By Hollie Muir, Senior Editor
The sport of gymnastics is defined as “exercises displaying or developing physical agility and coordination originally started in ancient Greece”. The word gymnastics is derived from the Greek word meaning “to exercise naked”.
The sport of gymnastics is defined as “exercises displaying or developing physical agility and coordination originally started in ancient Greece”. The word gymnastics is derived from the Greek word meaning “to exercise naked”. This was applied to all activities that took place in a gymnasium where, indeed, men did this unclothed. Gymnastics was introduced in Greek civilisation to facilitate body development through a series of exercises, like running, jumping, throwing and wrestling. The Greeks combined all the physical traits of strength, dexterity and concentration and this activity has since continued all over the world. Since physical fitness was highly valued in ancient Greece, men and women both participated in vigorous activities. But, after the Roman invasion in the second century BC, gymnastics was adopted by the Roman army for a training exercise to prepare soldiers for warfare. However, with the decline of Rome and the Olympic Games being outlawed in 393 AD, people were slowly losing interest in gymnastics and “tumbling” was carried out as a form of entertainment.
Of the modern events currently known to be in gymnastics (floor, vault, beam and bars), only tumbling and a primitive form of vaulting were known in the ancient world. For instance, we can see how gymnastics was favoured across the whole world as Egyptian Hieroglyphics show variations of backbends and stunts shown with a partner, while a well known painting from Crete shows a leaper performing a cartwheel or a handspring over a charging bull. Tumbling was also an ancient art form in China, as stone engravings found in Shandong, dated to the Han period, portrays acrobatics being performed.
Tumbling continued in the Middle Ages in Europe, where it was performed by travelling troupes. Tumbling seemed to be an activity that evolved from many cultures with little cross cultural influence. All of these activities, like juggling, dancing and acrobatics, were all combined in early circus acts and have continued like this to the present day.
Modern gymnastics now contains many of the events practised thousands of years ago. There are four events for women - uneven bars, beam, floor and vault - and six events for men: vault, floor, rings, pommel horse, parallel bars and horizontal bar. Men’s gymnastics shows off strength, flexibility and aerobics, whilst women's gymnastics, where a floor routine is performed to music, shows off graceful dance-like movements with strength and acrobatic skills. New approaches to the sport, like team gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics, which involves three routines with a ribbon, ball, hoop or Indian clubs, creates a new variation in the sport. Team gymnastics, usually performed in teams of six gymnasts, involves each gymnast performing on each piece of equipment and the team with the highest number of points wins. Rhythmic gymnastics routines, which has been an Olympic sport since 1984, are performed alone to music instead of in groups. Many of the famous Olympic Gymnasts today have inspired generations of children to join the sport, resulting in 1.1 million UK participants in gymnastics each month in 2016. This sport has become a growing interest across the world, but has not become the most popular yet due to team games like football overriding. However, gymnastics is worth the watch, so keep your eyes peeled for the Olympic Games in 2020 for gymnastics.
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