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 connected to it and is usually utilized by gymnasts after an extended and profitable profession. However that’s not the tone Bjerken needed to take. As an alternative, Whitney needed to replicate a message that she herself has given up, and has turned her again on targets that can now go unfulfilled.
Gymnastics usually produces tales of the warrior athlete who by no means quits. Gymnasts resembling 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 targets. 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 change 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that Bjerken who just lately turned 18 has movies on her channel going again to when she was solely 5 or 6 years outdated. Whitney was successfully a toddler star on YouTube and amongst the primary technology of such youngster Web personalities to exist.
However like her up to date 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 achieved athletes. In Whitney Bjerken’s case, she was as a lot a adorned athlete as she was a preferred YouTube persona.
In her youthful years Bjerken persistently ranked as one of many top-100 gymnasts inside her age group on the nationwide stage. Whitney was on monitor for a powerful 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 effectively, maybe Whitney may earn a spot on the Nationwide Crew.
The one purpose that by no means occurred is as a result of gymnasts want somewhat little bit of luck with a view to succeed and Bjerken had the worst sort of luck. Accidents to the elbow just isn’t the most typical kind of harm in gymnastics. However for the gymnasts who’ve accidents to this space of the physique, it shortly turns into a significant profession impediment. Then got here a progress spurt which for a younger aspiring teenager like Whitney, solely made it that a lot more durable to succeed.
Regardless of the misfortune, Whitney stored 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 one of the best at performing wolf turns and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that many really feel she is the easiest on the planet 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 carefully 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 latest 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 is 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 “truly 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 up this problem, and the dangers related to it. However Bjerken desires to do what’s finest for herself and pursue the actions that make her blissful. Putting that above all else. The one largest purpose Whitney gave for her departure is that she needed to begin specializing in the actions that she is going to be capable to do for the remainder of her life. Not gymnastics the place below one of the best case state of affairs, 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 may 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 need to be.
Bjerken leaves behind a gymnastics channel that offered a lot worth to the game. Whitney Bjerken was the quintessential function mannequin, offering movies that have been each bit as academic as they have been entertaining. Whitney gave an actual perspective on what gymnastics competitions have been like. She printed 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 dwelling fitness center went roughly the identical means, with Whitney showcasing what a full observe session seemed like. Whitney allowed folks to be taught concerning the gymnastics way of life in a means they’ll’t see when one watches a gymnastics competitors on tv or any skilled documentary. Bjerken prevented displaying merely “highlights” which is how nearly each kind of visible media covers gymnastics.
What Whitney did as a substitute was give viewers the uninterrupted model of a observe session. Whereas your typical gymnastics documentary would present a bunch of gymnasts coaching on a row of beams, solely showcase a few tough abilities with no rationalization of what they have been engaged on or how they received to that second, Whitney took a distinct strategy.
Whitney would present what abilities she warms up with, what number of instances 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 instances in a row. You can see how usually she took a pause to get some relaxation, how she reacted when she couldn’t full a ability she was attempting to be taught, and the way she reacted when she fell.
Whitney would present what a real, prolonged, and devoted beam session appears to be like like in coaching. Not the hurried, frantic mess that outsiders solely see in podium coaching throughout a gymnastic competitors. Whitney replicated this system for each facet 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 tough abilities like a Yurchenko double pike, Whitney constructed a preferred model for herself the place the spine of her channel was boring, repetitive, mundane, power 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 arms. A problem gymnasts are vulnerable to as gymnasts steadily stick their arms right into a shared chalk bucket, whereas concurrently chopping 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 need to cope with. Her content material offered a lot academic worth that a few of her movies can be utilized as a instrument for web sites like this one to indicate informal sports activities followers a few of the finer particulars of gymnastics that they could in any other case not learn about.
However there was additionally the younger gymnasts who watched her channel and seemed to Whitney for steering. Whitney may at all times be counted on to be a task mannequin for them. From her constructive conduct when followers needed to fulfill her at competitions, to her willingness to reply questions from viewers providing recommendation on how you can 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 matter about gymnastics from essentially the most severe to issues as trivial as what she packed in her fitness center bag earlier than a contest.
When Whitney framed her departure from the game as “quitting” slightly 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 state of affairs 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 depart the game.
For a gymnast who had spent eleven years documenting every thing, Whitney was going to doc this as effectively. 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 each side knew precisely what such a request meant. Whitney didn’t merely announce she had stop, she had spent months documenting your complete means 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 after they too may need to embark on the identical painful course of. Maybe this is the 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 means that matches the views of the gymnasts who look as much as her.
Whitney defined the tough means 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 steadily defined her ideas earlier than or after competitions. In her profession Bjerken had undoubtedly helped numerous gymnasts who have been at or under 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 unhealthy emotions themselves.
When Whitney Bjerken began pivoting in the direction of music throughout the previous 12 months, gymnastics followers took be aware and at instances questioned her sudden curiosity on this matter. However a shocking element about Whitney Bjerken’s YouTube channel that’s so broadly recognized to the gymnastics group, her very first video truly had nothing to do with gymnastics. It was a singing video. Music has change into the defining matter of her life as Whitney is getting 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.
