The days of the ballet basics with turned out legs, knees, ankles and toe point. Even the loose first and fifth positions is all that’s needed to make the lines longer and helps balance the weight between sides.

I miss the handstand mounts!

@karyon1007

6 ай бұрын

Me, too! It's a shame the COP doesn't encourage creativity. A lot of really cool and interesting beam and bar elements have just disappeared from routines. I'm hoping the FIG can improve it over time...but I'm not holding my breath.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll see these mounts again. 😢 I miss “artistic” gymnastics.

@glauvie

5 ай бұрын

Me too. I can’t stand all power, grimaces and floppy feet.

I can't begin to express how much I miss Chinese beam choreography of the 1980s and 1990s. It was exquisite. Sigh.

I loved Shannon Miller's beam work. Exquisite!

@braybrannan-saine6407

6 ай бұрын

She was sooo amazing and sooo underrated!!!

Those aerials and flips onto the balance beam are amazing and soooo impressive. There are some mounts now that are so simple in comparison that I’m frankly very surprised.

So many gems here

That Bontas mount is the epitome of grace. Flawless.

@Jumbaride

6 ай бұрын

Grace and Athleticism 💙

You can see the vast difference between those who are and aren’t classically trained gymnasts. Those with ballet training are more agile and precise in their movements, exhibiting more flexibility, strength, and control. Superb.

@mjamitche5245

6 ай бұрын

People always want to say its ballet training, but I've had both and that's not what this is. Ballet is a completely different skill set. This video is highlighting a type of gymnastics that was trained more in the 1980's and 1990's because of the code and expectations of the time. It was much more acrobatic gymnastics skills at the time. You should look up acrobatic gymnastics. Most people have no idea what it is, so they just say ballet. You will be very impressed with acrobatic gymnasts!

@madeline2282

6 ай бұрын

I think body type is a big thing too, honestly. Skinnier bodies used to be more emphasized when selecting teams rather than more athletic builds, and the lines look more elegant than powerful. It's not the only reason for change in aesthetics, but I think it's a contributing factor

@mysticalmargaret6105

6 ай бұрын

​@@mjamitche5245Soviet, Romanian and Chinese gymnasts of that era spent at least an hour at the barre. That is very evident in gymnasts like Mostepanova, Omelianchik, Dobre, Silivas and Yang Bo. ALL were given a sound base in ballet AND other dance forms, as well as drama classes (particularly the Soviets). Do your research.

@mysticalmargaret6105

6 ай бұрын

​@@madeline2282Yet gymnasts like Nelli Kim, Yelena Mukhina, Yelena Shusunova, and in later years, Lilia Podkopayeva to name just a few who weren't tiny thin wisps all displayed elegance and grace to enhance their gymnastics. This was largely due to a sound base in dance, especially ballet, but other dance forms too.

@genlyai5055

6 ай бұрын

@@mjamitche5245 Complete nonsense. As a gymnast who studied ballet seriously, let me tell you that you're an ignorant boob. The CODE mirrored what gymnastics WAS at the time, idiot! That is why so much ballet training was necessary in order not to have the hideous robots that we now have--trick (skill), STOP, trick, WOBBLE, trick, PAUSE. Etc. Ballet training is necessary for any beauty or grace in a gymnast. Learn something about the sport. JFC!

Look who's back with a quality montage!!! I miss these videos from you. Thank you for this one ❤

Bring back mount combinations

Wow - this video is amazing and so well put together! I am in absolute awe at these mounts from yesteryear - back when artistry and originality was the norm and gymnasts didn't look like mini body builders. I only watch old gymnastics now as gymnastics of today leave me bored and saddened. In my view the glory days of gymnastics has gone forever. Thanks for posting.

Wowwww! These mounts show so much dedication and control, as well as being creative and beautiful. I'm amazed; really enjoyed them!

Loved these! I remember excitedly waiting for Kristie Phillips to do her beam mount. I used to always love Kim Zmeskal's unique and beautiful take on the reverse planche. Tatiana Lysenko's round off layout into two more layouts was always great too, and finally I recall Yelena Shushunova had a great Blanche mount.

