Surviving The Twisties
Amy Dickinson
July 31, 2024
[This is my current "One Good Thing" newsletter, which you can find and subscribe to on Amydickinson.substack.com]
[“Team Amy” — photo by Amy (2016)]
I’ve spent the last few weeks in the company of my two granddaughters, who come to stay every year during the most fun portion of the summer.
I’ll admit to trying to overload them with future MEMORIES of doing FUN THINGS while simultaneously learning LIFE LESSONS™️.
If you asked them what the most wonderful part of their stay has been, they’d probably skip over the MAGICAL MOMENTS created by yours truly and mention the most recent thing they did, which many days has involved a visit to the Frosty Cow — an ice cream shack located on the fringes of a cow pasture.
(I don’t know about you, but I like to know where my ice cream comes from.)
[In this case, a bunch of Holsteins]
This summer’s biggest LIFE LESSON™️ was delivered not by me, but by Simone Biles …
… several days before her leadership of the American women’s gymnastic team led to an historic Olympic Gold for all of them.
After I somewhat relentlessly bugged my granddaughters about the Olympics in advance of the opening of the Games, they said that they did not know much about the Olympics, so I gave them a quicky crash course into my biannual Olympic obsession (more on that later).
I focused on Simone Biles for all of the obvious reasons — but mainly because she is overall amazing, and young girls should be inspired not only by her accomplishments but especially — by her spirit. I’m talking about the kind of strength it takes to be fully in charge of your life. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s how Simone strikes me.
Fortunately, there is a new documentary series (produced by Biles and streaming on Netflix), which not only outlines Simone Biles’ inspiring personal story, but — even more important — it tells the story of this athlete’s battle with “The Twisties.”
Follow gymnast Simone Biles as she balances her personal life, mental health journey and training ahead of a highly anticipated return to th
You don’t know what “The Twisties” are?
I didn’t, either. But it is a term used in gymnastics where athletes completely lose the connection between their mind and body. This is an extremely dangerous phenomenon, certainly when you are in the midst of a soaring double-pike triple salchow mid-air split with a multiple tuck and twist dismount.
(A move so daring and impossible, I have been forced to name it after myself.)
The Twisties are what happened to Simone Biles during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In the middle of her Olympic vault, instead of doing one of the several spectacular moves so death-defying that they are named for her, Simone … choked. She was only able to complete a much lesser vault — stunning the crowd. And then, she further shocked the world by walking away from her team and her sport during the Olympics.
Simone Biles has always possessed an almost supernatural body awareness, in that her mind and her body have been in near-perfect sync.
But then — mid-vault — Simone Biles’ mind suddenly lost track of what her body was doing. She had an attack of The Twisties. (Despite its somewhat cute name, this is a dreaded and extremely dangerous experience.)
In the film, experiencing The Twisties is described as being “broken.”
Have you ever felt your own version of The Twisties?
Yeah — me too. Big time.
Simone Biles was honest about her reasons for pulling out of the Tokyo Olympics four years ago (protecting her mental health), and she was criticized by many for letting her team down, and for “putting herself first.”
Particularly nasty were the comments from a series of lardo loud-mouth radio sports “jocks,” who, as Simone remarks, “can’t do a cartwheel.”
Still — the question hung in the air:
Would Simone Biles attempt some sort of comeback?
Before coming back, this Greatest Of All Time athlete had to be brave enough to face a a workout comprised of a few minutes jumping on a trampoline, in the hopes of perhaps being airborne again at some point down the road.
In the film, we watch as she starts going back to the gym. She lays bare the raw terror she feels when doing the moves and routines she made famous.
This answered a long-held mystery for me:
Why aren’t these athletes terrified when they know that one wrong move could lead to serious injury, paralysis or death?
It turns out: They ARE!
That’s where their training comes in. Also, they seem to possess Gold Medal grit.
Unfortunately, in addition to terror-avoidance, these athletes are also trained to stuff down their own problems, worries, and physical or psychic injuries. The film explores this reality in detail.
Particularly sad (and still so shocking) is the disclosure that Simone Biles is a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by the former long-time Team USA gymnasts doctor and now convicted rapist Larry Nassar, who assaulted her during physical exams (he was convicted of sexually assaulting over 500 female gymnasts).
[From Wikipedia: Lawrence Gerard Nassar (born August 16, 1963) is an American serial child rapist and former family medicine physician. For 18 years, he was the team doctor of the United States women's national gymnastics team, where he used his position to exploit and sexually assault hundreds of young athletes.]
Simone suggests that her attack of The Twisties is a trauma response to this long-repressed abuse, amplified by years of stoically stuffing it down. She never received therapeutic help because, as she says, “At the time, I thought I was OK.”
And that is why I wanted my granddaughters to learn about Simone Biles.
Yes — Simone is a woman of color with an amazing and inspiring personal story performing at the highest-ever level in a traditionally "white” sport, but my granddaughters already know that women of color can excel at everything — because these girls are surrounded by great examples. (We’re looking at you, Kamala!)
Good news, here, because to these younger girls, this particular LIFE LESSON feels as old as their granny.
In the film, however, we see how recent this breakthrough in gymnastics is, as well as the unique challenges these athletes continue to face.
[For a great overview of the very recent ascendance of Black women in Olympic gymnastics — including lots of video highlights, check out this compendium, published by blackamericaweb.com CLICK HERE]
I wanted Team Amy to see how it feels and what it might take to survive their own version of The Twisties.
They might learn from Simone’s example: Through authenticity, honesty, hard work, professional help, compassion, acceptance, familial love, personal support, and by accessing and unlocking that oftentimes deeply hidden quality I believe we all have within us.
Let’s call it “the spirit of a champion.”
[Team Amy … Outstanding in our field]]
LIFE LESSON delivered, I took Team Amy out for ice cream, where I enjoyed my preferred version of The Twisties:
What’s the degree of difficulty for taking an ice-cream selfie in the heat?
Eleven.
I hope you are able to award yourselves perfect scores for whatever extreme challenges you encounter.
Love,
Amy