Whitney Bjerken not too long ago introduced her retirement from gymnastics, solely she didn’t use the phrase “retire” whereas saying it. Whitney repeatedly used the phrase “give up” as a substitute. The phrase “retirement” has connotations hooked up to it and is usually utilized by gymnasts after a protracted and profitable profession. However that’s not the tone Bjerken needed to take. As a substitute, Whitney needed to mirror a message that she herself has given up, and has turned her again on objectives that may now go unfulfilled.
Gymnastics typically produces tales of the warrior athlete who by no means quits. Gymnasts equivalent to Oksana Chusovitna, Gabby Douglas, and Yulia Biryulya. Gymnasts who function wonderful position fashions educating us to combat via adversity, to by no means cease making an attempt, and to by no means flip your again by yourself objectives. Chusovitina, Douglas, and Biryulya present an necessary educating 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 necessary, however so are different issues in life. Gymnastics is a sport that’s supposed to provide gymnasts pleasure, not be a burden. For Whitney Bjerken, gymnastics had grow to be 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 complete life as a job 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that Bjerken who not too long ago turned 18 has movies on her channel going again to when she was solely 5 or 6 years outdated. Whitney was successfully a baby star on YouTube and amongst the primary technology of such little one 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 consider they’re additionally completed 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 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 may earn a spot on the Nationwide Crew.
The one cause that by no means occurred is as a result of gymnasts want a bit little bit of luck so as to succeed and Bjerken had the worst type of luck. Accidents to the elbow will not be 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 development spurt which for a younger aspiring teenager like Whitney, solely made it that a lot more durable to succeed.
Regardless of the misfortune, Whitney saved at it and was capable of make her dedication to the College of Alabama. Although there wouldn’t be an Olympics for Whitney, gymnastics followers continued to carry her in excessive regard. Gymnastics followers contemplate 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 increase a big gymnastics fanbase on social media, give up gymnastics? Whitney herself referred to as it nerve-racking and said she is fearful that she’s going to expertise a mass exodus of followers leaving her channel. At one level, Whitney referred to 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 over 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 greatest cause Whitney gave for her departure is that she needed to begin specializing in the actions that she’s going to be capable to 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 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 should be.
Bjerken leaves behind a gymnastics channel that supplied a lot worth to the game. Whitney Bjerken was the quintessential position mannequin, offering movies that had been each bit as academic as they had been entertaining. Whitney gave an actual perspective on what gymnastics competitions had 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 health club went kind of the identical approach, with Whitney showcasing what a full follow session regarded like. Whitney allowed folks to be taught in regards to the gymnastics way of life in a approach they’ll’t see when one watches a gymnastics competitors on tv or any skilled documentary. Bjerken averted displaying merely “highlights” which is how just about 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 tough abilities with no rationalization of what they had been engaged on or how they acquired to that second, Whitney took a special method.
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 could possibly see how typically she took a pause to get some relaxation, how she reacted when she couldn’t full a ability she was making an attempt to be taught, and the way she reacted when she fell.
Whitney would present what a real, prolonged, and devoted beam session appears 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 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 workout routines that had 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 difficulty gymnasts are prone to as gymnasts regularly 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 cope with. Her content material supplied a lot academic worth that a few of her movies can be utilized as a instrument for web sites like this one to point out informal sports activities followers a few of the finer particulars of gymnastics that they could in any other case not find out about.
However there was additionally the younger gymnasts who watched her channel and regarded to Whitney for steering. Whitney may at all times be counted on to be a job mannequin for them. From her constructive habits when followers needed to satisfy her at competitions, to her willingness to reply questions from viewers providing recommendation on methods to compete whereas going via 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 health club 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 complete 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 together with her longtime membership coach the place either side knew precisely what such a request meant. Whitney didn’t merely announce she had give up, she had spent months documenting the whole 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 that is why 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 give up. Whitney Bjerken determined to border her departure in a approach 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’re feeling like you’ve left your coach and household down. It follows a profession the place she regularly defined her ideas earlier than or after competitions. In her profession Bjerken had undoubtedly helped numerous gymnasts who had been at or under the L-10 stage. Younger gymnasts who had been capable of 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 direction of music throughout the previous 12 months, gymnastics followers took be aware and at instances questioned her sudden curiosity on this subject. However a shocking element about Whitney Bjerken’s YouTube channel that’s so extensively recognized to the gymnastics group, her very first video truly had nothing to do with gymnastics. It was a singing video. Music has grow to be the defining subject 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.