@mysticalmargaret6105

6 ай бұрын

I think that you meant Planche mount, not Blanche. 😎 Shusunova's unique version of the planche mount (where she jumped directly into the straddled planche) was named for her. She was one of the greats of her time, may she rest in peace. 🤍🤍🤍🕊🕊🕊

@blairinnyc

6 ай бұрын

@@mysticalmargaret6105 yes, an autocorrect typo. And yes, Shushonova ranks as one my all time favorite gymnasts along with Zmeskal, Boginskya and several others from the late 80s and early 90s.

When talent and individuality ruled

I just love Teza and her whole style of gymnastics on beam. ❤

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

I loved her on bars. She has some of the most unique and underrated connections in the history of the sport on that event. Obvs loved her beam too, but her bars are nowhere near as adequately celebrated.

This makes me so sad… we’ve really gotten boring versus continuing on the progress and creativity

@lizzzzzzzz

6 ай бұрын

i agree. i was watching beam routines from US championships recently and they're soooo boring.

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

Difficulty is the only thing that's rewarded now. Back in the day there were multiple ways to build one's score.

@irondragonmaiden

6 ай бұрын

Sadly, I can't blame the gymnasts. For stupid reasons, these artistic routines aren't being rewarded.

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

​@@irondragonmaidenThere are still ways to incorporate artistry into competitive programmes but coaches don't want to rise to the challenge so as a result we have spent years watching talent either get wasted (by those who opt solely to play it safe) or damaged (by abusive coaching).

@LisaSchnettler

5 ай бұрын

the problem with grading artistry is that it comes down to the personal taste of the judges who are only human and can be influenced (or bribed) and can then play favorites. I remember many a competition of completely WTF? scores.

Shout out to Kristie Phillips for still having the most impressive mount.

I miss these days! Loved these moments and routine! Blessings and Peace ✝️❤️

Courtney McCool’s Mount is my favorite! Search 2004 Nationals or Olympic Trials, so lovely.

Shannon Millers OG beam mount is enough to happy cry over

I love Dominique! ❤❤

We used to practice those handstand presses in the gym on the floor. It looks like it's all arms but really its killer for your upper quads, iliacus and iliopsoas muscles. It's much easier to do from a straddle than a pike.

I used to do an aerial front walkover across the width of the beam as my mount in ncaa gymnastics in the 80s....Dobre does it on the video...

That's a lot of scrunchies

@sunnyb73

6 ай бұрын

😂😂😂

4:06 omgg

Love Khorkina ❤

I like Kim Kelly's intro to the Beam.

Exquisite. So graceful

The round off handspring series is the love of my life lol

Gymnastics isn’t like this anymore it’s lost its true form and that’s really sad

It's all fun and games until you try to planche or one-arm balance on Anything. Yes, flips are difficult. But they are one-shots with a burst of energy, technique, and prayer. Balance skills are significantly more difficult to learn. Unfortunately, the different organizations have chosen to give most balance moves a C rating or lower. And so nobody performs them anymore. Beautiful video of classic elements. Thank you.

Unpopular opinion: todays gymnasts are powerhouses for sure but they take away from the beauty of what artistic gymnastics use to be. Simone Biles is amazing, but she doesn’t seem as flexible. It’s all power and no fluidity. And, obviously I could never do what she does so it’s easy for me to say but, she never seems to be pointing her toes and it drives me mad!

@gutsfinky

6 ай бұрын

You literally cannot be as flexible if you're that muscular. It's a trade off. Today's gymnastics demands strength over flexibility. I think there needs to be a middle ground.

@Girlhead

6 ай бұрын

I think from what I have seen Simone does point her toes. But I think you're right- I heard an interview where Simone said she wasn't very flexible. Ali Raisman has said the same thing.

@katharinemarshall6513

6 ай бұрын

Floppy feet. Drives me crazy.

@Namastephie

6 ай бұрын

@@gutsfinky yeah, makes sense. I don’t like it, though. I mean, that’s what we have the trampoline and tumbling for. It was just more fun and beautiful to watch when it was a combination of the tumbling and rhythmic.

