Friday, June 29, 2012

Gymnastics, etc

So, the Olympics. Anyone excited? I am not a sports person, but I will usually watch whatever Olympic event happens to be on, just for the hell of it. Though I am more of a Winter Olympics gal, really, for the figure skating. Do I think figure skating/ice dance is a sport? Not really, but it's certainly the only thing that interests me! I never claimed to be a sports fan. Anyway.
Because I don't have access to an actual TV anymore I have to put a certain amount of effort in to watching Olympic events, and that means I am not going to bother with anything that is boring. Like beach volleyball. Or whatever.
I am really only interested in things that are choreographed and musical. But, the only Summer event I could think of was ballroom dancing. And everyone knows that ballroom dancing is an Olympic event now, right? It's been the butt of every Olympic joke for YEARS. I couldn't recall ever seeing it listed on events calenders, so I went looking for it. Guess what? It isn't going to be an event this year. Because it has never been an event EVER. The Olympics committee okayed it, so it could theoretically be included, but it never has been and quite probably never will be. Geeze! How about that.
After a sad disappointment with Olympic fencing a few games back (it's actually super boring and no one even buckles their swash or anything) all I can think of that might be vaguely interesting and fit my above requirements is synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics. 
You know, rhythmic gymnastics, the thing with the ribbon that we all wanted to do SO BAD when we were five. Cuz it looked cool, right? And pooking around online brought me to this video, which is probably the closest thing to ballet you can get without any of the grace, beauty, or expressiveness:
Which is not to say that the girl hasn't got some mighty impressive business going on, here. It's technically really amazing. It's just... lacking the emotional prettiness of an actual ballet. Also, is anyone else super irked that her tutu isn't tacked tightly enough to keep it from flopping all around when she does those wacky back flip things? Tacking guns exist. Tacking guns are your friend.
I did go and look this gal up on YouTube, though. And there are some great videos of her doing the ribbon thing. No wonder every five year old girl in the 80's was excited about that! It's kind of distracting, though! Also: just watching that makes my wrist hurt.

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