I walk Hallie through the choreography step by step, focusing on teaching her the broad strokes of every move. We can sharpen each motion later on, once she’s gotten the hang of the routine. She hasn’t warmed up her tumbling yet, so she goes for lazy, easy passes, like a round-off, back handspring, back tuck instead of the real deal. With Hallie toning down her skills and me performing to the fullest extent of my abilities, the playing field is almost level.

She picks up the routine fairly quickly, delighting in the creative combinations I’ve thrown together for her. Not everything runs so smoothly, though. I planned a switch ring leap connected to a switch leap with a full turn. A switch leap involves scissoring your legs back and forth, so you hit both a left split and a right split in midair before landing; each variation is tricky on its own, but the two moves back-to-back are even more complicated. That’s the point, of course—the more difficult the series is, the higher the payoff is from the judges. Hallie fumbles the combination three times in a row. It doesn’t matter how powerful or energetic she is—the move requires an absurd amount of precision.

“You have to use your arms for momentum in between the two leaps so you can have enough height on the second to make the full rotation,” I explain.

She exhales and tries it again. It’s sloppy, and she knows it. The moment her feet touch the floor, she shoots me a frustrated glance.

“More height,” I remind her, demonstrating the way she needs to swing her arms. “Try it again.”

She takes a few steps backward and screws up her face. I can tell she’s trying to visualize the move in front of her. She sashays into the combination, but the series looks more like a jumble of flailing limbs than real gymnastics. If we had a stronger relationship at this point, I’d feel comfortable pushing her to work through it. But right now, I don’t want to bring down her mood. Today, her confidence is worth more than the difficulty value of that leap series.

“Or maybe we put something else in that spot,” I suggest. “Moving on…”

When we make it through the end of the routine, I give her a celebratory high five.

“Let’s do it again,” she says, bouncing up on her toes. “For real, this time, to music.”

“You think you have all that memorized already?” I ask.

I know she’s good, but she can’t be that good.

“Not all of it, but most,” she says proudly.

“Okay,” I say, chuckling. “One more walk-through together, then you do it by yourself for real.”