Why I Love Gymnastics Part Two: Watching It

In 2000, Andreea Raducan was (briefly) the Olympic Champion. I was very excited for her, and was gutted about what happened afterwards. My favourite routine of hers was the floor routine to some music that I liked a lot: Riverdance’s Reel Around the Sun. I liked Khorkina’s bar routine as well. It is still one of my absolute favourites. I was keen to keep involved with high-level gymnastics, but this was not possible.

Those days were the days of painfully slow low volume internet, and I was not able to download videos or any gymnastics routines because it put the internet usage over our quota (I was 16 at the time). There were many other competing things at the time such as school and hobbies. So gymnastics fell by the wayside.

In 2004, I watched the Olympics again. I was cheering for the Romanians. There were many great gymnasts at those Olympics: Ponor, Rosu, Patterson, Pavlova, Kupets, and the indomitable Khorkina. But again, time had to be spent on other things as I was in my final year of university.

The 2008 Olympics drew me into watching the sport. I watched the all around, and was cheering for Liukin as well as Johnson. I still think that both of them are fantastic; to me each epitomises a different reason why I like watching gymnastics: grace and power.

There are so many reasons to be amazed at what gymnasts do. They defy gravity, and basic human instincts in order to perform spectacular tricks which take my breath away. Now, the distance between gymnastics and me has disintegrated into a single mouse click. I can watch past and present routines thanks to Youtube. I can read fantastic commentary thanks to the bloggers.

Another aspect of gymnastics that I have an interest in is the mental component. I watch the faces of the competitors, and marvel at the strength that I see in them. I wonder about what drives them and how they train their brains to pull these routines off. I guess this shows my enthusiasm for psychology as much as my enthusiasm for gymnastics.

For me, watching a beautifully choreographed routine can lift my spirits when I am having a bad day. Watching gymnastics adds to the riches of my life, and inspires me to get up and do something. If Sandra Izbaza can do a triple full, I can go a fitness class. If Shawn Johnson can do a double double, I can do weights, (even if they are small weights).

Some people claim to love ‘power gymnastics’ or ‘artistic gymnastics.’ I believe there are many kinds of gymnastics and reasons why gymnastics can be so entertaining. I plan to detail these on coming blogs.

Why I Love Gymnastics Part One: Doing it

Not many people know that I like gymnastics. To be fair, I am not all that vocal about it. In New Zealand, there are not all that many people to discuss gymnastics with. My partner lives with me, so he is VERY aware of my obsession, and has been asked to watch a lot of routines. But lots of my friends don’t know that I like it.

Well, when I was actually doing it, the thing I liked the most was the fact that being tiny was actually an advantage. The popular sport for girls in my country is netball, in which height is a massive advantage. Netball is pretty much a mutated form of basketball. In theory, it involves less contact. In practice, contact is permissible if referees don’t challenge it. Rugby is another popular sport in my country. Again, being small is not good for this sport. In gymnastics, being small was not only ok, it was seen as a good thing.

It also did not require being picked for teams, (at least at my level). By that I mean, I never feared being picked last in sports classes at school. I went to a very cliquey all girls school where bullying was rampant, so this was a big thing for me.

I also loved the feeling of getting a skill. I did not achieve anything that challenging, but when I did achieve something, it really made my day.

Now, I have decided to do gymnastics again. I am 26 years old now, but there are a few gyms around my city, where I hope to do conditioning and possibly get back the few skills that I used to have. This will be an uphill battle for many reasons:

Firstly, I am naturally a person who does not put on muscle easily. In fitness classes, I am always the one with the smallest weights. A lot of the time, people new to weights classes are stronger than me. I especially struggle with upper body strength.

Secondly, I have not done gymnastics for 14 years. My body has changed a lot since then.

Thirdly, I am coming back from a condition called glandular fever. In other English-speaking countries, I believe it is called infectious mononucleosis (“mono”). This condition has meant a ten minute walk has tired me out which means I have not worked out for several months. So the muscle that I did have is most likely much less than it was.

I won’t be good at it. But that doesn’t matter. I think having goals involving a sport that I have enjoyed so much will benefit me a lot as a person, and help me to get fit and well again. We can get hung up on how good we are at things, or we can look at what they will do for us. Not many people get to the top of their sport, but that sport can still benefit them.