- Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi rates 10 gymnastics scenes in movies and TV shows for realism.
- Ohashi discusses the portrayal of flashy gymnastics "Stick It" (2006) and "Old School" (2003).
- She analyzes how gymnastics is relevant to self-defense in movies such as "Charlie's Angels" (2000).
Following is a transcript of the video.
[A gymnast steps on a screw on the balance beam in "Final Destination 5"]
Katelyn Ohashi: A gymnast would always notice if a screw or a nail were on the beam, 'cause you're pretty much always spotting where your hands and feet are.
Hi, everyone. I'm Katelyn Ohashi, a four-time national team member and a former UCLA gymnast. So, I just started my own YouTube channel, so you guys can check me out there.
Today, I'm going to be watching gymnastics movie clips and rating them on their accuracy.
"Stick It" (2006)
I like that they added not only flipping skills, but connecting skills, 'cause you need both for gymnastics. So, she did a roundoff back handspring, two and a half, punch front full. I used to do that skill in my routine as well.
The leaps are not necessarily what you would see. I've always thought the kicking parts were funny to me. Typically, if you're an elite gymnast you're so tired that you don't even have time to add those things. I do a double lay like that. We both have that part in common, for sure.
In 2006, I feel like gymnasts were more robotic than this movie portrayed, which is super awesome. So this type of routine is way more accepted now than it used to be.
[laughing] I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that in gymnastics, but it's incredible and would be super fun. The dance moves are way different than something you would see on beam.
I don't know if I've ever seen someone do a back handspring double back just because there's not a lot of momentum out of a step-out back handspring. This was definitely less realistic gymnastics-wise as well, besides the dance, just because it was like, she definitely didn't have all the requirements in there. She didn't have a leap pass or turn, unless you want to count the head spin, 'cause I would. I would say she would just need more dance elements, even though she was dancing the whole time, but specific dance elements.
So, I would give the first one a 10 out of 10 and the second one probably a 3 out of 10.
Rating: 10/10 and 3/10
"Bring It On" (2000)
Missy: OK, so I've never cheered before, so what?
Whitney: Front handspring, step out, roundoff, back handspring, step out, roundoff, back handspring, full twisting layout.
Katelyn: Every gymnast would probably be able to do that, but it's not anything our coaches would ever ask us to do. She started out with, like, a cartwheel, and then she turned around and did a front handspring. We never have cartwheels in our tumbling passes. It'll be roundoffs, which is the closest thing to that. You typically will turn when you're in the air or not on your feet.
Also she only took, like, two steps into that, which I understand some of her skills built momentum, but we do a little more than two steps. Probably at least three or four. It's a lot harder on a hardwood floor. We do have a little padding and a little bit of a spring. Props to cheerleaders, because they do a lot of stuff that I'm like, I have no idea how they did it.
So, for an accurate gymnastics pass, that would probably be a zero.
Rating: 0/10
"Old School" (2003)
[Frank performs rhythmic gymnastics]
Amazing. [laughs] So, that was rhythmic gymnastics and not artistic gymnastics. I'm not too knowledgeable on rhythmic gymnastics, but obviously it's always on the floor, they're incredibly flexible, they're coordinated, which, most gymnasts, artistic gymnastics are not coordinated. So, they take that ribbon, and they throw it up, they do something beautiful, and then they catch it again. You know, he was getting pretty good spins on his ribbon, but since rhythmic gymnastics is so beautiful and stunning, he didn't elongate his legs at all, and he wasn't showing any flexibility. He was, like, galloping, versus actually doing something.
[Beanie does an iron cross]
I've never seen a gymnast smoking on the rings. Women don't do rings as an apparatus. That's a men's event. And typically you would see them straight out. He was kind of down here, which would be even harder to hold. Just thinking about it, I'm like, oh, his shoulders are torn. [laughs] And his chest, everything. Iron cross is near to impossible unless you're, like, that trained in it.
I'm gonna rate that probably a zero.
Rating: 0/10
"Final Destination 5" (2011)
[A gymnast steps on a screw on the balance beam]
A gymnast would always notice if a screw or a nail were on the beam, 'cause you're pretty much always spotting where your hands and feet are, and you're also just looking at the beam.
Coach: Here we go, Candice. Stay loose.
[A gymnast falls off the bars when chalk blows into her face]
[Katelyn laughs]
Katelyn: That girl on bars was doing a lot of giants, and she needed to come off the bar a lot sooner than that anyways. The form, the giants were fine. She did a little blind change in there.
Also, I think that if a lot of chalk is coming into your face, you would be able to close your eyes and stop the momentum of your giant and just kind of jump off after instead of doing the whole extra peeling thing.
I think that it's goofy for the most part, but it's more common than you'd think. Like, a lot of people -- we call it scorpion. So I've ended up like that a couple times from that height of that bar, and it looks painful, and it is painful.
So, this is obviously a little bit exaggerated, but gymnastics is definitely a very dangerous sport, and I know of people that have actually lost their lives to the sport. And so it's something that you can't really let your mind get loose in no matter how comfortable you are with a skill or how long you've been doing it. Granted, we learn how to fall from a young age. So a lot of our falls are safer, but you can still get into stuff you didn't expect.
What she was doing on bars, it's not that hard to stop your momentum. She should have been a little more prepared to stop them.
I would give the gymnastics a 10. Obviously I think that fall is very realistic in gymnastics, but how it happened is not realistic.
Rating: 10/10
"The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012)
Spider-Man: Oh, boy.
Katelyn: I would say it was a little bit more like cheerleading back handsprings, which, there's a very clear difference between a cheerleader and gymnast. Cheerleaders have more bent knees, and Spider-Man definitely had more bent knees. He was lower to the ground when he landed. Gymnastics is just very technical, so if we were to have bent knees in our back handsprings, we would get deductions. He was just trying to do the back handsprings and get out of the way, which I totally understand.
