WAG Addressing the Lack of Artistry in Current Gymnastics

[Deleted member D3987]

If our young ones can be taught to point their toes, they can be taught not to make talons with their hands. If they can be taught not to flex feet, they can be taught not to "flex" hands/wrists. If it is something a professional dancer spent fifteen years learning, can most elite gymnasts learn it? No. If it's something basic that an average nine year old ballet dance student can master, should future elite gymnasts be able to figure it out (looong before they are doing 4-5 tumbling passes or doubles)? Yeah, probably.

and herein lies the problem with non-gymnastics people understanding what exactly it takes to do Elite and even Level 10. in the final analysis, the kids HAVE learned what to do with their hands and feet. it's what happens at a meet when facing down a different time zone, diet change, different altitudes, different equipment, etc; and then having to perform what you see us do. the hands and feet go out the window. we must SURVIVE what we are doing. and a gymnast will do whatever it takes to make it to their feet whether it was done perfectly or not.

you can't possibly understand what it feels like to feel maybe a bit under the weather, tired, jet lag, bad food, upset stomach, a shin splint, bad bed, different equipment, etc; (just to name a few antagonizers) and then perfectly execute a handspring double front, a triple off high bar, a double layout or double double, and ANYTHING that comes as the LAST skill in any men's or women's routine.

these kids are not doing frickin tour jetes. they are doing gymnastics. and most of it most people will NEVER understand how hard it is to do. a ballet dancer may spend 15 years perfecting their hands and feet but will NEVER have to face down a whip to full in, or 1 1/2 twist step out to arabian double front to punch front.

comparing any other endeavor with gymnastics, with the exception of diving or stunt skiing, will be lost on me. gymnastics is apples and all others very SMALL oranges...

i guess one has to be a former gymnast to understand how extreme difficulty effects artistry. and too much difficulty compromises artistry altogether when the gymnast must survive the task. THIS is why what has happened to the code is so eggregious. Nellie is a former gymnast. she should know better. Grandi did a little gymnastics but he is stoooooopid.

 

[Guenhwyvar132]

I sometimes wish they got rid of the music in women's gymnastics just like in men's floor. Then there wouldn't be a need for the "random arm movement" type dance and instead they could solely focus on tricks, jumps, and a few flexibility type moves. I know the music can make it more fun but without it people wouldn't expect the complex dance moves.

 

[Kiwi]

too much difficulty compromises artistry altogether when the gymnast must survive the task.

I think this sums it up. And I guess the argument comes down to what each person wants gymnastics to be. Do we want flowing routines that weave acrobatics and dance together into a beautiful performance, or do we want extreme on-the-edge difficulty? It is called Women's Artistic Gymnastics, but if we aren't going to bother with artistry, we might as well rename it by removing the word 'artistic'.

 

[Midwestmommy]

Principal ballerinas in professional companies or professional dancers in contemporary dance are amazing athletes with amazing physical endurance and skills. It's a lot more than just art. Professional ballerinas are some of the toughest strongest athletes in the world. Anyone who claims otherwise has spent no time with or around a professional dance company. Like gymnasts, many of them wreck their bodies. I have a family member/relative who is an elite athlete in a different sport and she ain't no "small orange." I think some elite gymnasts are combining artistry and power beautifully. And some aren't. Some JOs and NCAA athletes have beautiful lines and some don't. They aren't mutually exclusive. Code changes, like anything so political tend to be, are a mess... I also can't stand the lower number of athletes at the Olympics per country... And some want to lower it more, ridiculous IMHO.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Principal ballerinas in professional companies or professional dancers in contemporary dance are amazing athletes with amazing physical endurance and skills. It's a lot more than just art. Professional ballerinas are some of the toughest strongest athletes in the world. Anyone who claims otherwise has spent no time with or around a professional dance company. Like gymnasts, many of them wreck their bodies. I have a family member/relative who is an elite athlete in a different sport and she ain't no "small orange."

