Off Topic Chinese Gymnast Training

[Moxiegrl83]

On Youtube a few minutes ago I stumbled across a video on kids Chinese gymnastics training. I know you can't believe everything on the internet, and things can be taken out of context, but is this really the norm? I know every culture has it's own views on what is socially acceptable, different parameters on child raising, and each culture has it's own unique beauty and history. But this just seemed awfully disturbing. Also, yes their men won team gold at the O's, but so far that's it right? If they dominated the event year after year, I could see them using that as justification their training works, but while competitive with the US and Russia, they don't rule every competition.

Or is this just a totally blown out of proportion video, or really old footage maybe? Hopefully?

I hope it's okay to post this. It's not meant to bash any countries training methods at all. Just wondering if you gymnastic genius's can shed some light on their training program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n11TJPFxjRo&feature=related

[video=youtube;n11TJPFxjRo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n11TJPFxjRo[/video]

 

[bogwoppit]

No that's about right. Kids are selected young and schooled and housed in sports schools. It is an honor to lots of families. But really very brutal looking compared to anything we are used to in North America.

Some of the old communist countries were pretty brutal too. I remember reading a news piece about a young gymnast who was systematically abused by her coach, until one day he killed her.

 

[Moxiegrl83]

Some of the old communist countries were pretty brutal too. I remember reading a news piece about a young gymnast who was systematically abused by her coach, until one day he killed her.

That's awful. I can't even imagine...

For me, part of the beauty of gymnastics is all the work, commitment, and sacrifice our girls give to do what they love. When you take those out of the equation, and replace it with basically force to do the sport, it's not the same. It makes it less then what it should be, does that make sense?

 

[bogwoppit]

I hear you. But I am sure in the Chinese culture, in sports circles, they would think our North American children are spoiled and undisciplined.

I guess their selection system is fairer than ours, gym here is a sport of the privileged, and well off relatively speaking. There every child has opportunities to be chosen for sports. Kids that pass the selection are further evaluated along the way and kids that are no longer suitable are sent back home. So I am sure the pressure to stay and conform is huge too.

Very hard to compare the two cultures in this respect.

But certainly the physicality and seeming brutality in training is not something parents here would tolerate.

 

[JessLW]

There's a kid in my son's kindergarten class whose parents want to make him into a Kung Fu star and he does similar training to what the young gymnasts go through. We live quite near one of the bigger sports training schools in the country and he takes half days from kindergarten to go work out there. He's 6 and has gained amazing flexibility already, full splits all ways. I am sure his kung fu teachers stretch him hard, I've seen pictures and it is just the same as the gymnastics flexibility stuff they do.

So it isn't just gymnastics, sports here are still very centralized. You can't really just go and join a gymnastics team per se, you have to be chosen. Even if you go down to a gym with a gymnastics program, the coach might not accept your child if they don't feel your child has potential. Nowadays there are recreational classes because the schools are seeing the money making potential, and Chinese people are getting richer, but it is still all very results driven. When my husband was younger he was good at cross country, but didn't have access to special sports schools so he basically had no choice. Lots of Chinese extracurriculars are like this though. You don't do sports unless you're going to be the best, you don't do piano unless you're going to be able to pass level 10 (they do tests for music. Dancing too).

I've noticed that the Western press often talks about these kids being "taken away" from their families, but that's not quite accurate. Like Bog said, most families consider it quite an honor to have their child pegged as talented, especially if having an athlete in the family could mean a big reveral of the family fortunes. Even when the parents are solidly middle or upper middle class, parents get stars in their eyes about having a champion just like parents back home do. Most parents send their kids to sports schools quite willingly.

One thing to keep in mind (and I'm not defending it really, I don't have my kids in Chinese schools for a reason) is that culturally here childhood is not really considered as sacred, so to speak, as it is back home. Kids are expected to work hard. Even regular school is grueling -- not phyically, but mentally. My students have hours and hours of homework each night. Their parents will spoil them and pamper them, but the expectation is that in return they will work hard and eventually succeed in life and take care of their parents in return. There's just a lot going on there culturally that is extremely hard for us North Americans to really "get." It is hard for me sometimes, and I've lived in this country for close to a decade.

 

[gymgurl]

Its all a bit like Mao's Last Dancer

 

[SuperGirlmlm]

I don't know if this is true, but when the kids are taken away from their families when they are around 1 year old, coaches push them down between 2 panel mats into their splits, breaking the muscles so as they grow, they stay flexible because their muscles grew that way.

