Whitney Bjerken just lately introduced her retirement from gymnastics, solely she didn’t use the phrase “retire” whereas saying it. Whitney repeatedly used the phrase “stop” as a substitute. The phrase “retirement” has connotations hooked up to it and is commonly utilized by gymnasts after an extended and profitable profession. However that’s not the tone Bjerken needed to take. As a substitute, Whitney needed to replicate a message that she herself has given up, and has turned her again on objectives that can now go unfulfilled.
Gymnastics typically produces tales of the warrior athlete who by no means quits. Gymnasts akin to Oksana Chusovitna, Gabby Douglas, and Yulia Biryulya. Gymnasts who function wonderful function fashions instructing us to struggle by way of adversity, to by no means cease attempting, and to by no means flip your again by yourself objectives. Chusovitina, Douglas, and Biryulya present an vital instructing second.
However so do gymnasts who retire younger like Denisa Golgota and now Whitney Bjerken.
Gymnasts ought to by no means be afraid to say “no” to the game. That gymnastics is vital, however so are different issues in life. Gymnastics is a sport that’s supposed to offer gymnasts pleasure, not be a burden. For Whitney Bjerken, gymnastics had turn into precisely that. Whitney summed up her emotions by saying:
“I like the game however I hate doing it at this level. And I hate that I hate doing it, however I simply do.”
Whitney has spent nearly her whole life as a task mannequin for younger youngsters. She is finest recognized for a gymnastics themed YouTube channel that now has 1.6 million subscribers. The channel has been round for therefore lengthy that Bjerken who just lately turned 18 has movies on her channel going again to when she was solely 5 or 6 years previous. Whitney was successfully a toddler star on YouTube and amongst the primary era of such baby Web personalities to exist.
However like her modern Olivia Dunne of TikTok fame, gymnasts who double as social media celebrities are sometimes subjected to unfair criticisms that they aren’t nice athletes. Outsiders deal with them as figures who’re solely related as a result of they’ve a big private fanbase, and refuse to imagine they’re additionally completed athletes. In Whitney Bjerken’s case, she was as a lot a embellished athlete as she was a preferred YouTube persona.
In her youthful years Bjerken constantly ranked as one of many top-100 gymnasts inside her age group on the nationwide stage. Whitney was on observe for a robust profession the place she would have damaged into the elite stage, maybe certified to the highest home competitions such because the U.S. Classics or Nationwide Championships. If issues went nicely, maybe Whitney might earn a spot on the Nationwide Crew.
The one cause that by no means occurred is as a result of gymnasts want just a little little bit of luck with the intention to succeed and Bjerken had the worst type of luck. Accidents to the elbow is just not the commonest sort of damage in gymnastics. However for the gymnasts who’ve accidents to this space of the physique, it rapidly turns into a serious profession impediment. Then got here a progress spurt which for a younger aspiring teenager like Whitney, solely made it that a lot tougher to succeed.
Regardless of the misfortune, Whitney saved at it and was in a position to make her dedication to the College of Alabama. Despite the fact that there wouldn’t be an Olympics for Whitney, gymnastics followers continued to carry her in excessive regard. Gymnastics followers think about Bjerken the most effective at performing wolf turns and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that many really feel she is the easiest on the earth at performing this particular ability.
Gymnastics purists don’t view Whitney as some irrelevant low-grade gymnast who solely will get talked about as a result of she has a preferred YouTube channel. They adopted her profession intently and when the day got here that Bjerken introduced she is quitting gymnastics, the feedback ranged from one fan calling it a tragic day, one other saying “I’m going to overlook her gymnastics.” The departure of Whitney Bjerken provoked a response from gymnastics followers as emotional as any main retirement in current reminiscence.
However how does a gymnast who spent her life build up a big gymnastics fanbase on social media, stop gymnastics? Whitney herself known as it nerve-racking and acknowledged she is apprehensive that she’s going to expertise a mass exodus of followers leaving her channel. At one level, Whitney known as it “scary” after which corrected herself to say “really it’s terrifying.” For Whitney, her social media platform isn’t only for enjoyable, it’s her livelihood.
It speaks to the bravery and braveness of Whitney Bjerken that she is taking over this problem, and the dangers related to it. However Bjerken needs to do what’s finest for herself and pursue the actions that make her pleased. Putting that above all else. The only greatest cause Whitney gave for her departure is that she needed to start out specializing in the actions that she’s going to be capable of do for the remainder of her life. Not gymnastics the place underneath the most effective case situation, she would have been retired 4 years from now when her NCAA eligibility runs out.
Whitney does this all whereas having the braveness to say she merely misplaced her ardour for the game and willpower to maintain doing it. Whitney might have simply lied, claiming she was retiring for medical causes and nobody would have recognized in any other case. However Whitney had far an excessive amount of integrity to keep away from being truthful, even when she didn’t should be.
Bjerken leaves behind a gymnastics channel that supplied a lot worth to the game. Whitney Bjerken was the quintessential function mannequin, offering movies that have been each bit as instructional as they have been entertaining. Whitney gave an actual perspective on what gymnastics competitions have been like. She revealed movies that didn’t simply present her routines, however her equipment warmups, even the pre-competition warmups, and the way she carried herself in between rotations.