"Just" art? If anything I said about art implied that I think artists are somehow less impressive or show less physical prowess than athletes, I sincerely apologize; I never said, meant, or even thought such a thing. I don't think calling an activity "art" (as opposed to sport) in any way denigrates the athletic prowess or the training of those who do it.

I would absolutely describe ballet and other such performance disciplines as art and not sport, but you will never see me calling it "just art."

I think some elite gymnasts are combining artistry and power beautifully. And some aren't. Some JOs and NCAA athletes have beautiful lines and some don't. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I think you're completely misunderstanding what I say when I say art and sport are mutually exclusive.

I am NOT saying that athleticism and artistry are mutually exclusive.

What I'm saying is that true art cannot be objectively evaluated, because its quality is in the eye of the beholder. Sports, however, MUST be objectively evaluated, otherwise competition is meaningless.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

and she is not getting the "facing down" part. the gymnast faces down a double double. the ballerina a tour jete.

how on earth to explain to non gymnastics people that double doubles and tour jetes are not the same animal...

 

[Midwestmommy]

Is figure skating sport or art? Their scoring system is now pretty complex, and I think with the TES (Technical Element Score) and Program Component scores added together, they are trying to give value to both the technical difficulty and excecution, as well as the artistry.

 

[Midwestmommy]

Seriously, Dunno?? Anyone who is not an elite athlete, coach or parent of an elite is a "non-gymnastics" person?? Wow.... I do mostly pay the checks and my daughter does the hard part. Um and I am a fan and have seem some awesome competitions as a fan. This is one of the problems with this sport, even someone paying huge amounts of money with a kid in the sport, is just a "non gymnastics" person, if they aren't in the "insiders club"? I know a heck of a lot more about this sport and have a kid who does it and spend TONS of money on it......compared to what I know about football. But I consider myself to be a "football person." Jeesh such elitism. I'm just one of the dumb zombies paying the bills..

I think LOTS of female athletes are amazing, including but not limited to gymnasts.

No one said double doubles are the same animal as a tour jete. As to what I get or don't get..... well I have some dumb moments and some moments of real clarity like anyone else... Also not the same animal: A difficult vault in gymnastics and a principal dancer facing down a very long Pas De Deux en pointe at the end of a long week. Both are incredible athletic accomplishments.

I'm not talking about the codes, I just think some basic/easy artistry beyond pointed toes with the youngins is a little lacking at times in the US...

 

[JBS]

If our young ones can be taught to point their toes, they can be taught not to make talons with their hands. If they can be taught not to flex feet, they can be taught not to "flex" hands/wrists. If it is something a professional dancer spent fifteen years learning, can most elite gymnasts learn it? No. If it's something basic that an average nine year old ballet dance student can master, should future elite gymnasts be able to figure it out (looong before they are doing 4-5 tumbling passes or doubles)? Yeah, probably.

Double doubles with flexed wrists...that's a statement...and that's what wins with todays code of points.

This is not ballet or ice skating.

 

[Midwestmommy]

Double doubles with flexed wrists--that's a statement. Who made that statement? I read back through all the posts and no one did.

Floor routines have more than double doubles in them... And who said it's ballet or ice skating???

Goodness, I am a gymnastics fan and I get it with both barrels for simply suggesting young gymnasts could have more artistry other than the pointed toes. Holy guacamole, this whole string made me like US gymnastics a little less today. But I will still do my zombie duties and bring my child and pay my hard earned money!

 

[JBS]

Double doubles with flexed wrists--that's a statement. Who made that statement? I read back through all the posts and no one did.

Floor routines have more than double doubles in them... And who said it's ballet or ice skating???

Goodness, I am a gymnastics fan and I get it with both barrels for simply suggesting young gymnasts could have more artistry other than the pointed toes. Holy guacamole, this whole string made me like US gymnastics a little less today. But I will still do my zombie duties and bring my child and pay my hard earned money!

I said double doubles with flexed wrists are a statement...art at it's finest.