It reminds me of this one girl, Danusia Francis, who used to go to UCLA, but she was about to fall out of one of her tumbling passes, and instead of stepping or falling, she decided to do a back handspring, and it kind of looked like Spider-Man's.
I've always thought about, like, what would I do in a fight? Would I be able to throw out some gymnastics moves and somehow hit them or dodge? [laughs] So, I don't know if anything would really be that helpful. Maybe being able to kick high. 'Cause I'm short, so I need all the height I can get.
We'll say an 8. We'll say an 8.
Rating: 8/10
"Charlie's Angels" (2000)
She did an Arabian. That's what she did when she turned. And you would want to land completely facing backwards, and then turn in the air and do a front flip to her little handstand thing she did. She got good height on it. I think her form was pretty good. Yeah, everything looked really clean. Her knees were straight, it looked like she had momentum on her back handsprings for the most part.
And she did enough to build that momentum to be able to get that height for the Arabian. We used to have to hold handstands for a minute without moving. I'm sure people could do it longer than that. Especially if you're walking, you can hold it for a long time, but minimum a minute.
I would rate this a 9. She was actually pretty good at gymnastics.
Rating: 9/10
"The Lost World: Jurassic Park" (1997).
Dr. Harding: Up here! Up here! Kelly, no!
Katelyn: That actually reminded me of gymnastics in the '70s, because we used to have bars that were way closer together, so you would hit your hips on the bar. That's how close they were. I'm very grateful for the change, because I feel like they definitely always walked around with bruises on their hips and their pelvic bones. But gymnastics also got more difficult when they spread the bars out wider, because then you were able to do more skills, release moves, certain stuff like that.
I've kicked my coach on bars. And I also know of just people getting injured all the time from walking underneath. Could it kick over a dinosaur? If you had the intentions, maybe. That was a metal bar, right? And those don't give as much. But ours is wood. You don't use your muscles on bars. Except for holding, your forearms and stuff like that. You want to use the bar as much to your own benefit as you can.
Gymnastically, since it came out in '97, I'll rate it a 7.
Rating: 7/10
"Full Out" (2015)
I don't think the leaps were that good. You know, some gymnasts don't have great leaps. Technically for choreography there aren't points, but I think it only helps if you can take the judge out of their head so much and want to just watch you so they're not constantly just writing down deductions.
Ariana: Focus. Two flips with a full twist, push off right leg, and then tumble through the roundoff.
What I actually really enjoy about that movie is that it goes into her thought process when she's about to tumble, and I think that most gymnasts have cues that they give themselves every single time that they go. And so hers was like, "Push off your back leg," "strong," certain stuff like that. So it's these little reminders that just help us get through the pass and stay focused. So, I actually think that I've competed in that leo. Some leotards that I was wearing, the elastic would be worn out, and that's when we'd have to get the spray and use it to stick our leos down.
We'll give it, we'll give it a 10. I know, I'm not biased or anything. [laughs]
Rating: 10/10
"Killing Eve" S3E1 (2020)
She definitely had leg separation on her path to the low bar. She also, if you want to get really technical, she didn't hit her handstands.
The bars were much closer in the '70s than that clip showed. For the '70s, I would say that was very accurate for the skill level, besides the bars being a different length away from each other. That isn't that common to see that dismount, but it does still exist today. It's just pretty rare, and you would see it more through that period, but everything was kind of the same. Like, all those skills you still see today.
She definitely had deductions within her routine. When she landed, she obviously stumbled around. And she did have a release move. But you'll see multiple release moves and spinning moves if you're trying to go to the Olympics.
I'm giving that a 10 for accuracy just because of the way the coach responded. [laughs] It's funny because that was in Russia, and I had Russian coaches, and I would say Russian coaches tend to be pretty brutal. [laughs] And a lot of coaches are, so if we just look at each other, we're like, "Oh, yeah, our coach is Russian," we're like, ah, we understand exactly how training was, then.
I thought it was a 10, because you still see all of those skills today.
Rating: 10/10
"Make It or Break It" S2E20 (2009)
[crowd cheering]
So, she does the hands, her feet go over, and then she does an extra flip and lands back on her feet. That first one is very accurate. So, in college we would have a natty stick and a college stick. The college stick is more acting like you stuck it. Like, if you know you're gonna step, it's like stepping and just saluting to the judges immediately, and that's more of a college stick. Whereas a natty stick is being able to hold it, put your feet together, salute, and then turn and salute the judges.
[crowd cheering]
I have no idea what that second vault was, because it didn't even look like she flipped in it. It just looked like she was twisting. And so I flinch, 'cause I'm like, wait a minute, is she supposed to now do a flip? The second one, it would probably be worth nothing.
[laughs]
She didn't flip. That's actually based on a true story. Kerri Strug, who went to the Olympics and broke her foot. She had to go again, and she stuck on one leg.
So, my freshman year, I was competing on beam, I finished the routine, but when I did my dismount, my foot slipped off and I landed on my head. What I didn't know is I fractured my sternum. I'm getting tested for a concussion, and they told me that there was "equipment malfunction," so I got to go again. And I remember doing a skill on the floor before I went again, and I was like, oh, wow, my chest really hurts. But I still did the full beam routine, did the dismount again, got home, found out that I had fractured my sternum. [laughs]
So, I would rate the first clip a 10, and then the second clip, I'll rate it a 4.
I feel like I'm definitely doing really bad on these ratings. I'm, like, going up. But this is how it goes. So, in gymnastics too, the later you go in the lineup, the higher score you're probably gonna get.
Rating: 10/10 and 4/10