Best 169 quotes in «gymnastics quotes» category

Using your body to free your mind. That's the blessing bestowed by movement, by action.

The darkest of men carry the brightest of lights

With strange detachment, Naomi’s mind noticed nothing but the beauty of the jump. Air sliced along her body as it streamed straight as an arrow in its path of utmost precision. The world fell away behind her. For an immeasurable moment, Naomi wasn’t a terrestrial being at all. She was wildly liberated like a bird, soaring through the sky with the chaotic freedom of a wild animal.

Yet, every day, I miss the feeling of flying. I will never experience it again. Sometimes, if I run far enough, past my limits, I can beat my legs into numbness, almost replicating the feeling of being a young gymnast on a good day. I can make myself feel numb but heavy. Never light. And I always feel the pain later. I pay the price with sore shins, aching ankles, and "hip pointers" jabbing into my pelvis. Still, I have a love affair with gymnastics, with that period in my life. Often, I dream dreams of weightlessness. When I feel most disheartened, heavy with the burdens of everyday life, I imagine myself buoyant, floatable. I waft, on my own accord, propelled by my own volition, in effortless control. Completely powerful, resilient, substantial, agile. I miss it every day.

You can’t conquer everything in a day. Or even a week. Maybe not even a year. There’s no way to work hard at grieving. You just have to let it happen. And you are, so don’t fight it.

You Just Have To Go Full Out With Confidence And Be Courageous.

After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.

A comeback in gymnastics is almost impossible in itself.

After quitting gymnastics in 2000, I was looking for that next thing where I could defy gravity. I was looking for something that had the flipping and the twisting and allowed me to be acrobatic.

[Alexei Nemov] has the best feel for the aesthetics of the sport. He doesn't just do a skill; he makes it look gorgeous. Some gymnasts think if their arm is bent a little it doesn't matter, but Nemov understands it matters.

All the hands, hearts and minds of the individuals collectively contribute to the team's success. (listen to your team, watch their body language, share your expectations . . . work together.)

And we realized that it was kind of a starting point for gymnastics, to go professional, and also to just get a lot more of the audiences in the arenas on the off years, in the years that we're not in the Olympics.

Anybody could be as good as Nemov. Yeah, he's a great gymnast, but anyone can be that good.

As far as technique and virtuosity are concerned, I think I am better than Bilozerchev.

As long as you've done your best, making mistakes doesn't matter. You and I are human; we will mess up. What counts is learning from your mistakes and getting back up when life has knocked you down.

At the Olympics, there was a little bit of unfair judging, but I tried not to be disappointed and to do my best. I think the audience respected and loved what I did at the Olympics, and that helped me become the world champion in 1997.

Because up to sixteen years old you feel gymnastics more. You can show your emotion, grace, like woman gymnastics, not kid's gymnastics. I feel I have good shape, and I can do it elements everything, but, it's not competition for me.

With enough mental gymnastics, just about any fact can become misshapen in favor to one's confirmation bias.

By continually increasing the difficulty of the sport, we are discouraging younger athletes from starting and continuing in the sport. But most importantly, we are losing the beauty of our sport. We do not want gymnastics to lose what makes it so great - its artistic beauty.

Chess is intellectual gymnastics.

Creative people inspire me. Athletes also inspire me to come alive, especially my daughter, a competitive gymnast who works very hard, as much as six hours a day on her gymnastics skills.

Don't be afraid if things seem difficult in the beginning. That's only the initial impression. The important thing is not to retreat; you have to master yourself.

Everyone gets scared, and everyone falls. The key is to get right back up and try again.

Every single element, even the most hair-raising, can be improved.

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.

Everyone works hard when they want to, when they get quick results, when it's convenient to put forth effort. The best work hard when they don't want to, when it's inconvenient to give it that little extra effort... and that extra effort might be just what they need to place them on top.

At the beginning, ballet accounted for at least two hours out of six hours of my daily training session. Later I devoted less time to ballet, but every workout of mine included training in choreography.

Finally I almost dropped gymnastics because I couldn't live without create, and you know, and then, all public in the world start to say, we don't want to see gymnastics without Olga.

Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It's sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn't hurt.

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition.

First, don't cry. That's the worst thing a gymnast can do in training, because it can ruin your concentration and lead to injury. Second, always place the highest demands of yourself in the sport.

For me going down in history being the first black American to win the gold, I think more colored people are going to start coming to the gymnastics world and say 'okay, anything is possible. If Gabby did it, then I can do it too.'

Generally speaking, I think it is unbecoming to act as a national hero, wave hands and so on.

Gymnastics is the type of sport where you can't take something that gives you more energy. Something may be great for the vault, but then you have the bars after it and you have to be more sedate for that.

Gymnastics uses every single part of your body, every little tiny muscle that you never even knew.

Gymnastics is my whole life, and I dream of going to the Olympics and being a world champ.

Gymnastics is not only a good thing to live by, but it is important to understand how it does help you in life.

Hard work is always hard work, for young gymnasts and old gymnasts. Whoever can handle this will be a champion.

Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need the hard work because it's such a tough atmosphere... to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don't always win, and you gotta hang though together.

Heart is what separates the good from the great.

How many people in the world is, each of them is individual. And I like to eat bread, somebody don't like that. You know this is the same in gymnastics.

Four years ago, I was thinking… no Olympics, who am I? Probably in ’04, I was identified with gymnastics. I thought gymnastics was who I am and I have to be an Olympian and I have to make this team. That’s probably why I was a little bit devastated when I didn’t make it. You know, I was kinda lost. Now I realize that we’re all magnificent, regardless of what we do or whatever career path we choose, you know, that career doesn’t have to define us as a human being. There’s so much more to being human than all of this.

I began dancing when I was 7 years old. I was told that I had the perfect ballet dancers body and had these crazy high arches in my feet that resulted in an amazing point. Ballet was very disciplined and, frankly, a little boring, so I eventually transitioned to gymnastics. I loved that, although I never reached a competitive level.

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

I did gymnastics when I was growing up and to this day I can still do the splits.

I don't believe that there's anyone in the world without a competitive bone in their body.

I don't think many people will remember me when I retire.

I don't think I've ever not gotten nervous. When you work so hard for one special day or routine, you want to perform it better than you ever have. We always say at our gym, If you lose the nerves, you lose the sport.

I feel there are tone singers, and there are more vocal gymnastics singers. And I think that's amazing when people can do that, but I think there's room for the tone singers. And there aren't a lot of them.

If you can't handle all the injuries and scars, choose a less demanding sport.