The Stunt Gym!

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Strong personality overcomes technique

In a recent email correspondence I spoke with another coach who puts on gymnastics shows. She mentioned that the hit of her last show were the little girls in her dance program who had very little dance and lots of costuming. She was nervous that the parents would be upset not to see the dance that they were paying for. Instead that number was the crowd favorite.

I told her that people care about people, not technique. If the personality comes through with great technique, then you have a great success. But the gymnast who has personality over the gymnast who has technique, the audience will prefer the one with personality. Of course the sport is totally focused on technique and the athlete with great technique will win over the one with personality. So for this reason, no coach develops the personality, only the technique.

But this is a myopic point of view characteristic to our immediate gratification society.  The long term goals end at the Olympics, yet everyone knows that the winners of the Olympic games go on to professional careers in other fields fueled by their new found fame.   For example, Carly Patterson has just recorded a singing CD.  And, of course, the USAG promotes all their athletes who make it to the top in their new career directions.  But what has gymnastics done to prepare these performers in their new careers?  No one cares anymore that they did gymnastics.  What showmanship did gymnastics help develop in them? Next to none, in my opinion.

Television understands what audiences want to see.  They never just broadcast the routines.   Besides the fact that the routines are too short to fill air time, people want to know about the athletes.  The majority of a gymnastics broadcast is devoted to video biographies on the top athletes and the banter of the hosts who talk about the people and their struggle in training and competing.

On Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 the TV show, “So You Think You Can Dance?”  broadcast the audition of Allison Becker who is a hearing impaired dancer.  They gave her story before her audition, her dance and the judges reaction to a deaf dancer auditioning.  It was extremely moving, yet her technique was clearly weak.   Because her technique was weak, they sent her to choreography to see if she could take instruction and work with others.  She did, and they sent her to Las Vegas.

 Allison Becker audition on "So You Think You Can Dance": Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Another dancer, Kelsey White,  whose technique was equal to Allison’s was also sent to choreography but did not make it to Las Vegas.  There may have been reasons in her choreography that disqualified her, but I am convinced it was because she did not have the emotional appeal that Allison has.  And that is the difference between theater and gymnastics competition.  The theater knows that star quality is not found in technique.  It is found in the personality and story of the star.  With coaching by the choreographers to improve Allison’s technique, she has the potential of drawing a huge audience as everyone wants to see the underdog win.

The gymnastics industry needs to reassess how they train their athletes. The FIG who makes the rules has been extremely narrow minded in rewarding technique over artistry and personality. The club owners need to look beyond their immediate goals of building a reputation for training high level athletes. We have a moral responsibility to help children blossom into the unique people that God has gifted them to be. I am also convinced that parents will appreciate a program that has a bigger view then just athletic training, and who see clubs as co-laborers in developing their children into creative and expressive personalities.

In my gym, The Stunt Gym, my program is advertised as a “Christian Holistic Training Center”. The parents understand that my training is geared to develop strong and healthy bodies, expressive personalities and sensitivity to their spirits. It is time for the industry to accept that their responsibilities in training athletes goes beyond mere sport.

I started my gymnastics career in 1968 as an All Around in Men’s Artistic Gymnastics.  What started as a casual interest in wanting to be a super hero because The Daredevil trained in gymnastics, turned into 4 years of high school training.  I began on the very first of my high school gymnastics team.

What began as a boyish fantasy turned into a wonderful joy as I learned to fly through the air and to enjoy the rhythmic swing of my body on the high bar.  High bar was my greatest joy in high school.  I even competed in one of the first USGF meets in Oakland, CA back in 1971. But when I graduated, I had no thought of continuing in gymnastics. As far as I was concerned that was a high school activity that was now over.

