Gymnast’s joyful routine is a happy alternative to putting on that grim ‘game face’ in a business where smiling is, well, frowned upon
Between Brexit and Blue Monday – the most depressing day of the year, aka this Monday– it’s not always been easy of late to sustain the self-satisfied, privileged-white-male grin that greets you in my byline picture. It is perhaps these ambient feelings of dread that have sent me for solace, again and again, to a video of an American university student doing a gymnastics floor routine. The two-minute clip of 21-year-old Katelyn Ohashi tumbling, flipping and pretzeling to cheesy, nightclub staples has had more than 60 million views this week. It’s a blast of concentrated positivity and good vibes that is the time-poor equivalent of days spent under a Sad lamp.
Analysis has already been done on why the world has fallen so hard for the diminutive Ohashi. And the story is a heartwarming one. Ohashi was a junior star – winning four golds at the US nationals aged 14, then beating Simone Biles two years later – but lost her passion for gymnastics. She was injured and put on weight. “I hated myself,” she admitted last year. “I was broken.” A perfect-10 routine is a thing of beauty any time, but it means even more for someone who was written off when she was still a teenager.
Related: Katelyn Ohashi's perfect 10 reminded America life could be fun again
A isn't enough for this floor routine by @katelyn_ohashi. pic.twitter.com/pqUzl7AlUA
Continue reading...