Senior spotlight: Yurina Harada of Ridgewood

As a youngster, Yurina Harada was determined to become a gymnast, but she may have had second thoughts once she got up on the balance beam.

“It still scares me to be on the beam,” Harada said with a laugh as her senior year at Ridgewood approaches. “It has always been my hardest event, but I like it more now.”

Previously, Harada’s most difficult struggle was convincing her mother to allow her to sign up for gymnastics in the first place.

“My mom put me in ballet when I was 6,” Harada said. “I was a little ballerina, but then I went to a birthday party.”

The party was held at a gymnastics club, where she was fascinated by the trampoline and other gear. There, the idea for a change in activities was spawned.

“My mom tried to talk me out of it,” she said. “She showed me a video about how intense gymnastics was, but that made me like it even more.”

Since then, Harada has blossomed into a two-time North Jersey all-around selection. Last year, she recorded the season’s highest floor exercise score (9.675) by a North Jersey gymnast during the state championships, where she tied for first place.

Her wariness on the beam has not been easy to overcome. “I wasn’t really comfortable until the beginning of this year,” the 5-foot-3 standout confided, crediting a switch of training clubs for her improvement.

It’s the floor exercise where Harada has become most comfortable. There, she’s a combination of a ballerina’s grace and an athlete’s power.

“Once I started doing double-backs on the floor, I began to enjoy it more because it was a skill that came pretty easily,” she said.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/sports/high-school-sports/girls-gymnastics/it-all-balanced-out-for-harada-1.1051874#sthash.40JKEqGW.dpu