Just got done watching the girl's gymnastics on the Olympics. Go USA! I'm so proud.My mind keeps going back to Summer Olympics 1996 when we had the Magnificent 7. That team sticks out in my brain every time I watch gymnastics. They were so great. And now, Shawn & Nastia have done it for us.
I remember back when I was about 9 years old, and I thought I was for sure going to the Olympics. As far as I knew, it was just a matter of time. Looks like my imagination was on overtime, because I knew nothing about gymnastics. Yet for a couple of summers, my neighborhood chum and best friend at the time, Sonja, and I never failed to have our own version of a gymnastics dreamland. We taped the driveway to make a "beam," and made up little routines. Blaring energetic music, we would dance around and pretend to be executing tumbling passes. My dad walked around with a blue forehead from walking into the bar that we used to hang between the doorway in the basement, because our "bar routines" were a must, and we would always forget to take it down.
How times have changed. Now, I'm lucky to do a cartwheel that looks pretty.
Another thought I had tonight: Who even came up with gymnastics? It's a world of technicalities combined with some element of grace and dance. Who decided that the human body could carry out tricks on uneven bars set quite a distance apart, or that we could successfully do full body turns and flips in the air and land on a narrow beam that's several feet tall? Not sure. I guess we could gaze incredulously at all Olympic sports if we wanted to. It just really hit me tonight, though, how very difficult and precise this sport really is.
May those who are some sort of a gymnast live on and be safe, and pull off many graceful moves... it takes all kinds, and let me just say that it's even more apparent now than it was when I was 9 that I am not one who was blessed with such physical talent and coordination.
Love you all!
T
2 comments:
So, I got to your blog, and though "I must be in the wrong place, this is not Taryn's blog" but as I read... I was wrong, it is Taryn's blog. I like the new look! No wonder you were up until 12:33 last night.
As for the Olympics I fell asleep. And I loooved the Magnificent 7. I have it all taped and I used to watch it all the time and try to imitate what they did in my basement on an old baby matress that had small chickens on it. :)
You may have given up on your dream, but I will be an Olympic gymnast someday. You just watch.
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