Her movies whereas coaching at her residence gymnasium went roughly the identical manner, with Whitney showcasing what a full follow session seemed like. Whitney allowed individuals to study in regards to the gymnastics life-style in a manner they’ll’t see when one watches a gymnastics competitors on tv or any skilled documentary. Bjerken averted exhibiting merely “highlights” which is how nearly each sort of visible media covers gymnastics.
What Whitney did as a substitute was give viewers the uninterrupted model of a follow session. Whereas your typical gymnastics documentary would present a bunch of gymnasts coaching on a row of beams, solely showcase a few troublesome expertise with no clarification of what they have been engaged on or how they bought to that second, Whitney took a unique strategy.
Whitney would present what expertise she warms up with, what number of occasions she practices a selected ability earlier than she tries one thing else, whereas viewers can watch her get higher and higher as she does the identical ability a few occasions in a row. You may see how typically she took a pause to get some relaxation, how she reacted when she couldn’t full a ability she was attempting to study, and the way she reacted when she fell.
Whitney would present what a real, prolonged, and devoted beam session seems to be like in coaching. Not the hurried, frantic mess that outsiders solely see in podium coaching throughout a gymnastic competitors. Whitney replicated this technique for each side of her gymnastics life. No different type of gymnastics media gave as a lot of a whole image of the game as Whitney Bjerken’s YouTube channel.
In a sport the place movie crews focus all their efforts on the tremendous troublesome expertise like a Yurchenko double pike, Whitney constructed a preferred model for herself the place the spine of her channel was boring, repetitive, mundane, energy constructing workouts that have been so easy anybody can do them. However her success proved that this was the content material gymnastics followers needed, a glimpse into the lifetime of a gymnast that was real and unedited.
Bjerken did stuff like movie an episode about how she suffered dozens of warts on her palms. A problem gymnasts are inclined to as gymnasts continuously stick their palms right into a shared chalk bucket, whereas concurrently slicing their pores and skin whereas griping the uneven bars. It was an instance of Whitney offering an consciousness to one of many little recognized hassles that gymnasts should take care of. Her content material supplied a lot instructional worth that a few of her movies can be utilized as a software for web sites like this one to indicate informal sports activities followers a number of the finer particulars of gymnastics that they might in any other case not find out about.
However there was additionally the younger gymnasts who watched her channel and seemed to Whitney for steerage. Whitney might all the time be counted on to be a task mannequin for them. From her optimistic habits when followers needed to fulfill her at competitions, to her willingness to reply questions from viewers providing recommendation on learn how to compete whereas going by way of their menstrual cycle. For a YouTube channel that has been round for greater than a decade, Whitney managed to cowl each subject about gymnastics from essentially the most severe to issues as trivial as what she packed in her gymnasium bag earlier than a contest.
When Whitney framed her departure from the game as “quitting” reasonably than “retiring,” it was as a result of she had one final video to make. Whitney spent her whole life documenting the lifetime of a gymnast, showcasing each conceivable situation or deadlock a gymnast will expertise in her profession, and giving viewers an opportunity to expertise it themselves. The one plot level that each gymnast will attain is the day they go away the game.
For a gymnast who had spent eleven years documenting every little thing, Whitney was going to doc this as nicely. Bjerken preserved footage of all of the steps she took as she underwent the method of quitting gymnastics. From calling her future coach on the College of Alabama to tell her she wouldn’t be attending, to requesting a household assembly along with her longtime membership coach the place either side knew precisely what such a request meant. Whitney didn’t merely announce she had stop, she had spent months documenting your complete strategy of withdrawing and included it alongside her announcement.
That is Whitney’s final reward to gymnastics, showcasing this expertise to her youthful viewers in order that they’re higher ready for the day once they too might need to embark on the identical painful course of. Maybe for this reason Whitney didn’t say she was “retiring” from gymnastics. For her younger viewers who compete recreationally on the decrease stage, they don’t “retire” from the game. They merely stop. Whitney Bjerken determined to border her departure in a manner that matches the views of the gymnasts who look as much as her.
Whitney defined the troublesome strategy of coming to phrases with quitting, and overcoming the feelings the place you are feeling like you will have left your coach and household down. It follows a profession the place she continuously defined her ideas earlier than or after competitions. In her profession Bjerken had undoubtedly helped numerous gymnasts who have been at or beneath the L-10 stage. Younger gymnasts who have been in a position to watch Whitney’s movies and used her phrases to get a greater understanding as they confronted those self same dangerous emotions themselves.
When Whitney Bjerken began pivoting in the direction of music inside the previous 12 months, gymnastics followers took notice and at occasions questioned her sudden curiosity on this subject. However a stunning element about Whitney Bjerken’s YouTube channel that’s so extensively recognized to the gymnastics neighborhood, her very first video really had nothing to do with gymnastics. It was a singing video. Music has turn into the defining subject of her life as Whitney is coming into her grownup years, whereas gymnastics appears to outline it much less and fewer.
As Whitney completes her pivot to music, it’s nearly as if she is returning again to the place she belongs and gymnastics was fortunate to have had her for the time that it did.
