Weekend Girlie Sports Open Comments

For all those men out there – go straight to the comments. You won’t appreciate this topic at all. These sports don’t involve in-your-face brutal athleticism, like artistic gymnastics with its emphasis on tumbling and strength, or other sports like swimming, wrestling, etc. These sports have elements of strength and flexibility and ability, like artistic gymnastics, but they hide the athleticism behind pretty smiles and outfits. To make it look easy, you have to be very, very good.
There has been much said about the stupidity of rhythmic gymastics. I’d like to see the guys do the things this girl can do with her ball:

Note the flexibility she exhibits. In this sport, the focus is on agility, flexibility, grace, and creativity with the equipment. When you add the group element, you have issues with synchronization and exchanges.

Other equipment used include hoops (like hula hoops), rope, ribbon (which Hammy thinks is silly), and mallets.
Another of the girlie-yet-killer sports is synchronized swimming. These women have to hold their breath underwater for several minutes, all the while paddling like all heck, and yet appear smiling and fresh when they break the surface of the water. To get so many people synchronized requires not only great swimming ability and strengh (how else do they get those magnificent lifts?), but great muscle control and hours upon hours of practice.

Here’s a little bit about how they train:

And for an underwater view of what they do, here’s one team. They are in shallow water, which means they hit the bottom of the pool, but during a show, there would be no pool bottom to push against. Note how the music sounds different underwater, so while they’re swimming upside down, they have to keep proper time so that above water, everything still works together. I imagine the whole thing is like patting your head and rubbing your tummy while two people are counting at slightly different speeds:

So yeah, while these are acquired tastes, these “girlie” sports are harder than you might think they are.