Crowing businesses deal with the same problem, too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. ODU helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform. Fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth, whether you're in retail, manufacturing, or service.
ODU gives you one place to manage your business. Visit ODU.com to book a demo. It's ODOO.com. Welcome to another episode of Gymnastics Build.
I'm your host, Midnight Robin over here, laughing sixes. Home town team. That's right. We got it.
Great show and store for everybody in the birds nest. We got two compadres over here, all right, over there, all the way over, wearing the purple shirt from Orlando, Florida. The action figure, Gary Adderley. What's up?
I'm good. I think I was pointing the wrong way. I was trying to point towards the next guy. Let him know that I'm going to win this debate.
You can't even face the right way. You think you're going to win today? That was the right way. I thought I had it.
All right. Okay. Next up, in the middle, was not even looking at the screen. I'm doing good, man.
It's good to be on the show. It's good to be doing this face to face. So that's good stuff in the world. Yeah.
Heck yeah. So first of all, I just want everybody to know, great show and store, but we have a Nissan Emery award winner coming up this week on Gymnastics Build, the 2020 champion from the Happy Valley Penn State. Who is it, Carrie? Who won the Nissan Marine Award?
I'm going to show you ready to go today. Steven, not a rosick. Go, Sarah. No rosick.
No rosick. Yeah, no rosick. I have a little data on there. Not a rosick.
Yeah. It's okay. He's going to be on the show this week. I'm looking forward to it.
The last three years, Gymnastics Build has had Nissan Emery award winners. First it was Sean Melton, had you all and then now Steven. That's right. I got that right.
Yeah. Great. Great. Well, today's topic, guys, and some I've been thinking about over the last few days and I'm not sure we've covered it yet.
And obviously, Gymnastics is one of the hardest sports in the world. All right. But what I want to talk about today is what is the hardest event to master in elite men's gymnastics? I'm going to say elite, very specified to that the highest level you can go in gymnastics to be mastery of the sport.
All right. And the first, when I think about this, guys, the hardest event to master is I've two events. And I'm not sure which one is which. Maybe you guys can kind of let me know if you agree or disagree, but I think Vault and Hybar are the two hardest events and gymnastics to master elite gymnastics.
I don't know. Talk to look at me like that. Do you disagree? Yes, I disagree.
What do you think is harder to master than Vault or or Hybar? To be honest, I think floor is probably harder than floor is definitely hard involved. And then, you know, I would say, yeah, you can use high bar if you're saying two events. I thought it was just what is the hardest, which is not two events.
Well, those are pretty, pretty close to me. I feel like it's for me. You got to pick one A, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, you want B, I'm going to say the reason why it's, I'm going to say the reason why it's a vault is because of A, the fair factor. OK, that's number one.
Number 2, the fact that you have no time to think and if you think you did name, like, you got to run fast. You got to hit like you black out on a vault. Yo, you're done. You got it.
Black out inhigh bar, you're done. So at least here are long leading up. You have swings. You have giants.
Just axed away and kick out like, boom. No, no, well, I wouldn't say that at all. A ball is such a power event. So, you know, mastering of power, yeah, it's hard to attain, but it isn't taking nearly as much skill to be, you know, to master ball and part of mastering something, the level is like the skill involved and the skill level in mastering of one skill is one skill, other than that 10.
You're trying to master one skill, that's it. So you have multiple things to pay attention to. It's like you can't be great on high bar if you just do one hard release. That's what vault is, one hard release.
Yeah, but it's a different type of release. So what do you think, Gary? What do you think the hardest of it today? Well, I want to kind of keep, you know, here with talking as I say about the mastery, because I think the thing is, and what is the mastery?
Is it the highest difficulty and the highest execution? Is that the mastery of the skill? Or is it of that person of being able to literally, what's their max up, you know, and being able to do that hardest skill, absolutely, you know, best, kind of almost like when we saw a color, you do that, you're chick-o-two and a half. Like you had almost nothing off, you know what I mean?
Yeah, but again, you know what I mean? Like what's the best? What's the best thing is one skill? Well, the only thing with one skill, it's like how can you say you've mastered high bar if you just do one great release?