My wife loves ballet...I don't. I love artistry though...like Metallica.

And floor routines don't have a lot more than double doubles in them today...not if you want to score high.

 

[skschlag]

hmm. I think I read things differently. My thought was, that a gymnast, getting ready to do a pass that ends with a double double, is focused so much on not landing wrong, making the flip around, basically, not getting injured, paralyzed or dying, to be worried about the artistry of what they are doing. They just want to get through the pass.

 

[Midwestmommy]

My daughter did great at her last meet and she is not even thinking about double doubles yet. The 20+ kids invited to national training camp are not the only kids in gymnastics in the US that matter.

I love watching elite gymnastics. And I love watching the super bowl. I didn't play college ball. But my good friend did. I have an opinion about football head injuries and hope new innovations for helmets will help a little, as well as some small changes to tackling technique. I also don't think my opinion is completely and totally invalid because I never personally sacked a quarterback.

And let's not forget we are talking about children in gymnastics, minors. If the sport gets so extreme that getting injured, paralyzed or dying starts to happen on a regular basis, someone will need to put a stop to the nonsense. Yes, I know, as I am a nongymnastics person according to some people's definitions, my opinions aren't valid.

 

[B&M's mom]

I'm not a gymnast or a dancer simply the Mom who gets to occasionally hear what my L10 DD is working on as she trains to qualify as an Elite. I was informed that she will now have a 4 pass floor routine which means that in a 1:30 she has to complete 4 multi-skill passes, plus all the other requirements and dance throughout it. Her floor routine which was professionally choreorgraphed to have plenty of dance has been reworked to fit all the skills in, leaving far less dance. So being artistic is a really tough assignment even for her, who has taken multiple years of dance. So, if she's less than expressive but manages to complete the routine without injury, I'll be thrilled.

Comparing a gymnast doing a floor routine to an ice skater who gets 2+ minutes for their short routine (which has specific requirements that can't be deviated from) and 4 minutes for their long or a dancer who has more than a minute and half of music to dance to is not quite fair. I do love seeing "artistic" routines but as I've watched my DD train, I've come to understand that sometimes its not possible to have it every time.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Double doubles with flexed wrists--that's a statement. Who made that statement? I read back through all the posts and no one did.

Floor routines have more than double doubles in them... And who said it's ballet or ice skating???

Goodness, I am a gymnastics fan and I get it with both barrels for simply suggesting young gymnasts could have more artistry other than the pointed toes. Holy guacamole, this whole string made me like US gymnastics a little less today. But I will still do my zombie duties and bring my child and pay my hard earned money!

i regret that you're not understanding the point. and i certainly mean you NO offense.

the point is that artistry goes out the window, as i said, when the difficulty becomes so extreme that the gymnast and coach must make a decision. to go balls out with power and technique to successfully execute a skill or...well, there is no or. if the skill ends up looking less artistic then so be it. and if other elements, like dance, have to take a back seat to the successful completion of a HUGE skill or end skill then that's what will happen.

in the old days, for example and i repeat myself, the elites had 3 passes. 1 of them was very difficult. the other 2 not so much. but all 3 together were much more difficult than even what you see level 10's perform today. the point? there was a balance of difficulty with the artistry. and there was no need to throw anything more difficult because it got you nothing as the code had not expanded.

now we are like diving and trampoline. with this code you get tenths for skills that you do. like a Geinger. it's a D. you get 2 tenths for the D. every skill has a difficulty rating. it's called the "D" score when the Judges are done, there is 1 Judge who has 'added up' all that the athlete has done. and you will end up with a total, as example, with something like a 5.5.

then there is the "E" score. or execution/artistry. and let's say were at floor. the "E" score will be all about the dance/choreography/leaps/jumps etc; they nitpick this stuff to death. but what they see when they judge is easier for them to take deductions for 'artistry' than it is for difficulty. a good double layout, for example, is harder to take a deduction on if it is successfully completed. but a switch leg leap is easier to deduct because you can see 'subtle' flaws in execution.

