Olympics-for athletes and 9 year olds

Friday was the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games.  Saturday was the first day of competitions.  Saturday was also the day J8 (my youngest sister) became J9.  It being July of an Olympic year, we threw her an Olympics-style party.
So far on the Olympics, we've seen swimming and men's gymnastics.  We're looking forward to seeing women's gymnastics and syncro diving tonight.  The "competitions" for J9's party were somewhat less sophisticated.  We have foam swords, so we had fencing (none of the swordplay was particularly brilliant), and we have a bow made out of PVC pipe and and arrow made out of a dowel, so we did distance archery (we didn't have a target for accuracy archery).  We had a "long jump", using the children's ballet game, "Over the Alligators".  For those unfamiliar, it involves two objects, usually a pair of shoes, which start about two feet apart, and gradually are moved farther apart as everyone leaps over both shoes.
We had gymnastics of a sort, mostly seeing who could do the best cartwheel.  Not really Olympic quality, I know.  There's a big difference between eighteen-twenty year olds who have been training nearly their whole lives and nine year olds who have virtually no experience.  J9 has had a year of gymnastics, but that was more that any of them had in any other "event".
Which brings me to the value of training.  As a dancer, I know this as well as anyone.  I would not be where I am today without ever-increasing training over the last four years.
But there is one place where training takes even greater importance.  More than a dancer, I am a soldier.  If I don't train, I could, and probably will, die.  Where is my battleground?  Right here.  As a Christian, I am constantly fighting, both myself and everything that would drag me away from God.  It is a constant battle, and it's easy to get distracted and forget what's important.  If I get distracted, I get that much more vulnerable, that much more open to attack.  I have to train all the time to keep my guard up, and, sadly, I'm not perfect.  Like ballet, I get frustrated with my progress, but I keep training anyway, because I get worse if I stop training.
I know this has been kinda rambly, especially the last paragraph.  I was working on the last paragraph when the Olympics came on.  As I was writing about being distracted, that's exactly what I was becoming.  I had a well-thought out argument, and I kept looking up and loosing it.  That's why it's so disjointed.  Sorry.

pointe4Jesus

~Dancing for Him Who died for me.~