A Night With Female Gymnasts

Like many people, there are many sports in the world that I only watch once every four years. That’s what the Olympics are for. I have no idea where bobsledders and curlers and canoers hang out in between the games. I have a theory that they all live on cyborg island, kind of like misfit island for toys only instead of being things no kids want to play with they are genetically perfect mutants who secrete tanning oil while drinking guava juice. At least that’s what I used to think.

Then I took my niece to gymnastics, or as she calls it, ‘nastics. She’s four. My eyes have been opened to a whole new world. This land is filled with ropes and bars and beams. Best of all, there are kids of all ages flying everywhere like some casting call for the next superhero movie, you know, something like X-Men 9: Children of Wolverine.

The kids are really cute, especially the little ones. I watched one instructor working with a few tiny girls, probably 3-year-olds. This woman had some serious patience as she attempted to teach her group how to hang from still rings. They look just like the ones you see on TV only they hang eight inches off the ground. Just 60 seconds of interaction sounded something like this:

Teacher (we’ll call her Miss Debbie): Okay girls, stand here, grab the rings, hang for ten seconds, put your feet on the ground, and then let go.

The girls blink twice then look somewhere else. One girl considers what’s inside her left nostril.

Miss Debbie: Okay Mary, hold for ten seconds. Susie, what are you doing on that. Missy, don’t pick. Uh-oh Mary, remember you have to put your feet on the ground before you let go. Okay Susie your turn. Missy, where’s your finger? Are we supposed to be on that Mary? WOAH! No, Susie! (calmer now) Let’s all have a seat girls. You can’t run and jump on the rings. They’re called still rings, not running rings. Maybe Miss Debbie told you to run and jump but if she did she was wrong. Missy, don’t wipe that on Susie.

So as you can see from the above interaction, two things become immediately clear.

1. You may want to consider a line of work other than gymnastics instructor.
2. China will probably win gold again in the next Olympics.

I’m just kidding, of course. The gold will go to Romania. But seriously, the young ladies I saw yesterday were really talented. The instructors weren’t so bad either. I saw these ladies do things that defied physics of the human body. And that was just during warmups. If I had to choose between an American gymnastics instructor and a Chinese one, I’d take the American everytime, mostly because my niece can barely speak English let alone Chinese.

She struggled with sounding her Ls for a long time so “leotard” became “retard” as in, “Yook at my retard.” It was the cutest thing. Unfortunately, there was a special needs child in that group, so I’m pretty sure everyone thought my sister was the worst parent in gymnastics history. Well, her and some of those mean Romanian moms.

At least our gymnasts are really 16

Actually, my sister is a great mom. I know because she hasn’t killed one child yet. Good parents let their kids explore different things and go for the stuff they’re drawn towards. That’s the fun part because you never know where the next kid will take you, just like our family had no idea that a little toddler would bring us one step closer to cyborg island. These girls are tough.

National pastimes are great. I looked around that building and realized the place was just another part of the American dream. Think about it. Only in the U.S. can someone walk into an abandoned warehouse and think, “you know what would go great in here? Hundreds of leaping children, that’s what.”

And there it is. We have the freedom to make such a simple decision. We have the resources to make such a place happen. We have the money to send children out for lessons in flinging their bodies around and contorting themselves into positions that yoga instructors envy. We also have the time to enjoy watching  them zing around in their yittle retards. Maybe one of them will even be in the Olympics someday. I bet my niece would yike that.