Sovetsky Sport. November 10, 1961. Gymnastics is a relatively young sport for women. However, the speed of its development has increased with time. Now gymnastics is going through one of the most turbulent periods of its history. An athlete who has dedicated her leisure time to the complex art of movement sometimes feels like a lost girl at the train station. There are noise and arguments all around, trains are leaving to somewhere, and try to guess which one is going in the right direction.
But the route of the future of women's gymnastics has, of course, already been laid out. We will try to help the athletes understand what path the gymnastics train is following.
Can you breathe? The question for gymnastics leaders sounds almost the same: "Can you do a tucked somersault?" Nine years have passed since Maria Gorokhovskaya performed this complex element. Now the sensational trick has become an everyday detail of many routines. The increase in the difficulty of the routine has exceeded the boldest forecasts. In recent years, the fascination with difficulty, like a typhoon, has swept over many countries of the globe with increasing force. Now, competitions between the strongest gymnasts of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Japan, Romania with their rivals from Belgium, Holland and other countries, who are lagging behind in gymnastics, seem to have lost their meaning - the difference in their levels of training is too great. Even the leading Swedish and Italian athletes of the past find it difficult to measure their strength against the current luminaries of gymnastics. Perhaps, in order to develop world gymnastics, it would be worthwhile to hold competitions in two groups? Recently, at gymnastics competitions (and not only gymnastics) disagreements often arise between spectators and judges. Without understanding the technical subtleties, fans pay attention only to the external impression and effectiveness of the routine.
Everyone remembers the incident that happened at the Olympics in Rome. The talented Japanese gymnast Keiko Ikeda showed a routine that contained about 20 complex elements. Although she performed the routine with mistakes, the audience went wild, demanding the highest score. The representatives of the International Federation, enslaved by the magnificence of the difficulty, considered that the judges had underscored the gymnast, punishing her for her mistakes.
There are many such examples. International competitions are still held sometimes according to unspoken rules: more difficult but messy routines receive higher scores than less difficult ones that meet the program (including the quality of execution).
At one time, floor exercises had a dance character. Difficult elements in them were a novelty. In order to stimulate the development of difficulty, fractions of points were awarded for the performance of new and original elements. However, gradually the gymnasts reached the level of difficulty that the program provided. And the increasing difficulty of routines continued.
The increase in the difficulty of routines has long since crossed the boundaries of the Olympic program and threatens to cross the boundaries of reason. Gymnastics should be accessible to everyone - students and workers, schoolgirls and their teachers. And already now young people spend too much time mastering the most difficult program.
It should not be forgotten that in the most puzzling and difficult exercises performers must maintain their inherent softness and femininity. Therefore, it is probaly advisable to limit the increase in the complexity of the routine in women's gymnastics.
The International Federation is making some attempts in this direction.
An interesting experiment was conducted at the last European Cup in Leipzig. Judges were given tabled in which each score was supposed to be developed from several parts. Out of a possible ten points, a gymnast could receive three for difficulty, two for composition, the same for execution, and three points for impression. It is not the overall impression and difficulty that are decisive in the current conditions. By the end of the competition, the judges had to abandon this system of evaluating the exercise. Indeed, optional gymnastics routines, as a rule, are now distinguished by great imagination; there are no empty spaces in them. But their authors clearly lack the performing skills and technical perfection. Any trained gymnast, even the bravest, can learn a difficult element. But she will perform this element awkwardly and ugly, unless she has mastered the culture of movement from her first steps in gymnastics.
The American gymnasts who recently performed in Moscow were liked by the audience. Their routines were very spectacular. But the athletes themselves were not yet prepared to perform these routines. They wanted to leave the apprentice stage as soon as possible and demonstrate a program done by virtuosos. But you can't pass exams in a gymnastics school as a correspondence student. After all, it's easier to learn new elements than to develop a style. When learning gymnstics wisdon, it's hardly worth rushing things.
