Things I'm Watching

 

      I've developed an interesting and possibly bad habit. I've been watching a lot of videos on YouTube and Facebook. This is a habit I believe needs to be broken quickly because I find that too much of my time is being wasted in watching this stuff. I could be doing other things like cleaning the house, knitting something, doing laundry or at least reading a book.

   I've been watching women's artistic gymnastics videos on You Tube. I started watching these videos during the Olympics.  Sunisa Lee, the gold medalist in the women's individual all around and bronze medalist on the uneven bars, grew up in a suburb near where I live. It's kind of strange to think that an Olympic medalist just graduated from the same high school my grandson attends now. People who do things like that live in California or Texas, not Minnesota.

   After watching the Olympics I started watching other gymnastics videos. I watched Nadia Comaneci score a 10 on the uneven bars. This led to videos featuring college gymnast Katelyn Ohashi, who competed for UCLA. Katelyn received from criticism from coaches and others who though she was too fat to be a gymnast when she gained weight after a back injury. However she has been able to do a lot of amazing things and has been very outspoken about the body shaming she received.

   One thing I noticed is the change in the uneven bars. At some point the bars were moved farther apart. I remember gymnasts doing moves where they held the high bar and hit the lower bar with their hips. Now that the bars are farther apart, they can't do this. It amazes me how they are able to fly between the bars. 

   The balance beam interests me too. I think it's about four feet off the floor and is four inches wide. The things that these women can do is incredible. I've seen them do tumbling runs and leaps and land right on that beam with only a bit of a wobble sometimes. I know that it takes an immense amount of practice to be able to do that.

    The tumbling runs in floor routines are fun to watch. I marvel at how high some of the gymnasts can get. I do think that some of the things that qualify as dance moves in a floor routine aren't really dance. More like a series of poses.

   The scoring is also interesting. A routine is made up of various elements that are given a rating based on difficulty. There are also points for artistry. Deductions are made from the starting score for things like going out of bounds, landing poorly, failing to connect elements and imperfections in technique. 

   The only thing I don't like is the leotards. The feminist side of me finds them a bit sexist. The legs of more modern leotards seem to be cut much higher than the ones I've seen in older videos. The German women's  gymnastic team wore unitards during competition as a protest against what they see as sexualization in the sport.

   The other thing I've been watching is videos on Facebook from Curvy Brides Boutique show.  I have no idea why these videos keep showing up, but they do. I've managed to keep from watching the whole thing as I think they are pretty long. It's a reality series based in a bridal shop in England that specializes in wedding dresses for larger women. Most of the women who want to wear the kind of dress that they see other smaller women wear, but are not sure they can find something in their size. Some women seem to be uncomfortable with themselves and looking for a dress that will make them look and feel beautiful.

   From the bits I've seen it looks like a nice show. I guess one thing I like is that the two owners want to work with the brides and help them feel good about themselves and comfortable in their dress. It's nice to see. It's good to see women of various sizes able to find something that looks good on them. Sometimes you see something sort of strange, like the bride who came with a veil that had multicoloured polka dots on it. The veil didn't match any of the dresses the bride liked and eventually it was discretely boxed and given to the bride's mother to return while the bride was steered toward better alternatives.

   There are worse things on the internet to watch so I shouldn't be too critical of myself. However, I have a long to do list today and it's time to get to it.