You know what I mean? It's like to master an entire event. If you were like vault, if you, you know, learn how to do like six, seven different style vaults, like all at a very high level, then I'm like sure. But that's not what it takes to even win vault.
But you do go out. But what I'm saying is this, go out style. The greatest, I mean, how many vultures can do three different amazing vaults? There's not many, but there's a lot of high bar swimmers out there, they can do like a lot of different type of releases, but you really see, you really see someone do it, your chick-o-double-pike, super full lane for enhancing the vultures.
Like what first you could do? And that would be mastery. I feel like that would be mastery at that point, because that has never been done in gymnastics. And that should be to say, all right, well the vault finals now and now you're still gonna get two vaults, you have to do three vaults.
You have to cover it. It's chinko style, front entry. Yeah, but you can do that with every event. You can say, you can say who can do Gaylord?
Who can do Peggins? Who can do desk? Who can do all the ammo sequence? Who can do all the turning elements?
You know, who can do the fairs on high bar? You know what I mean? You can do so much on other events. It's like, yeah, there's a lot of different hard vaults, but there's also super hard skills in every category on high bar, or other events.
So it's in the main world. But I think more people can do high bar skills than traditionally a very hard vault. More people just can't do that vault, but some people with that same body type can make more skills on high bar. That's why you can see, like I said, you use Ko-A as an example, because Ko-A is competed the greatest level of high difficulty vaults.
But there's multiple hard skills on high bar that no one's ever seen. I've never seen an ideal carbio on high bar. You know what I mean? There's so many skills I've never seen and even do, but I've seen them do everything almost every hard vault.
But you know, I've never seen them do everything. I've never seen them do anything. That goes into the object and this is the question. Listen, what do you mean?
It's like, what are you trying to consider? What is mastery? So you're saying high bar is the hardest event? No, not my mistake.
What is the hard event? What is the hard event? What is the hard event? You set floor and white floor.
No, no, I wouldn't say floor. Okay. No. It's gonna be, for me, it's gonna be between parall bars or high bar.
Why parall bars? Oh, just because of all the different angles your body has to go through to be good on it. You know, it's like, you need to be strong on high. You need to be strong on parall bars.
You have front-to-right scales that are strength and quickness. You got a bar bar scales, which is fear, turning, hand-eye coordination. You got basket scales, which is swing and compression pulling. You got under bar scales.
Really smooth, you know what I mean? So, there's the amount of which, the movement on which your body goes through on parall bars is I think the toughest. You have one arm, you have one arm scales, one bar scales. Even if you want to even add ridiculous side-eye scales, you know what I mean?
There's a ray of things that parall bars has. If you want to say you've mastered, you have the master above bar. You've got a master's, you know, this position, you got a master, you know, dismount. You got front dismounts, back dismounts, you know what I mean?
So, there's, you know, side-bar. You know, there's so much involved in parall bars. And again, you rarely see it. That's why people say the single greatest gymnastics has ever been done is that one Chinese guy, just because he's so close to showing the ability to do four elements better than almost anyone ever has done.
You know what I mean? He does skills here. He does amazing basket work. He does giant teamwork.
You know what I mean? He has a baller dismount. So, that's why it's like, well, that might be the greatest match you'll ever see because of the variety in which he does it. And in the level when she performs it.
Parallel bars. I see, I was a big proponent of vault. You know, I hadn't looked at vault in a way that I think Midnight had brought it to my attention. And in the shortest amount of time, because even in parallel bars, and obviously that's very difficult to do, but in a very short amount of time, a lot is happening.
You know, obviously even in a single skill, but for vaulting in the different variables of having to actually hit the springboard and whether you're hitting the springboard forward or backwards, being afraid to do it, you know, injuring yourself, injury, short landings, you know, their precision on that, where if you short it, you're done, if you're over-rotated. I think the fear factor is the biggest for vault. I think if you, you know, ask any gymnasts around, what's the serious event on the highest level that you do, they probably like, so much can go wrong on this vault. And it's just a small time.