in order to win the gymnast with the higher "D" score, all things being equal, will win the event. and when i say equal, this includes deficient artistry. and the reason i am presenting you on why this is is because that "D" score is more important. and in order to train and successfully complete the skills that total the "D" score, the gymnast and coach have to spend more time there. not on the switch leg leap. why is this? because the dance is easy compared to the "D" (and e and f and g and h and so on) because facing ANY dance move has less margin for error and the athlete doesn't have to be preoccupied with the daunting proposition of missing that dance move. maybe they roll an ankle.

but rolling an ankle is the least of our concerns in the grand scheme of things. you have to have a high total "D" score to be competitive and beat the field. if someone has perfect artistry, whatever that is, it is more likely than not that they will have NO difficulty. it's like i said previously...you can't have peace and freedom at the same time. peace being difficulty and liberty being artistry respectively.

what i'm trying to get you to understand is that, and in my example, facing down an "E" skill at the end of a routine will be light years ahead of any dancer performing their most difficult skill. and anywhere in their performance whether it be at the beginning or at the end. but even the dancer must have stamina to perfrom their most difficult 'whatever' at the conclusion of the number.

now, you used "Pas De Deu" as your example. understand that a gymnast would be relieved if that's all they had to do. and especially at the end of any routine. if you are in gymnastics with a competitive gymnast of your own, then you will have to come to understand this. you stated "If it is something a professional dancer spent fifteen years learning, can most elite gymnasts learn it? No. If it's something basic that an average nine year old ballet dance student can master, should future elite gymnasts be able to figure it out (looong before they are doing 4-5 tumbling passes or doubles)? Yeah, probably.

you are missing the point. a gymnast WILL learn whatever took 15 years for a dancer to learn. and the gymnast doesn't have 15 years to learn it in. and then they have to learn mastery in 4 or 6 events. not just "Pas De Deu". so your own answer to that is incorrect. it is not "No". the gymnast WILL learn the Pas De Deus. and the point is that if that dance element is the very last that they will do going in to the corner of their last and 4th final pass the gymnast will perform the Pas De Deus without much of a thought. but at that point of the routine, the gymnast is thinking ahead to the last and final pass of double layout.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

now, because of all that i have explained in the aforementioned, the Judge takes an "artistry" deduction on that Pas De Deus. but the gymnast or coach is not as concerned about that element as they are about facing down that double layout. cause without the double layout the gymnast has no chance of winning against the field. if THAT is not performed beyond average, the gymnast won't be performing that Pas De Deus anytime soon thereafter. it is a very simple concept.

it takes much less to perform a Pas De Deus whether perfectly or imperfectly done than it does to perform any acrobatic gymnastics skill. and absolutely less energy at the end of any routine performed on any event. and when you combine all that the elite gymnast must do, artistry may be compromised in the final analysis simply because the code requires difficulty over artistry. you see, if the elite gymnast falls, they receive a 1.0 deduction for falling. and their chance of falling on a Pas De Deus is remote compared to almost anything that a gymnast must perform on the other 10 events.

i would expect a dancer of 15 years to perform a Pas De Deus near perfectly. this would include performing that 3 times in a row and even at the conclusion of a dance number. but i would not expect a gymnast to do likewise in a floor routine because they have tumbling skills that far exceed anything that a dancer will ever perform. and the gymnast will be performing this difficulty at the beginning, the middle and end of a routine. and that difficulty far exceeds anything that the dancer will ever perform in their number. a gymnast can 'fake' the dance and artistry. but they can not fake the tumbling. ever. a dancer will never be in a position to fake the difficulty that a gymnast must perform.

