PETALUMA - These weren't the first words out of Maya Uemura's mouth Tuesday but, considering what she did and how well she did it, they certainly were the most important.
"We did spray a lot of glitter," Uemura said.
Uemura, 11 years old and a soon-to-be seventh-grader at Rincon Valley Middle School, became a champion last Friday at the USA Weightlifting Nationals in Dearborn, Mich. Weighing 72 pounds soaking wet, Santa Rosa's Uemura snatched 57.2 pounds and clean-and-jerked 81.4 pounds in the under-35 kilo weight class and the under-13 age class.
It was a remarkable moment for a girl who had begun weightlifting just 18 months ago at the Myles Ahead Weightlifting club, made even more remarkable by this fact: Until three months ago, Uemura was training only one day a week at Myles. Now she trains twice.
Yet, when asked the highlight of her trip to nationals, Uemura didn't say it was that nifty gold medal or lifting nine more pounds than she weighs or having a YouTube video posted of her competing. It was spraying glitter with her fellow lifter and friend, Athena Schrijver.
The glitter for Uemura wasn't gold and heavy. It was silver and red and it floated through the air.
"It was fun," Uemura said, unknowingly providing the verbal template for all youth sports. Freddie Myles and Jay and Kathy Uemura have taken great care in making sure that Maya has priorities in order when competing in sports. First, she must have fun. Second, she must have fun. Third, she must have fun.
"I want all my kids to play as many sports as possible," Myles said. "I want them to use all their muscle groups so they won't put stress on one particular muscle. That's when injuries occur. Plus, I don't want them to get burnt out on one sport."
Looking at Maya, she looks nothing like a kid collapsing under pressure. At first glance, and then at second and third glances as well, she provides the quintessential portrait of the kid next door, wonderfully, delightfully, blissfully oblivious to those things that give adults headaches. Like tension from expectations.
"When I warmed up, I had a lot of energy," she said. That was the extent of her memory before she entered the ballroom at the Hyatt in Dearborn last Friday. Maya didn't make it complicated, all-encompassing or otherwise suffocating. That's not easy, considering she is participating in an unconventional sport for girls.
"What?" is the usual response, her mother said, when she tells people her daughter is a weightlifter. "Most people are stumped. It's not the typical sport for an 11-year-old girl."
They want to see Maya and the muscles and the brawn and grunting and the flexing and ... oops, Maya does not have any of that. Nor cares to. Ask her to make a muscle and she tries, she really tries. Her bicep sort of tightens. Sort of. Maya looks fit, that's what she looks like.
"They think what we do is bodybuilding," Myles said. "That couldn't be farther from the truth. We emphasize flexibility and strength and fitness."
Weightlifting may be an Olympic sport but it is still hog-tied to the image of a stage parade of oil-soaked narcissists staring longingly at their biceps, the way most people look at strawberry cheesecake.
"I like to compete because it's fun," Maya said.
And it's not as if Myles quit his day job at the truck stop to try this weightlifting gig. He is a UC Davis graduate in exercise biology and he and his club are registered and approved by USA Weightlifting. Assisted by Sara Flynn, an SSU graduate in exercise kinesiology, Myles will spend hours, if necessary, to explain why weightlifting produces fewer injuries than almost every other youth sport.
"It has to do with developing and training all muscle groups, not just ones needed for a particular sport," he said. "So all the muscles work together and support each other. It's not like other sports in which a dominant muscle group becomes prone to frequent injury. The idea that weightlifting produces more injuries than other sports is simply not true. In fact, it's exactly the opposite."
Maya began weightlifting as a way to develop more strength and flexibility for gymnastics. The two sports now have become an integral part of her life, one supporting the other, to the point that when asked how long she would like to weight train and do gymnastics, the national champion's answer is quick and to the point.
"Forever," said Maya Uemura, curling a lock of hair.
For more North Bay sports go to Bob Padecky's blog at padecky.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5223 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.
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