February 24, 2025 • 92 mins
In this episode we cover:
Simone Biles: Rising - Netflix 2024
and
Call the Midwife Christmas Specials from 2013 and 2016
The Fly Girl Spritzer using Black Girl Magic wines - https://www.mcbridesisters.com/blogs/eat-drink/cocktail-recipe-fly-girl-spritzer?srsltid=AfmBOopqq5eAw0oOZBjYHlyhHAVlM3GebvzMwJPbzWvXvAbVOsWwxksl
Simone Biles: Rising - Netflix 2024
https://www.netflix.com/title/81700902
Black excellence overcoming trauma/hardship vs. media focusing solely on trauma as a definition aspect of the Black experience
Summer 2020 Tokyo Olympics drama - context: COVID-19, no crowd, no family, daily testing and worry about infection
- The “Twisties” - https://time.com/7004666/what-are-the-twisties-gymnastics-cause-treatments-simone-biles-condition/
- https://www.snexplores.org/article/simone-biles-twisties-gymnastics-olympics-explainer
- Baseline danger of the sport, no protective equipment, feeling “in jail in my body, deaf”, add the speed and power of her athleticism
- Try not to die
- “Invisible” problem
- 1 ½ yrs before returned to full training
- Baseline danger of the sport, no protective equipment, feeling “in jail in my body, deaf”, add the speed and power of her athleticism
- Optimal anxiety - https://www.healthline.com/health/yerkes-dodson-law#stress-performance-bell-curve
- Social negativity and media pressure before, during, and after
- Abandoning team, loser, quitter, making excuses, “doesn’t feel like it,” a failure, a drop out, a disappointment, life lessons not to give up
- Pressure, mental, and physical stress
- For team, for the country, other countries rooting for her
- Still won Bronze on Balance Beam
- Pressure, mental, and physical stress
- Male response vs. female response differential?
- Abandoning team, loser, quitter, making excuses, “doesn’t feel like it,” a failure, a drop out, a disappointment, life lessons not to give up
- History of gymnastics in the USA
- Older athletes until Nadia Comenici and the Karoli Era of training
- Kerri Shrug
- Push through injury - long term effect
- Sexual abuse scandal
- Trauma response
- Limited diversity
- Youth and diversity in the sport vs. other sports
- https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/08/06/nx-s1-5064419/womens-gymnastics-ages-simone-biles-olympics
- https://static.usagym.org/PDFs/Events/24olympics/diversity.pdf
- First american black woman to complete was in 1992 and 1996 - often in the shadows of white competitors
- First american black woman to win a gold - 2012
- Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.
- Older athletes until Nadia Comenici and the Karoli Era of training
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