@ginaw8975

5 ай бұрын

I absolutely enjoy watching Biles being a power house on Vault and Floor. However, I am never a big fan of her beam work. Balance beam routines should be fluid because of gymnastics’ excellent balance control on the beam, also showcase flexibility of gymnastics with their pointed toes.

Beautiful.

Here I am watching this who struggles to get out of a chair.

A lot of strength moves like the handstand to the arched back position, especially combined with arching as far as to put one's feet next to one's hands on the beam was stopped by the Physical Therapy community. When I went to Physical Therapy school, they had a course at their annual association meeting on gymnasts and other sports for children requiring over arching of the back and how it places a huge load on certain lumbar vertebrae which become dislocated, especially in pre-pubescent girls. You can actually better take this load after you become stronger resulting from menstruation. Which is why I'm so happy the age of gymnasts is skewing older and the over arching of college gymnastics salutes is no longer present in elite.

@sarahdore7884

6 ай бұрын

I wish more people appreciated the health of the athletes over the aesthetics of being unnaturally flexible, etc

@ajess452

6 ай бұрын

Completely agree. The problem with these types of “classic balletic gymnast videos” is that many of them are actually prepubescent children (the gymnast at 4:13 is 14 years old) and they have an unusual level of flexibility. After I read a news story years ago where a 5 year old girl in California ended up paralyzed for life from doing a backbend, I really don’t think these types of mounts are healthy for a gymnast’s longevity. Even today, the Chinese beam workers don’t compete for more than one quad.

@megofiachra3247

6 ай бұрын

This news hasn’t reached rhythmic gymnastics, apparently.

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

​@@ajess452Chinese gymnasts absolutely compete for more than one quad today, in fact they are competing for longer than ever. Even those who are retired from elite such as Shang Chungsong are still going, whichwas completely unheard of in the past. But one of main the reasons for them not competing for more than that in the past was because of how the centralised system was set up. Centralised programmes like that are essentially boarding schools, so once a gymnast has turned 18 and/or been to the Olympics the majority are actually ready to move on with their adult lives as opposed to having to live under restriction for another 4+ years. Daniela Silivas speaks about this with regards to her experience in Romania. She enjoyed her time as a gymnast, she has explicitly stated that she had good coaches, good teammates and had fun, but after 1988 she was bored because upon returning to the sport she realised it meant returning to the regimented life she had just spent the last 10 years living. The other is that thr factory system was specifically designed to churn out a new crop every 4 years, similarly to how Natalia Yurchenko and Olga Mostepanova were forced into retirement to make way for Elena Shushunova and Oksana Omelianchik in spite of outscoring them both in compulsories.

@gutsfinky

6 ай бұрын

I think it's called a planche. And yes, as someone with hypermobility issues who often has terrible pain from my overflexible joints, I have to agree with this. Putting that much unnecessary stress on your lower back is a recipe for disaster. It's why the super flexible gymnasts (semi recent would be Hollie Vise, more recently, Morgan Hurd) never last that long--they always get sidelined with injuries, usually back injuries but always to their joints.

That second mount will never go out of style. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

They make it look so easy, I’m starting to think even I could do it…….

Faltou a entrada da Daniele Hyppolito.

Wobbles what?😅

gymnasts still beam mount

no silivas?

Those balance beam mounts are so artistic beautiful. Wish the amounts of today we’re just as artistic.

Most amazing mounts...totally mesmerized. Announcers: critical!! 😡🤬

Victoria karpenko is thé sozie of Nelly Olleson of the little house in the prairie

When you speak English and German and watch this video: 🤓

I just dont understand this hype about Biles. To me she always looks like she is just about to fall down. whereas these older times gymnasts look like its all so easy.

@RosetteAckesson

5 ай бұрын

Here comes the hate.... Because Biles is the only one with a current routine?

@chokofreza

5 ай бұрын

We all know what they really want to say 😒

Not all gymnasts have the same routine

Compared to these mounts, today's are generic and sanitized.

