What's endlessly complicated in thinking about women's gymnastics is the way that vulnerability and power are threaded through the sport.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It's all too easy when talking about female gymnasts to fall into the trap of infantilizing them, spending more time worrying more about female vulnerability than we do celebrating female strength.
The thing with gymnastics is people don't always know the events. So they'll ask me about the rings, and I'll have to say, 'Women don't do that.' Or they'll use the wrong words, like horse instead of vault. They get confused.
Gymnastics is the greatest sport in the world, and one of the hardest, but we have to watch out for domineering male figures who try to belittle and scream at young girls.
There is always tension in women's gymnastics between athleticism, grace, performance, and eros.
People assume a lot of things about gymnasts - that the girls work too hard, it's way too much for them, they are too young to work so hard.
People only see gymnastics on TV and in the Olympics at such an extreme. So it can be intimidating.
There's so much denial in gymnastics. It's a beautiful sport but the other part is numbing. You become machinelike. They'll refute this, but I've been around it. I know.
I know gymnastics. It's always been a subjective appreciation.
Everything is about your movements and precision and timing, which is what gymnastics is about.
Gymnastics is the type of sport where you can't take something that gives you more energy. Something may be great for the vault, but then you have the bars after it and you have to be more sedate for that.
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