Raising the Bar

The following video shows the evolution of the uneven parallel bars in women's gymnastics from the 1950s to around 2005. It is very, very cool. It is absolutely amazing to see how much the sport has evolved in the last 60 years! I can't imagine how incredibly unpleasant it must have been to learn all the wraps: aside from repeatedly landing on your hips with great force, originally, women's uneven bars were performed on the same bars the men used. If ever you've been on a really old set of parallel bars, you'll know that they're not so much round as a slightly pointed ovals. Not to mention made of a very hard wood. Ouch. When my former head coach retired from gymnastics, some of his gymnasts from the 70s were talking about learning wraps and the horrible bruises they would receive. They called them 'strawberries'...

Anyway, impressive as uneven bars is now, I must admit, I really love the old school style. I think bars became most interesting when the distance  between the high and low was increased enough to allow for more release moves, but were still close enough together for wraps.

I know that the gymnastics world will never return to that style of bars, but I would love to see someone transform it into a circus act! I know it can be difficult for an audience to look at what is so obviously a gymnastics apparatus and accept it as a circus discipline, but if the high bar act in Corteo has taught us anything, it's that such an apparatus can be transformed into something super badass. I, of course, have no intention of pioneering this. I have quite enough bruises to be getting along with, thank you very much.

And so, without further ado, the evolution of women's uneven parallel bars!

I only just noticed that there's an updated version of this video! The maker seems to think it's better, but the styles of the clips used are quite different and the content varies enough that both are worth watching. Besides, who doesn't want more old school uneven bars in their life?