“When I first started tumbling, my older brother, Dwayne Harris, brought me with him to (Flip City). He was with his friends. At first he didn’t want me to go but one of his friends spoke up and said ‘he can come with us’. So I went with William, Eric, Dwayne, we all caught the bus to YMWCA. I probably went about three times. Eventually the program moved to the Boys and Girls Club (which was farther away). After a few times, my brother stopped going. I stayed for a little while but not consistently. I would teach myself outside on mattresses because I felt like they were teaching me too slow. When I learned some skills and felt like I was good enough, I would go back to Flip City. They told me I was twisting the wrong way while everyone else was doing double saults, triple saults, quad twists, double somersaults, triple somersaults — they said I had to start all over from the beginning and I could either quit or stay. I should add that Mr. Brown was the coach that told me I was twisting the wrong way. Mr. Green was our main coach. Eventually I stopped coming to practice.

A friend, Frank Riley, that I used to flip on mattresses with, told me I should come back to Flip City. I said if you come get me, I’ll come back. He came to my house , picked me up, and we went together. We started going to practice everyday since then….Frank and I made a pact. We said that we were going to catch up with everyone in the gym. We have to start from the bottom and work all the way to the top. “