Balancing Act Tips Scales in Her Favor : Gymnastics: A ‘world-class beam routine’ has helped Robyn King of Mission Viejo move up to the elite division.

Thirteen-year-old Robyn King’s friends and teammates at the Mission Viejo Gymnastics Club don’t share her love for the balance beam.

But that’s not unusual, according to King’s coach, Barbara Davis. “Few gymnasts actually enjoy beam,” Davis said. “If you watch gymnastics, no one ever smiles when they’re doing beam.”

But King’s fondness for the balance beam paid off May 27-28 in Seattle at the United States Gymnastics Federation National Championships, where she placed fourth on the balance beam and 12th overall in the Level 9 division, qualifying to move up two levels to the elite division from which Olympic gymnasts are drawn.

A gymnast can’t fall very far during their floor routine, Davis said, and they can only fall once during the vault, but the balance beam presents a greater risk of injury.

“She (King) has a good kinesthetic awareness in terms of where her own sense of center (of gravity),” Davis said. “Also, she has a calm, a nice calm that few people have.”

King’s sense of calm may have failed her in December at her first national meet, the Holiday invitational in San Diego, where she fell three times during her beam routine. Davis said she began her club’s competitive season at the invitational meet to put them immediately into a pressure situation and get them used to it as early as possible.

It seemed to have worked for King, who will be an eighth-grader in the fall at Newhart Junior High School in Mission Viejo. Davis was told by judges at the national championships that had it not been for one break in King’s routine that cost her three-tenths of a point, she would have been the Level 9 champion.

“Basically, she has a world-class beam routine,” Davis said. “And that’s where you want to be. You don’t want to play catch-up on that routine.”

Mark Davis, Barbara’s husband, coaches King on her floor routine. If King is to be a national contender in the elite division, Davis said she must improve in that event.

“She has the potential,” Barbara Davis said. “Our job now is to make her aggressive . . . I think we can do that without destroying her calm.”

Davis said it will take at least two years for King to reach world-class level because it will take that long for her to learn some of the more difficult compulsory skills required of elite gymnasts.

But although it will take time, Davis says she has faith in King and the way she trains.

“She is so meticulous,” Davis said. “I know she’s going to have great compulsories.”

And the “calm” that the Davises say leads to King’s success is unlikely to be tested by parental pressure, which Barbara Davis says can ruin a young gymnast.

“The coaches put pressure (on the gymnast) and they put pressure on themselves,” said Davis. “And if their parents put pressure on them, sometimes they break.”

Davis said Robyn’s parents, Jack and Susan King, do not push their daughter too hard.

“We started it for fun,” Susan King said, “and it became a little more and a little more until she’s doing it six days a week.”

King said her daughter practices four hours a day for those six days and also carries a course load of excelled classes at Newhart Junior High.

“She’s always been a hard worker,” King said.

And Barbara Davis appreciates that.

“She wants it,” said Davis. “She has the desire and that’s the thing. I’d rather work with someone who doesn’t have the talent but has the desire.”