June 20, 2007
Sometimes I think the world is a song, its music a chimney I don't want to sweep, and I a victim in an unfair crime that has Cinderella written all over it. So often I sit, scattered and scrambled, facing the wall or corner or computer screen, my head full of racing thoughts, and wonder if I can sum it all up in a theory. My musical life, that somehow is a story.
I constantly seek something – don't know the answer – and it pains me to think that it's all for nothing. That the theologians were right. That religion is the answer. Still, I sit, like an alien caught in the wrong dimension, pacing back and forth in my head, back and forth, back and forth, wondering just how I became obsessed with such a sport as gymnastics, and its rituals.
Because it's all just a ritual – one enchanting spell after another from beginning to end, filled with symbols and signs all pointing to some idea in my head, some subliminal, substantial answer I can touch everytime I watch it (or do it); but I never know just what it is. You see, as I have come to realize, thinking is the opposite of feeling. Feeling has its prerequisites and demands, all which force you into no other place but the present, yet remind you of everything that is behind you. Gymnastics is interpretational. It isn't for the intellects, who don't realize they often think themselves out of the very experiences they are witnessing with their theories, doctrines, and formulas which seem to point to one final answer. For gymnastics is a primitive art, recalled by time. It is a sport that honors dualism – two opposing forces acting against each other) in the most harmonious of ways.
If you're a fan, then certainly you have a favorite routine that takes your breath away each time; its elegance is poisonous. Gymnastics accomplishes something that is truly a victory in its own right. It brings together two opposing forces, like power and grace, and makes a balance. It can be said that innovation keeps the sport alive, but there could be no innovation, or even creativity for that matter, if following the rules and keeping with tradition weren't of equal priorities.
Floor routines, above all, accomplish this great feat, and have all the makings to put on a great show for anyone watching. But in them, ideas are born, and a ritual is formed, bringing us back in time to our ancestors, who did rituals and could only communicate and interpret the world with music and dance. The more avante-garde routines, like those of the great Svetlana Boguinskaya and Canadian Yvonne Tousek, depict a struggle, or a fight, or a celebration where it seems only our unconscious mind can fully understand. Otherwise, we would dub it dubious in taste – as outlandish, and brutish, something uncalled-for, by no means contributing to the sphere of what is (the world's finite solution). Luckily, gymnastics is not finite.
The magic of gymnastics is that it is just as abstract as it is exact in its measurements (i.e. story telling and scoring). It is as enigmatic as it is enthusiastic. It is outward, inward, flawed and flawless. It, like life, is an interesting tale. And it doesn't need to be judged, yet it is, because impending judgment is human's best way for survival (I believe). And it gives everyone a reason to prove themseves. It keeps us on our toes and let's us know that what we're doing is not for nothing.
I think what I'm getting at is that there is no right or wrong answer. Some people like a certain thing, some people don't. Gymnastics, unlike many other sports, isn't selling anything (thank God it doesn't get the same type of endorsements as, say, football does). And gymnastics isn't trying to sell ideas, too. It is merely presenting them, like two army lieutenants from opposite ends of the world, exchanging custums and values, and showing one another the different ways in which they, as humans, are alike, and as one. It is peace.
And that is what I like about gymnastics. It is open, it is real. Hidden beneath the mask of any hateful person, I think, is a longing for peace on the other side. I don't know if that's putting it on too grand a scale, but considering all the countries that participate in the sport, and all the flags that are raised at every competition, and all the routines that seem to remain stagnant in time, like eternity itself, I think I've found the Earth's melody. And I think others think that, too. If gymnastics fans sat with a pencil and were so honest and grateful for the sport and what it has given them, I think all their intellectual barriers would come down, because, of course, intellect is guided by thought alone, not emotion or experience. I think they would discover that gymnastics is a window not to the future, not to the past, but to what is.