1:17

@adhara6611

6 ай бұрын

1:15

@adhara6611

6 ай бұрын

2:08

Wow, Michelle Goodwin sure was not the lightest gymnast, especially in those days, and in no way I want to be disrespectful. Her mount was very fluent.

@genlyai5055

6 ай бұрын

It isn't a matter of anorexia being better. It's a matter of placement and balance. PERIOD.

I’d love to see more of the interesting mounts, show of strength, and acrobatics and much, much less of the flappy arm waving and pointless posing nonsense.

nice contrast with today's flying sausages!!😎

As beautiful as these were, the danger and risk for injury is the reason the have been phased out and even banned for certain moves.

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

There are no banned elements on the balance beam and danger/risk of injury is not the reason they have become less common. They are less common because they aren't rewarded properly. In previous codes the mount not only counted towards the final score but difficulty was not the sole factor that points could be generated from either. These days mounts do not count towards the final score and difficulty *is* the only way to build said score.

@genlyai5055

6 ай бұрын

Utter nonsense. Gymnastics is a dangerous sport; the risk of injury and even death is omnipresent even in 'simple' moves. The FIG's canards and outright LIES on the subject are linked to its racist crusade to deny Simone Biles' innovations their proper ratings. FIFY.

@gutsfinky

6 ай бұрын

You're correct--but the skills that have been banned because they are too dangerous are generally tumbling passes and bar releases. There's nothing about these beam mounts that presents the potential for traumatic injury. They're just not rewarded anymore. The acro skills and damn wolf turns in the routine interior are much more valuable now so the focus is on those. Nobody wants to "count" their mount as a skill so they do easy ones. If FIG mandated that the mount had to be a counted skill in every beam set then we'd see a lot more difficulty there.

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

@@gutsfinky None of these skills have been banned.

@genlyai5055

6 ай бұрын

@@gutsfinky Everything in elite gymnastics presents the potential for traumatic injury and death. Did the moron FIG ban vaults after Sang Lan's paralysis and Julissa Gomez' death? Did they ban coaches after the death of Christy Henrich, hounded to her grave by that CUNextTuesday Al Fong? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Whoa! I've never seen a gymnast like Michelle Goodwin before. She's got ALL the curves. Made that mount look effortless, and not a whisper of sound on any landing. Most of these gals are tiny stick thin waifs so it's lovely to see a mature figure up there.

Tbf, these risky beam mount is dumb strategy.

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

Not it wasn't, because several of the mounts featured here are from codes where risk was explicitly rewarded.

@BelleBlack1

6 ай бұрын

They should upgrade mounts and also provide .2 bonus for C+ mounts

@Hyperlophus

6 ай бұрын

They are now, but the code of points has significantly changed from back when these were popular. The time and risk for these mounts is no longer rewarded.

@passionsydney

6 ай бұрын

The current code incentivises dumb strategy by playing it safe. Your sentiment, while true, is a symptom and not the cause

@MD-722

6 ай бұрын

@@BelleBlack1That sounds like a good idea on paper but all that would do is result in a particular mount becoming the new wolf-turn. What they need to do is reintroduce more ways to build score than just than just DV so that not only do we see the return of proper mounts, but that we also see a full range of them (including As & Bs).

Those press and hold show off style mounts were so boring to me

@BelleBlack1

6 ай бұрын

They were more impressive in the 70s-90s because women were thought to be physically weak. that's why we see so many dance skills.

@RebeccaTaylorTillery

6 ай бұрын

They show amazing strength and control

@mdml0

6 ай бұрын

I used to think so too but with the other apparatuses being so dynamic, it's a nice change of pace especially when they showcase concentration and balance on one hand on the balance beam.

@findingthatperfectspot4692

6 ай бұрын

I loved the press-to-handstand mounts of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and miss them. Audiences used to love them, too, back in the day. Believe it or not, but pretty handstands and holds used to get a bigger response from many spectators than acro skills!

@genlyai5055

6 ай бұрын

Dopamine-addicted and smartphone-addicted MUCH? ROTFLOL!