Gymnastics Therapy: Part one

Some of you may have heard that my country has been hit by a massive disaster. Everyone I know knows someone from Christchurch, or someone who knows someone who was or is trapped in those buildings. There are over 100 dead already and that number is expected to rise.

My sister lives in Christchurch. Thankfully, she was in the part which was not hit badly. Now, she is back with my parents. The aftershocks were keeping her nerves on edge, so she is glad to be back home. My friend's father was one of the people rescued in this article. I was standing under the cathedral waiting for my sister last year. Now bodies are being recovered from it and its surrounds. Luck, bad or good, determined who died. I have had very good luck. Not everyone has. New Zealand is a small country. Right now, all of us are wondering around thinking that we are in a bad dream.

On one level, thinking about gymnastics seems very silly. People are dead. Gymnastics news does not seem like important news at all.

On another level, I need access to gymnastics videos now more than ever. They take me into another place - a place of beauty and amazing feats.

Now I will share my favourite videos. I planned to do this in another post, but what the hell, now seems like the best moment. I need comfort.

Part two tomorrow.

I will be back to my analystical self soon. I have several posts half completed, but right now, it is hard to write.

I hope that my readers and their people are ok.

To help quake sufferers, you may want to read the media articles I linked, which have places to send donations.

My secret

New Zealand is a rugby playing nation. When there is a match by our rugby team, the All Blacks, the country almost stops to watch it. For a few weeks, it is the default topic of conversation for everyone. When the All Blacks lose, the newspapers and magazines are smoothered in black ink, and the reasons the loss are debated all around the country. Was it the coach, the team, one single player? Is it a defect in New Zealand's national character? They say that the economy nose-dives, and that incidents of domestic violence increase when we lose a rugby match. I can believe it. As a country, we seem to define ourselves by rugby.

I am a New Zealander.

I have a secret.

I don't like rugby. I have tried to watch matches many times without success. I always end up reading whatever is nearby instead, whether it be an advertising circular, accounting textbook, or chocolate bar packet. The rugby world cup is next year, and I am seriously contemplating leaving the country while it is on, because between the media hype and the conversations at work, it is already starting to bore me.

I prefer gymnastics.

I did do gymnastics once. I wasn't that good at it. Unfortunately, gymnastics required a number of qualities that I did not have. Co-ordination was one of these. My best skill combination was a cartwheel plus cat leap on the beam. Most of the time, I ended up off the beam rather than on. I would cat-leap off, or land my cartwheel at the side. But on rare occasions, I landed both skills on the beam. I was proud of this, but my proudest moment was getting first on the floor(out of 6 girls), and an orange certificate. I quit for some reason. It was just an unspoken thing at my school that only 11 and 12 year olds did gymnastics.

A couple of years ago, I found out that you can watch gymnastics videos on Youtube. When I first started, I did not know the names of all the skills, or who the gymnasts were. Now through a combination of blogs and youtube videos, I am learning. Yet there is a certain distance between me and the sport I love to watch. Unlike rugby fans, I don't rate my chances of finding a competition of my favourite sport in my backyard. This blog is an attempt to connect with other gymnastics fans and express some of my opinions.