When the smell of foam, vinyl and sweat follows you everywhere or all your clothes have a dusting of white chalk, you might call yourself a gymnast.

If you have copious pairs of spandex shorts or a massive collection of medical tape, you might call yourself a gymnast.

Sophomore Lacy Fisher knows this struggle well.

Fisher has been a gymnast for eight years and is a member of the Manhattan High cheer team. Fisher began her journey at Gymnastics Plus and then moved to Kat’s Gymnastics in Wamego.

“I enjoy the environment; it’s home-y. It’s comforting,” Fisher said.

Because gymnastics has been such a major part of Fisher’s life, she believes that the sport has brought more than just flexibility to her life.

“It has helped me be more humble. I don’t take for granted how much effort I have to put into things,” Fisher said. “I know that in order to be really good at something you have to put a lot of time into it.”

Fisher’s experience in gymnastics, through tumbling especially, has helped her succeed in cheerleading as well.

“(Gymnastics) helps with the discipline and the tumbling and jumps obviously. I don’t think people realize that cheer is not easy and you have to be really into it for you to do it for a really long time,” Fisher said. “You have to be really dedicated to it, and I think being in gymnastics has really helped me with prioritizing when I had to do certain things.”

But Fisher says that gymnastics isn’t all work, in fact it is mostly play.

“It’s fun. It’s fun to get to work on stuff and then show it off and make it look easier than it is,” Fisher said. “That’s my favorite part, when people are like ‘you make it look so easy,’ it is really not at all. It takes a lot of effort and I think it’s kind of nice when people appreciate the effort sometimes.”

Despite everything that gymnastics has done for Fisher, she has decided not to seriously return to the sport.

“It’s a really big time commitment and it is really hard on your body,” Fisher said. “So if I did pick it up again it wouldn’t be as competitive and I wouldn’t be as dedicated to it.”