it's important for any parent that has a child in gymnastics to understand this. this is why parents of gymnasts have a difficult time discussing their child's gymnastics with their kids as they get more proficient. and since you brought ballet in to the discussion, and because you sound like you know ballet, i will use it in the next example. and you are the parent that knows ballet.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

let's say the kid comes home after practice. she tells her parents that she is very close to ending her floor routine with a tuck double back. but the parent says "that's good, but in your last meet your Pas De Deus wasn't as clean as it could be, how is that going?" the child responds "they still look the same but the coach says they are fine. we have been spending more time in cardio conditioning so that i'll have the stamina that i need to end with a double tuck". but the parent says "well maybe if that Pas De Deus was performed perfectly, your score would go up .10." the child responds "yes, that's true. but the double back is more important for the difficulty that's required so i need to spend more time there". and the parent responds " you know that i did ballet, and i think that equal time should be spent on both of those skills because the Pas De Deus is difficult also". the child responds "okay, can i eat now cause i have to finish my home work". as she walks away from the parent, she is talking to herself in her head that her parent just doesn't get it.

so, it's not about the money that you spend. or that you are a dedicated gym mom. or any of that. it's about the FIG code and what is expected from the athletes in today's gymnastics environment. they want difficulty and artistry together. like the world wants peace and freedom together. neither can be accomplished or achieved. and i don't understand where/why you think "politics" has something to do with this discussion. their may be politics in Judging. but there is NO politics in what the kids have to perform.

finally, i bring up Pena's vault once again as a final example. the vault that she performs is at the top of the food chain for difficulty. and she performs it so poorly that the only thing that is keeping her from receiving a 0.00 is that somehow she narrowly puts both her feet down. her vault is the most disgusting thing that i have ever seen from an "artistry" point of view as the metric for artistry and for the utter lack of beauty. gymnastics should be beautiful even if there are subtle flaws in that artistry.

yet Pena keeps on making vault finals. at Worlds and the last Olympics. she out scores lesser difficulty vaults. but in most cases those less difficult vaults are the pinnacle of beauty and artistry. but she will continue to beat the field by over a point on most vaults because her 'start value' is that much higher than the rest of the field BEFORE anyone steps up on the vault runway. and the fact that she beats other gymnasts with lesser difficulty with flawless execution or artistry is the fault of the code.

and the same holds true for floor and beam. you could have a gymnast with less difficulty than the competitive field, but has the artistry of a ballerina. unfortunately, this kid will never medal certain of her difficulty.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

My daughter did great at her last meet and she is not even thinking about double doubles yet. The 20+ kids invited to national training camp are not the only kids in gymnastics in the US that matter.

I love watching elite gymnastics. And I love watching the super bowl. I didn't play college ball. But my good friend did. I have an opinion about football head injuries and hope new innovations for helmets will help a little, as well as some small changes to tackling technique. I also don't think my opinion is completely and totally invalid because I never personally sacked a quarterback.

And let's not forget we are talking about children in gymnastics, minors. If the sport gets so extreme that getting injured, paralyzed or dying starts to happen on a regular basis, someone will need to put a stop to the nonsense. Yes, I know, as I am a nongymnastics person according to some people's definitions, my opinions aren't valid.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

actually, your opinions are valid. and you are a non gymnastics person. and that's what i am trying to explain. you're late to the wedding. everyone is already 'drunk' with injuries. but not the other 2 that you mention. but that is the consequence of the code. and that code needs to be changed. and Bruno is to stupid to understand why. so, at least you understand the injury aspect BETTER than the gymnastics person in Bruno Grandi.

where you threw me off is when you dovetailed dancing/ballet in to the discussion about difficulty. again, gymnastics is very big apples and ballet is very small oranges from a DIFFICULTY point of view. they just can't ever be compared.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Is figure skating sport or art? Their scoring system is now pretty complex, and I think with the TES (Technical Element Score) and Program Component scores added together, they are trying to give value to both the technical difficulty and excecution, as well as the artistry.

not true. the figure skater with the MOST difficulty, wins out every-single-time even when their artistry is lacking over the competition field. and ironically, i just had a conversation about this on a flight with a Judge/Coach higher up from figure skating. she sees the same issue as i have explained in their sport.