Yeah, well, yeah, but that, you know, your greatest, you can't, yes, you have to take, you know, fear factor and greatest potential of having cash off and injury into account. But that can't be like the most overwhelming thing when it comes to mastery, something. You have some people that aren't afraid of vault. You have people that are like, yeah, thanks to go wrong, but no, I'm not afraid of vault.
I've seen what Luis Riviera, no, what's his name? Riviera from Dominican Republic. Do you have that sink full in and landed awfully multiple times? Believe me, I would assume he's scared of the vault, but he's not petrified of it.
Because if he worked, he wouldn't be able to take so many bad landings. He wouldn't be able to get up and just do it again. So yeah, there is the fear factor, but that can't be the thing that's like, well, because it's scary. It could be your last vault though.
You know, yeah, very well, but that's a lot of things in gymnastics, you know what I mean? You could let go earlier on a Miyachi and crack your head on the bar. It has to be on the back. It has to be on the back.
It has to be on the back. What's gonna be yachi? Double twisting layout, Collex. Beshis.
That's a Miyachi? No, you ain't catching me doing that. What? Yeah.
Yeah, so exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, so, yeah, you do that wrong? You do that wrong?
You know what I mean? High bar. You know, you let go of that bar. You land on your neck on the bar.
You're done. I agree. Carey brought this up conversation today. He was like, I've already done that.
I have had JL kids quit gymnastics. You know what I'm saying? I'm not going around that bar today. Or every matter.
Yeah, yeah. Or any day. Yeah, today. You know, there's levels of gymnastics.
You know, like always say, you know, you have kids that think they are, you know, like gymnastics and then they get to the fly away. That's like the first thing that kicks people out. You know what I mean? It's a fly where the giant.
And then there's the level after that. That's turning over a sugo vault. That is the next thing. That is the next thing.
So, you have those two things that are kicking people out. Fly away. I want another thing. Yeah, I want a ball.
Yeah, like when it comes to fear, you know, everyone thinks like, ball's fun. It's a run blasted and then you turn that bad boy over the first time. I think the first time, at least my thought my first time doing his suk is I'm not sure if it's similar to y'all's, but it was like, just don't break your neck. First thought.
Yeah, just make sure you get it around. Give it over. Give that. Well, for me, for me, I was just like, I was on small and I was on cable.
I was just trying to not, I was trying to not land back on the ball. I was a little man. You don't want to hit you on that long ball. I'm not trying to crack my head open.
Is the installation you don't know about the middle hand? Right, right, right on the ball? See, that's something that. You don't understand the long ball.
Yes. Okay. Okay. Midnight, I want to hear Taki's, he already kind of started a story, but please give me another story or just what you think about when you had the long ball and you're standing at the end of the runway and all you see is the square sitting in front of you in a springboard.
What were your thoughts? What did you have the long ball? You asking me, sorry, my sound cut out, but what was I thinking? What was my, all right, when I was first starting, I remember one, I had a hard time with my steps as a kid.
I remember that. Like I was thinking of myself. So, so inconsistent with my steps. So I was thinking first, make sure you get your run right.
But then when you think about your run, the worst you run gets, so you kind of just got to go. Have you heard of the wrong foot? That was something else over. You've already heard of the wrong foot.
You wouldn't go? I'm not really the wrong foot. I've done that. I've done that in competition before.
I might have done that one ever. I might have done that one ever, but I'm not heard of the wrong foot because then it's going to jack up how my shoulders are squared when I start to turn. No, I'm not doing that to myself because then I probably think about round off in the other way because I think like I heard all like when I do a round off on floor. So my first leg is leaving, even on meeting them together, not like floor, but then I'm like, I'm not doing that.
So I stopped. So I would think about making sure I got my second hand on the table because I don't want to do one of those trendemuses. Even if you're on your chank, I want to reach you. Wait, wait, wait, I want to know, you know, watch in comment below or raise your hand if you've ever took the wrong steps on the ball.
