All of these fruits aid in digestion and are a rich source of antioxidants than oranges and grapefruit. This means they may prevent endogenous oxidative damage. They all make a great marinade because they their enzymes naturally break down collagen in meat. This means it's a natural tenderizer! They also all grow on a vine.
Are you intrigued? No doubt many of you know this already, but for those who don't, I'm honored to be able to tell you that...
They're the same fruit.
Once upon a time in the Yangtze and Chiag Kiang valleys of China, centuries and centuries ago, there were wild-growing, tender, fuzzy brown fruit with green flesh. Emperors and commoners alike loved the bright green fruit and prized them for their flavor. They were sometimes called it macaquefruit (because the monkeys love them), as well as goat's or sheep's peach. Besides being tasty, extracts of this little fruit were used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a variety of ailments.
Although this fruit was familiar to the locals, to visiting missionaries, they were a novelty. They thought they tasted like strawberries and made the fruit into jam. They called these little gems "Chinese gooseberries." The fruit was first exported to the US in 1904.While Chinese gooseberries were tasty, and in fact, long considered a delicacy by many, they had a marketing problem. Gooseberries weren't popular in the United States and, although Chinese gooseberries weren't a true gooseberry, Americans weren't interested. It wasn't until June 15, 1959 when they were renamed kiwifruit that Americans grew to love them. By 1984, kiwis were considered "the hottest produce item of the year in the western world." Twenty years after the name change, kiwis were grown, bought and sold not only in China, but in New Zealand, the US, throughout European countries, Japan, Australia, and Chile.
What do Chinese gooseberries --er, kiwifruit-- have to do with Men's Gymnastics?
People aren't buying Men's Artistic Gymnastics.
This is Sam Mikulak. He's one of the US's top gymnasts.
In an era where American Ninja Warrior is NBC's #1 show in primetime and women's gymnastics has continued to grow, even with scandal after scandal, Men's gymnastics is dwindling.
I'm a gymnastics mom. Like a soccer mom, only in gyms with a thin layer of chalk dust. When our kids were just starting gymnastics in lessons that took 45 minutes, I stayed to watch. I loved watching those uncoordinated bodies slowly gain skills. I loved being surprised by skills that I didn't think they could master. I stayed because leaving to run errands was more trouble than it was worth.
As they got older, classes got longer. They started to overlap with the older athletes. I stayed not as much because it was too much trouble to leave but to watch the kids and the big bonus was watching the older kids. Especially the older boys. They amazed me with their effortlessly executed feats of strength, balance and power. There aren't many gyms that have lots of boys doing gymnastics at a high level, but ours does. It's not uncommon for athletes from our gym to compete at Nationals, and it's rare that a level 10 gymnast in USAGW's program doesn't get a scholarship.
When our boys started practices that were a couple of hours, I found it harder to justify staying to watch. Laundry, grocery shopping and hikes were calling. I still miss watching their workouts.
And if it's that entertaining to watch the practices, how amazing are the competitions?
So I have been thinking, and I'm not the only one... How would you turn this gooseberry into a kiwi? I think it may be worth borrowing some elements from some other sporty endeavors.
Rebranding Men's Artistic Gymnastics -- A Modest Proposal
Personally, I think an update to the uniform could be considered. How about shorts? Ripped jeans horts and a nice sleeveless shirt with a sponsor by Vans or Champion would be great. (Let's be honest--the singlets and shorts or stirrup pants may have been good years and years ago, but now they're passé.) Or even better--let the guys choose their own costumes, like American Ninja Warrior!
Much more exciting.
Speaking of exciting. Have you ever watched a Mixed Martial Arts fight? UFC, boxing or wrestling? (Professional wrestling, of course.) The introduction of the participants is much more exciting than gymnastics. Imagine total darkness, catchy music, spotlights circling... a hooded figure sauntering--no, swaggering down the aisle flanked by security guards... an announcer who gives a short rundown of each athlete--his trials and triumphs and expectations for the outcome of the competition.
We could even have some bikini girls walk around with placqards announcing each event. And smoke. Smoke = drama, and who doesn't love drama?
As far as the events themselves, I think the floor exercise could be tweaked. Music on the floor exercise would be great. It adds so much to women's floor routines, and it would do the same to the men's.
We all know there's only so much room for grace and poise for boys and men in mainstream USA. So what if we look at the sport carefully and accentuate the power, strength and virtuosity? Take out the girly stuff like the pointed toes and splits? Nobody wants to see that. Instead, we could use poses like body builders. If the gymnasts are wearing shirts at this point, they could either take them off or rip them off and throw them into the crowd!
Seeing this picture of The Hulk really has me considering a belt for champions. Not while they compete--that would be ridiculous. Just before and after events. It's stunning.
Maybe instead of a choreographed floor routine, the gymnasts could do a series of tumbling passes on the floor then lift heavy things? (But then we would miss things like these airflares (0:40), these russian circles (0:40) and this press (0:47.) Hmmm. Maybe fire or sharp things could be incorporated. (I'm just throwing out ideas here.)
Really, I think we need more energetic announcers. How about having a dude announce? Maybe Joe Rogan or Simon Cowell. The announcers with all of this overly specific description aren't really adding much. We need jumbotron slo-mo replays of the vault for people like me who can't process it all. (And can we talk about how to take the vault up a notch? Sue they run fast and hurtle over a huge, hard object, but the injuries really don't happen often enough to count on for excitement. Maybe raising the whole event 20 feet would work. Just to up the stakes.
Really, you can't underestimate the power of the jumbotron. We need replays of all the mind-blowing floor, still rings, pommel, parallel bars and high bar (7:30) routines. And marketing with girls in bikinis, loud music with guitars, maybe some oiled torsos and slo-mo.
*I am humbly submitting this modest proposal with no expectations. I know that USAG is going through some rough times, so I'm not asking for any compensation (even though a marketing analysis like this would probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars).
Now, I will be the first person to admit that there are lots and lots of cool sports and arts that are underrated. This plan could be adapted for them, too. (A fee may be assessed for my work in other areas.)
Please contact me directly for more details.
