we raise the bar and fly over it

Haldo one and all. It's me Grant back for another round.

As many of you probably know I'm a gymnast... well was a gymnast that's right I have retired. It's almost been ten years of gym and 9 of competitive gymnastics. Now in this blog I'm not going to go over the reasons why I quit or anything like that instead I will be enlightening you about the sport of gymnastics. The reason I'm doing this? Well over the last nine or more years I've been asked a lot of really dumb questions. So today I will help you not look like a complete retard if you have an encounter with a gymnast.
Ok first off is the basics. There are six mens events that the men do they are as follows; floor (the floor everyone flips on) Pommel Horse (the one the guys swing their legs around most only call it pommels) Rings (the two rings the event the iron cross is preformed on) Vault (the big table people run at and flip over) Parallel Bars (commonly referred to as P-Bars it's two bars that are parallel to each other about shoulder width apart and the same height as each other) and High Bar. (the high metal bar guys swing around)
For Women it's almost a differant sport. Women only have four events Floor (same as guys only with music guys don't have floor music) Vault (same as mens) Uneven Bars (almost like P bars but further apart and one is higher then the other) Beam (like floor on a little skinny elevated srip of floor only girls do beam and theres a good reason for that.)
So now that we've covered the basics I'll answer some of the most frequently and the dumbest questions I've ever been asked as a gymnast

1. Can you do a back flip? Yes. I can and chances are if you're asking a competetive gymnast they can too.

2. Can you show me? Now unless you asked a gymnast who just learned it and are excited about it theres a strong chance we won't show you. Why? Cause we get asked that question at least once a day and when you're doing it at the gym almost every day it loses it's novelty fast

3. What's your specialty? Don't ask that question. Just don't. Gymnasts compete every single event untill you get to an olympic level and even then you still compete every event

4. Can you do an Iron Cross? 1st of all even though thats technically it's name no one calls it that. Everyone calls it cross. Most guys learn this skill around 13 or 14 at least at my gym mostly cause of muscle development at that time but not everyone can do it. (Girls don't compete rings so the never do cross)

5. Will I see you at the olympics? I don't know why people think that gymnastics is a shoo into the olympics. It's just as hard as any other sport if not harder to get to the olypics with. Statistically you'd have a better chance with a sport that has a bigger team like soccer or hockey.

Gymnastics is weird in the sence that you have to always be at the gym. At my peak I was at the gym 20 hours a week thats four hours on Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday and Saturday. This is because gym relies on muscle memory so if you stop for like a month or so you're not going to be as good as you were back then so you have to be in the gym as much as possible.

Thats all I can think of for now if you have any questions about the sport go a head and comment I'll do my best to answer it for you.

Yours truely
-Grant Hawkins

P.S. Hate is contagious... but so is love. You decide which one to catch