In this essay for Salon, Jennifer Sey, a former elite gymnast, admits that she hates talking sports with non-athletes. Specifically, she hates talking sports with non-athletes who used to play a sport.
"One co-worker approached me in the cafeteria...Having read my book, she squealed, 'I was a gymnast too!'
No, you weren't."
Sey goes on to talk about practicing 40 hours a week with abusive coaches while attending high school. "I did [real] gymnastics," she throws down, then cowers in shame: "See what I mean about this woman inside being horrifically ugly?"
I would argue, no, it's not the woman inside who's ugly. It's the system that produced her.
And the American system isn't even the worst one. I'm sure there are Romanian women who would march up to Jennifer Sey and seethe, "No, I did gymnastics, beeyotch! You moved away from home at fourteen? Fuck you! I moved away from home at FOUR!" (Actually I don't know the exact age at which Romanian gymnasts traditionally go away, but I do know it's young.)
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Sey writes, "I'm not convinced that [outsiders]...really understand" what Olympic athletes go through.
To which I can only say: don't people look at their faces?
Try it sometime. Look at the faces of, say, those Chinese synchronized divers from last night. I did, every time. Those were two of the most woeful faces I have ever seen. No, I don't know what they've gone through. But I can see what it's done to them. I can see that I would never want to be in their Speedos.
And it's not that I don't understand dedication or passion. The number of hours I've spent writing stuff just to write stuff would stun you. At college, when other people were talking in the halls or out at the bar or whatever, I was in my room with my archaic typewriter. I know about giving up big chunks of a "normal life" because there's something you like better, and "if it gets me nowhere, I'll go there proud," as the song ("I Got a Name") says.
No...it's because I do understand dedication and passion that I would never want to be either of those divers. I know what dedication and passion look like. They don't look like those faces.
That is what outsiders don't understand.
One time, someone told me, face glowing, "I did four or five hours of yoga a day for twenty years. And I'm so glad I did. Passion is a wonderful thing."
That is what people think is the story of those Olympic athletes.
But as Jennifer Sey's essay reveals, it's not.
My friend's yoga practice was his own. He did it for his own reasons. No one else was invested in the outcome. No one else had any stake in it. No one else needed to control it. It was just him and the mat.
(It was just me and the keyboard.)
That is exactly the opposite of elite sports. Once you step on that track, your practice doesn't belong to you anymore. It's not for your benefit anymore, or about your love or passion or joy. It's not even, I would argue, about the sport itself. It's about results. The toll of this is very evident in Jennifer Sey's description of her years as an elite gymnast--her voice flattens and takes on the hollow ring of despair. She sounds like a prisoner.
The beast, in my opinion, is not her anger at people who think they went through anything like what she did. I think the beast, if there is one, would be whatever drove her to do it.