You were running down and you heard off the wrong foot or if you just bawked and just went off and we brought up there, his foot slipped and that's a danger for your part about ball. Just that before you even get to the event, you got to do that part before you even can even do the event and so much can go wrong just before you even hit the ball. So that's why that track during ball is I think, you know, it's so great. So before I started gymnastics, it was Trent Demis that showed me how crucial ball is to get it right.
And if you don't get it right, you're not going to make it. Trent Demis, how much was that? It was 91, 92 when he completed it. I think it was 91.
He was 91. He got further than I thought by missing his hands. He actually made it around somehow. Oh man, that's he did the most air block of all air blocks, both hands missed.
Both hands missed. Yeah. But if you watch that run, it's like you said, Carrie, start with him steps, man. He was playing the 10, no fast.
So much. So much. So much for home. Yeah, man, kudos to him.
He got back up and did another ball. You know, like that's the thing, you know, that's the thing about league level athletes and they put themselves through some stuff. That makes me bring up. I mean, obviously the most historic, you know, gymnastics moment I think for the US was Carrie Shred up laying that vault on a broken foot.
But as I actually vault here, can you explain like what actually just happened when you already, you know that my foot's probably been broken the whole competition and then you got to do one of them good ball. You don't do a good ball. So now you have to do a second wall. Like can you can you put yourself in that mind for him talking of like just the amount of probably pain and adrenaline.
It's a nice mixture. Most of us got a special word. My word is deflation. Deflation.
I want to hear what I want to hear like from talking. What does he think that you know, in that situation and this is vault and that's why vault is such a crazy event because, you know, so much is riding on literally five seconds, three seconds. Yeah. You know, tell me what do you think about that?
You know, when you break your hurt and you got to get up and go run down and do another heart landed. Oh man. Oh, you're you're not in that moment. You're not probably afraid of the ball anymore.
You're just trying to land it away. That's going to be the least amount of stress on that injury, but also land the vault. It's like, you know, you're going to have to take a hard landing, but you're going to do you're just hoping it's not going to be really painful. I've had many times in my ball career where I've had the jacket of ankles and I'm doing like, you know, a backwards facing landing and I'm like, mmm, just going to crunch so bad.
And you're just like, you're, you're, you're just like, hopefully I over rotate enough. My chest up that I'll have all the weight over my, my ankles. But you're just like, all right, let me do a good vault. So I actually have an opportunity to not bust my ankles.
Now, did you ever, your Chinko, cause I just brought up Trent Demis. And if you can remember that that was a lot, you know, you were really young when that happened, but do you remember seeing, I mean, you've actually seen the replay, but when he just completely biffed on the Chinko and just to the dome off the side. Yeah, that was the, that was the reason why I never did your Chinko until they changed the table. Right.
You know what I mean? It was like, I was like, no, I'm not having that ad action. You know, everybody did that. You know, you know, you know, and I liked it here.
You guys like, do you know, I like to hear you guys like, do you know, which, which vaulting way was worse? Like when you're young, the long, I know I'm talking about men's and women's, which long vault or narrow vault was worse. Cause if you think about ball, imagine doing your Chinko. On the side.
And the side, like, yeah, you can go side to side a little bit, but you're, you're, you're margin of reaching. Oh my goodness. That for me, I don't know what's worse. I think I would be more scared of that one because I, I look at my, your Chinkos from the table.
Obviously there was consistency in my hand placement, but I definitely know sometimes I was in a front of the table side, you know, sometimes the back of the table. Like I said, that was the smartest thing the F.I.G. has ever done ever. It's not.
It's not. Remember, remember, uh, sweat line of quirkina? I remember she kind of slipped on the vault at the Olympics that she did. Well, let me go ahead and the table, the table, the wrong height.
Oh, her, her, uh, their vaulting horse. Yeah, it was at the wrong height and that whole session or something like that. It's crazy. Well, I think in the speaking of that would that say if that was the era by a coach era, you know, um, and that happened on the table, I think we're probably in this margin of error.
No, because you can't, you can't. You don't change the vault settings. You don't move the ball up and down. You have the option of a board, but you know, I remember the rules back then.