 

[Moxiegrl83]

I hope not!

 

[wallinbl]

It's a different culture with different values. It's not really reasonable to judge them from the perspective of Western values and declare one better than the other. They value completely different things than we do.

 

[bogwoppit]

Children are not taken away from families at one year old. Children are all evaluated at 4/5 years, children with potential are offered places at sports schools, this is away from the parents. Parents can choose not to send their children, but it is a great honour to be chosen. Yes training is very harsh. But as Wallinbl says, do not judge them.

 

[MaryA]

A few disturbing images of kids getting smacked, kicked, and sat on, but most of this video footage could have been shot in any US gym... even the crying.

 

[mommyof1]

I guess their selection system is fairer than ours, gym here is a sport of the privileged, and well off relatively speaking. There every child has opportunities to be chosen for sports.

Fairer in the sense of giving every child the same opportunity to be chosen, but less fair in the sense of letting kids/families choose their own course. If the point of sport is winning medals for the glory of the country, then their system makes sense. If the point of sport is youth development, then our system is not perfect but at least better.

 

[bogwoppit]

Fairer in the sense of giving every child the same opportunity to be chosen, but less fair in the sense of letting kids/families choose their own course. If the point of sport is winning medals for the glory of the country, then their system makes sense. If the point of sport is youth development, then our system is not perfect but at least better.

Well not really. Not every child lives in a situation where they will even get a chance to try sports like gymnastics. At least in China every child is evaluated, so every child with potential has a chance.

How does the US do a better job with youth development if so many kids cannot even participate due to the high costs of sports involvement?

 

[JessLW]

I don't think in China it is even really *that* fair, it is just that money is less of a factor. This is a huge country and they can't evaluate every single child. Going to kindergarten in the first place is something that costs money and if kids aren't in kindergarten no one is going to spot their sports potential. But it is true that, in general, the parents do not have to be wealthy or throw huge amounts of money at their child's career, the state foots the bill to a degree. That said, there's not a lot of transparency involved in the system so it could very well be that certain parents with clout or money could get their kid seen by the right people more quickly than parents who can't contribute anything. That sort of thing is not uncommon here either.

As for who gets to choose, in China it is a moot point in general. The parents always get to choose. You have college students whose parents choose their major for them, grown men and woman whose choice of spouse hinges on parental approval. There really is no such concept of children choosing their own paths like we have in the West. Chinese people think it is irresponsible to leave big decisions up to children and often "force" their kids to do things they don't want to do, whether it be gymnastics or extra English lessons or piano, because they feel like those things will pay off in the end and their kids will thank them later.

And parents can certainly say no to sports schools. These schools have families lined up trying to get in, and there are enough small flexible kids in China that they don't have to force any one family to put their kid into gymnastics. The parents don't say no though because they, like many parents, want outstanding children. The sports schools don't guarantee success but they definitely give chosen students a big advantage.

"Taking kids away" at one or two years old is a myth. Usually sports schools don't start until primary school and that's 1st grade, so 5-6 yrs old. Anything the kids are doing pre-1st grade is generally done while the kids still live at home, like the kid in my son's kindergarten I mentioned earlier. There are gyms -- where all sports are taught -- all over Beijing and I could take my kid down to one and put her in gymnastics or have her seen by a gymnastics coach if I wanted to, it is just that most parents don't look at sports as extracurriculars so they tend not to do that. Plus, lots of kids won't actually enter a sports school until middle school, depending on the sport, and lots of kids go to boarding school at that point anyhow. It seems strange to us but it is pretty normal in the Chinese context.

 

[sglemon]

There is a better video out there, where a US father took his 2 gymnast sons to train in China for a few weeks. I need to find it. I think the biggest thing that stands out to me, when watching young Chinese gymnasts are there form. They do things over and over again and their form is perfect. It is amazing. But if the last Olympics is any indication, their methos is necessarily the best in the world at this time.

Another story, I have a friend from Ukraine who was picked to attend sports school in gymnasts at a very young age. Ukraine was still part of the USSR. She spent 2 years in gymnastcs school before she tested into swimming. She would have went to the Olympics in swimming if Ukraine got their paperwork down in time after the fall of the USSR and they didn't. Anyways her stories of the Old Solviet sports schools are very positive. She says they were the best times of her life, because all the travel and the opportunities and experiences she had. Sometimes it is hard to judge some video blurps, without the whole picture. For some the sports school is a much better life than what some of them could would normally have.