every lap I pushed to complete during practice, every drill coach demanded that left me exhausted, every new inch added to my personal record, the fire burned brightly.
A blur of orange, yellow, and red singlets surround me, some belonging to my friends, some to other competitors. After all the training of the past months, this meet is like a warm hearth comforting me and at the same time, a match setting me off on an adventure. When I cycle my legs through the air, tuck in my knees, and drop into the sand, my mind is not on the thoughts of winning, but being able to spread my fiery wings.
Stadium lights radiate into my eyes as I grip a pristine silver medal in my hand. Rather than blinding my vision, I absorb the light, feeling the warmth in my bones as my friends cheer and yell behind me. However, as I hop down from the podium, the glow in my heart begins to expand — not because of the congratulations I’m getting, but something that has been building my whole life. Even though I won the medal for the King of the Mountain Invitational, I don’t consider it just mine. I share the credit with my encouraging friends, my coach who believed, and my heart that kept the fire until it was ready to be unleashed. I know that I will probably never break a world record, compete at the top collegiate level, or even become the best in my school. But it was never about being the greatest. It was about breaking my barriers and realizing my dream to be the best athlete I could.
On a calm, breezy day, I stretch my arms in the lazy sun. The season is over and I am free to engage in whatever activities I want for the next two months. But I’m outside, pumping up my limbs for a few hours of long and triple jumping. And this is right where I want to be. Breaking those first barriers, those weak wax walls, let out the fire inside me. Now escaped to burn however brightly it wants, the flame is pushing me to find new challenges, to smash new obstacles, to feed that hungry passion. So I do.
When I take the first leap, I am once again on the trail of a new journey, spreading my wings like a phoenix reborn.