But, you know what? You know, I was only like, what? 2000. I was like 14 years old.
So I really do. I'm assuming it was the same thing. The ball stays the same height. You can change the board.
Yeah. True to that. Um, what about, what about pommel horse? That was an event that I thought I had on my list just because I hated pommel horse and it was my nemesis in gymnastics.
But, you know, for a second, I was like, uh, I think pommel horse is like one of the easiest. I mean, I just say that because it's no fear of tactics. You just, you know, you know, the guy's like, some pretty, what about the shins, you know, back loops, that's something that's interesting. Yeah.
Shins are laying on your neck. I don't know. Dislocate a finger. You know what I mean?
You must put like this. You ain't popping out of knee on pommel horse unless you do something ridiculously stupid. Gotcha. You know, I mean, you can just, you can jack up some fingers.
You can break your hand because of fingers. I would say, I would say on all the events, rings is the easiest to compete. I'm not going to say pommel horse is the easiest to compete. Right.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Pommel horse is too repetitive for me to think it's like a hard to see bet. You know, it does this all the time.
You know what I mean? And then, you know, it's a circle. You know, like I'm not trying to tell people that are amazing on pommel horse. You ain't nothing.
Like, believe me, I wasn't, it was my weakest event in my head. I suck on pommel horse. You know, but I don't think that was because it was the hardest to master. It was the hardest for me to pick up in master because it was just my overall understanding.
But you know, it is the hardest. This leads me to this. As a, you know, if you're a casual fan of gymnastics and you want to start gymnastics, what and say you know, new beginner may be intermediate to gymnastics, you know, a little bit of body, you could do a backflip on a trampoline or something to master something. What would you say would be the most challenging event to start off on if you were to be new to gymnastics?
Pommel horse. Wait, wait, wait. Everything else is natural. No, I disagree with that.
Are we talking? What level of fitness is this person? Able, able body, you know, you're not going to predict it or, you know, teenager, 14, 15, whatever you're able body, you're in relatively good shape and, you know, you're picking up gymnastics and you want to, and what level we're talking about, they're getting to, you know what I mean? No, just mastering, mastering, mastering an event, any event from a late beginning.
No, man, that's going to be no one's going to do that. No one's mastering any event. Like, you know, pommel horse would be the easiest event to master from a late start. You know what I mean?
You know how long it takes to acquire the understanding of a high bar swing and taps and stuff like that. Pommel horse, if you want to get a circle, you can start playing around with travels and stuff like that. You can play. You can't play on high bar until you know how to have a youth GI good giant being all bust out of no stuller.
You blow your back out. You know what I mean? Like, you need to be flexible. Pommel horse like, you know, yeah.
I thought we were talking about from a kid. From a kid's perspective, if you're like, what do I do? They come in, you know, at the very early age of five years old, what's the hardest event to pick up? I think it's that circle.
That circle, if you teach a policy, do you know it's out of all the routines is that circle. Yeah. But once you pick up that circle, they go from one to 50 in like no time. Yeah, I mean, so that's why that's also because again, because it's most repetitive repetitive action event.
But kids, you know, you teach them how to do a swing. How long it takes to do a giant? How long it takes to do a dismount from a giant? You know, there's all of that stuff.
You know, who do you consider like, who do you watch a little kid do gymnastics? Who do you think goes the furthest in the sport? The kid at the Maison on Pommel horse, the kid at the Maison on high bar? I don't know.
Sometimes you get those kids on a gig on Pommel horse and it kind of resonates to their other events. Yeah. I mean, it seems like it's like, if I show knock on the bar, I heard him off like he, I was one event where I know he was good at everything. But he was going to Pommel horse and it resonates all the other events.
Okay. Again, take like kids, take these kids stuff on every event and then one good event. This kid don't baller on high bar. Who you think is probably going to go further in the sport?
Probably the kid that has good at high bar. Just because his minds are ready for it. Because it's mind. It's mind and ready for it.
It's for it's for event. You know what I mean? And be not fearful because do not think that's the number one thing. So that's why I'm like, that's how I put it.