"The Naked Art! (2026/149)

"The Naked Art" - yes, if that title grabbed your attention for the wrong reasons, look away now!

It is a literal translation from the Greek of the word GYMNASTICS, and back in the day it was a collection of different sports, performed naked by boys and teens and only guys were allowed to watch. It included athletics, wrestling, discus, shot put and stuff like that.

The word now describes a totally different collection of activities usually NOT performed naked(although most guys prefer to train shirtless!) - by both boys and girls. The guys get six activities: parallel bars, high bar, floor tumbling, rings, vault and pommel horse and, incidentally, that horse is the one item directly remaining from Olympian days - the pommels (handles) themselves were on side saddles designed to be be ridden on real horses by ladies in long skirts. 

In one language we are aware of (German), the work Gymnasium actually means 'high school' and the word for gymnastics is TURNEN , which accurately describes tumbling and many other elements on different apparatus. But most languages have some form of 'Gymnastics' for the name of the sport. 

Gymnastics is a great sport for guys to develop muscular strength while remaining very flexible, as they need to do. That extends to acrobatics, which offers a wide selection of performance styles, often using groups performing together using each other as apparatus. Not to mention the Indian art of mallenkamb, performing on a tall wooden pole.

Lots to show off here then, and plenty of video action. Let's boldly go (etc) and start with the mallenkamb... and then some professional acrobatic moments...

Ah. Simple displays of core strength there. Which leads us neatly into straightforward gymnastics training:

Some acrobatic balance... even divers do it...

 

More basic men's gymnastics now: it's good to start young, by the way, as the next set of videos will show):

Back to the older guys for the rest