Having not developed any clear purpose for my life after graduation, I accepted an offer from my brother to move to Washington State where I worked as a salmon fisherman outside Bellingham.  After three seasons we both had enough of it.  He moved back to California, and I stayed in Bellingham. I had not realized what an addiction to my body gymnastics had created, so I went to Western Washington State College (now University) and began working out again. There I met Frank Dakin, a former  NCAA floor ex champion who ran the gymnastics program for the YMCA at the college. He gave  me  my first job coaching gymnastics.   As long as I was working out, and was still young I longed to get paid performing gymnastics, not just coaching it.

When I had heard a radio advertisement for the Spherical Miracle Circus Works in Seattle, I called them up. As it turned out the group had disbanded and were regrouping as the Floating World Circus.  I told them I had my own trampoline and asked if I could join their circus.  Greg Albert, the juggler who formed the circus, said, “Come on down.” So I quit coaching and moved to Seattle.

To continue training I audited a class in gymnastics at the University of Washington by Dr. Eric Hughes.  I asked the gymnasts if they would like to perform in the circus with me.  They all declined since they did not want to jeopardize their amateur status.  Only Jay Lavadeur was willing to join me in the circus.  So we created a doubles tramp act and some low key acrobatics.  We performed for the summer of 1977 traveling around the Puget Sound, passing the hat for our living.

In 1978 Greg Thompson sent a request to the U of W gymnastics for gymnasts to perform on stage.  This was a professional show. Dr. Hughes called me into his office and told me about the opportunity.  He also recommended several retired athletes who might be interested in the act.  So we created a vaulting routine, called the “Wacky Illwaco Brothers” and performed nightly for a year.

The dream came into my heart to form an acrobatic theater company at that time.  Later I produced two stage shows in New Jersey for a school I coached at,  Surgent’s Elite School of Gymnastics, before I left for New Orleans to train as an Elite Acrobat in Mixed Pairs.

During that time Kurt Thomas had his show team.  I contacted him, and he turned me down since I was not a former champion, and did not see my vision for gymnastics theater.  He had a show that combined theater with competition that, in my view, did not work.

All throughout my performing career, I had to coach gymnastics to make my living since performing was not full time work for me.  When I finally got too old for performing, Montreal’s Cirque du Solei had built up a reputation that spawned many other companies that now there are many opportunities for gymnasts to work for a living performing gymnastics, which I struggled to do in an era when it was not “gymnastically correct” to do so.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Competition is a wonderful tool.  I have seen gymnasts who only train for shows, both in Group Gymnastics and acrobatics, and the lack of competition scoring shows in sloppier performances.  Competition hones the athlete and brings him or her to polish and refinement. So I applaud the industry for what it has accomplished. But for many clubs, competition is the end, not the means to another end.  Why should parents pay thousands of dollars to train their child in gymnastics for a decade or more, only for them to quit the sport when they go to college?  Of course, for the women, the goal of a college scholarship is still a justification for the expense.  But even that is becoming less available.

I propose to all the gymnastics clubs of the nation to think outside the box.  Most of the coaches only think in terms of competition.  They are not thinking of life after gymnastics.  Oh sure, there have always been “Masters Divisions” of competition, but these meets are for retired athletes who are out of shape and only capable of during their basics.  They are more concerned with making a living and raising their families.

But if you train your athletes as future professional performers while they are competing, you are preparing them for life after competition. Besides, Artistic Gymnastics, is supposed to demonstrate artistry.  Artistry is more than just clever trick combinations that are pretty to behold. True artistry is sharing your heart and soul in a performance.  That is one of the reasons that Olympians in gymnastics need to be 16 and up.  Children are not capable of expressing their hearts in a routine. That requires more maturity. Cathy Rigby, Olga Korbut, and Mary Lou Rettin won the love of the world because they put their heart into their routines.   No one really cares about the big tricks.  Everyone cares about the people. If a gymnast does big tricks while performing their hearts out, then you have a winner that inspires more kids to come into the gyms.  Don’t let competition be the end of training, let it be the means to a better end, where your athletes can make a living performing in their 20′s and early 30′s.  Think outside the box.