Spinoff Thread - How should gymnastics advance?

[txgymfan]

I agree with the great majority of the posters. The longer amd longer hours, the younger and younger gymnasts, more and more difficult skills, more and more money out our pockets, crazier and crazier parents, greedier and greedier gyms (qualification: the previous statements probably apply to a smaller minority--mostly on the elite level). But what is the alternative? In order to be in the cutting edge, we must push the envelope. I am neither advocating nor not advocating the longer hours, pushing harder and harder skills, training at age 1! How does one regulate hours, skills, etc. We may incorporate more artistry. Though putting more emphasis on artistry can be just another addend and may in no way limit the gymnastics part. In addition, how can we just stay stagnant?

Also we've forgotten the role the masses, the audience, spectators role in gymnastics. They only know what they see during the olympics. Gymnastics may be like everything else--the idea is to give the audience what they want--higher tumbling, daring stunts and skills, the more out of the ordinary, the better. And don't you think the gasps and applause gymnasts and coaches get feeds into their desire to even surprise and amaze the audience, judges, fellow gymnasts. It seems to me it is the society as a whole, starting with the family unit, that may drive sports to such competitiveness. I don't think pulling back is the answer because we will fall off the charts. Do we have an alternative? If so, what? I am personally stumped.

I decided to make a spinoff thread from the TOPs thread. How do we advance the sport while encouraging artistry and not subjecting kids to crazy hours? What changes would you like to see gym's make? What changes would you like to see coaches make? What changes would you like to see in the code? I don't have answers just curious about evryone's ideas.

 

[Tumblequeensmom]

I love this spinoff question and you ask some good, well thought out questions. I honestly have no clue and am hoping some of our well-respected coaches will give their perspectives on how they'd like to see the sport progress!

 

[gymgal]

great thread! As a spectator, I would love to see more artistry in the routines. Incorporating this into the code of points and decreasing the number of tumbling elements would be a welcome change to both gymnasts and the audience. I am not saying the skill set would be any different, just not as many of them for tumbling, with more focus on "dance" elements, at least for floor and beam. As for bars and vault, that's a little harder to change but with more focus on artistry on floor and beam, that's less pounding overall for the gymnast. Maybe not less training but certainly less high impact training.

 

[UnoMas]

great thread! As a spectator, I would love to see more artistry in the routines. Incorporating this into the code of points and decreasing the number of tumbling elements would be a welcome change to both gymnasts and the audience. I am not saying the skill set would be any different, just not as many of them for tumbling, with more focus on "dance" elements, at least for floor and beam. As for bars and vault, that's a little harder to change but with more focus on artistry on floor and beam, that's less pounding overall for the gymnast. Maybe not less training but certainly less high impact training.

I 100% totally agree on the "less pounding" theory. Complicated dance passages can be just as challenging as tumbling for some girls. I would LOVE to see more of a balance.

 

[Iwannabemargo]

I like some of the old balance and strenght moves that the boys still do - press to handstand, mana etc. I think its a fallacy that the audience wants bigger tumbles - as a spectator its quite hard to spot the number of rotations / twist in real time but dance elements can really be appreciated.

 

[txgymfan]

The moves I miss see to be on beam inluding a scale to a true split, The Onodi and the sidewise back handspring (the Teza). To those who want to see more artistic gymnastics, what are some moves that you want to see done more often?

 

[ivyagogo]

I miss the old bars when they were closer together. There were more transitions between low and high bars and the transitions were much more creative. If I wanted to see high bar, I'd watch men's gymnastics!

Wouldn't it be cool if beam were different? What if it evolved to a cross shape or a T and the gymnast had to move between the two beams? That would be so fun to watch.

 

[SkiBumGymMom]

Great thread txgymfan!!

This is a difficult question. I did gymnastics when I was in high school in the mid 70s. It was before and after Nadia got her perfect 10 in Montreal (close to my hometown, although my family had moved to the US by this time). We wore polyester leos and competed on very close uneven bars. Our beam routines were based on dance/ballet, not tumbling. We did things like tucked sideward rolls and roundoffs and on bars we smacked our hips into the bar. I love it though, it was really artistic and beautiful. It was back when every school had a gymnastics team and legitimate gymnastics were done in gym classes. It was also before the age of frivolous litigation and when they got rid of gym in many schools. Connection? Ha ha.

Since then I've seen gymnastics evolve, in the 80s, in the 90s when my daughter started and now. I've seen all the scandals with accusations of child abuse, the era when to train elite girls had to move across the country to train and the wave of eating disorders (or supposed ones!). Then of course was the Mag 7 and Bela's downfall in Sydney and the upswing when Marta took over the national team. I watched the bars get wider and the hair get bigger (then smaller again, thank god!). I know there's some coaches who have been around the sport way longer and more extensively than me, but I wasn't just exposed to gymnastics when my daughter joined. However, I was exposed to a completely different type of gymnastics than I was used to when she did join that's for sure!

I'd like to see the sport swing back a little. It's made great strides in dealing with everything from scandals to having amazing skills. I just miss some of the artistry of the sport, like most people seem to do. I'd like to see more exciting transitions on bars like there used to be, more dancing in floor routines and on beam as well as more creativity in vaults. I'd like to see older girls participating, something that would be more realistic with a code change so they don't break their bodies in half. Until Nadia came around, women's gymnastics had women in it! I love watching the girls, but it would really be nice for gymnastics to be a sport you have to be under puberty to participate in like it used to be. Although I think that was starting to change, with girls like Chellsie, Alicia, Beth and of course the fabulous woman and mother, Oskana. I just think the new code will change what was becoming a positive thing, and that makes me sad. You shouldn't have to be in high school to compete in gymnastics at a high level. You can have an unlimited number of ever growing tricks that these babies do by practicing 40 hours a week and destroying their poor little bodies, but what kind of sport is that? I don't like the idea of a system that chews up and spits out girls in a sense, having them abandon their childhood and leave more likely to be injured than an Olympic champion. There's so many wonderful things about gymnastics and I love the fact my daughter gained so much from such a wonderful sports... I just feel as if there were a change we wouldn't have to resort to that. I respect and appreciate everything these girls do, but I would really like to see it return to women's artistic gymnastics.

I guess I'm just repeating what some other people have said. I don't realistically see this happening anytime soon, but if they would just change the new code that the entire world seems to be up in arms about, it'll be a start. Then we just have to step back and watch some of these fabulous women (and girls!) shape the sport with their own hard work and talent.