A gymnastics routine made up only of difficult elements - a kind of tangle of incredibly difficult elements - looks bad. There is nothing for the eye to rest on. After all, the elements are performed at the same tempo, they are not connected with each other. They exist next to each other, but not together. And this whole routine rather represents a rich assortment of the most diverse gymnastic details rather than a single whole picture. Meanwhile, the laws of harmony apply in gymnastics too. The exercises include both complex and easy elements, dance and acrobatics, and the alternation of fast and slow movements - the best decoration of the routine.
In our opinion, the compulsory program offered by the International Gymnastics Federation provides good guidance to athletes when choosing optional routines.
The number of static elements in the compulsory exercises is reduced to a minimum, and a harmonious compositional solution makes it possible to perform the entire exercise dynamically, without pauses. There are no tricks in this program.
The age of static has long passed in gymnastics. And the development of dynamic exerises led to the creation of a new trend. American athletes became fascinated by exercises with hypergraphic difficulty, and Czechoslovakian gymnasts succumbed to the hypnosis of dynamism.
In 1958, Eva Boskova showed an unusual routine at the world championships. The abrupt, sharp movements of her tempo exercise corresponded to the character of the Czechoslovakian athlete. And some carelessness and unfinished gestures gave a unique dynamic coloring to the 'number' of the world champion. The innovations in her performance looked very impressive. But what suited Eva did not suit others at all.
A copy is always worse than the original: similar floor exercises by some gymnasts from Romania, Poland, and the GDR sometimes seemed like a parody of Bosakova's original composition. The speed and dynamism in their performance turned into fussiness, running around, and unjustifiably abrupt movements completed the unsightliness of the picture.
Rapid spins, followed by dizzying jumps and fast dance steps that replace them, all discontinuous acrobatic sequences - all this seemed monotonous, and tired not only the gymnasts but also the spectators. The Czechoslovak team, which also acted as doubles for their captain, soon realized what was going on. The athletes corrected the situation by embellishing their routines with rhythmic gymnastics elements, light combinations, and pauses.
The floor exercises performed by the best Soviet gymnasts are all different. But each of them is a monolithic piece, a kind of gymnastics gem. How do they manage to bring together disparate and even contradictory elements? A high culture of movement and remarkable erudition will help. Familiarity with rhythmic gymnastics, choreography, and acrobatics provides a rich stock of motor skills. And the wide range of movements that the athletes possess gives them the opportunity to find the right transition from one element to another, logically connecting the disparate parts of the exercise. Naturally, at competitions, each athlete tries to show unique, spectacular routines. However, gymnastics aces need to be very careful not to lose precious points. Those who have yet to create a name for themselves in sports are fearlessly ready to demonstrate unique elements from their stock of movements. In this regard, the upcoming national championship is especially interesting. Undoubtedly, the heroes of the Moscow gymnastics forum will not only be famous Olympic winners. Originality, uniqueness, talent - this is what will allow little-known young athletes to take their place among the strongest.
Many believe that acrobtics, rhythmic, and sports gymnastics will eventually merge. Indeed, these sports have much in common. But, while mutually enriching each other, they do not retain their specific features. It is unlikely that a sideways or tucked somersault will ever be included in a rhythmic gymnastics routine. But a back walkover, various flips with turns that do not disharmonize with the other elements will decorate the routines of 'artists.' Adherents of sports gymnastics strive to use the school of movement characteristic of 'artists' and to apply the same technically perfect tumbling combinations that only the most accomplished masters of acrobatics can do.
Practice confirms this opinion. The introduction of circus art, trickery, so to speak, in its pure, original form into sports gymnastics does not bring success to the American women.
Fans of modernism, building their routines on the basis of modern dance, vulgarize gymnastics.
However, it is certain and indisputable that circus art, acrobatics and modern choreography are all inexhaustible reserves of untapped wealth. Processed, polished elements taken from these storehouses of movement will organically enter gymnastics to bestow upon it that brilliance and new beauty that distinguishes truly high sporting art.
T. DEMIDENKO, Merited Coach of the USSR
YU. KIRILLOVA