Biles offers chance to learn from the best
Instructional series’ 17 videos cover all aspects of sport
Of all the words she never expected to hear during her remarkable career, perhaps these are the most unexpected of all:
Simone Biles, uneven parallel bars instructor.
In conjunction with the online educational company MasterClass.com series, Biles, 22, the four-time Olympic gold medalist from Spring, on Tuesday unveiled a 17-part course in gymnastics fundamentals, designed for potential use by beginners and advanced students alike.
Lessons No. 3 and 4 are the real grabbers: Uneven Bars Basic and Uneven Bars Advanced.
Biles, as longtime followers are aware, is not a fan of uneven bars, the only one of four individual events in women’s gymnastics in which she has not won a world championships gold medal or Olympic medal.
On her darkest days, she has said she would like to take a chainsaw to the apparatus, which gave her fits in her days as a beginning gymnast and remains the only one in which she is not an odds-on favorite to win at the upcoming world championships in Stuttgart and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
And now, here she is, teaching bars fundamentals to others.
“I was a little skeptical,” Biles said. “I don’t have any problem putting some of my wisdom out there about vault or floor. Beam is a little iffy. But then they said they were doing all four events, and I got choked up a little. I went ‘Uhhhhhhh … OK.’ ”
Biles put the instructional series together in February with the help of her coaches, Laurent and Cecile Conqueteau-Landi, and with younger gymnasts at the Biles family’s World Champions Centre in Spring.
Other lessons include fundamentals and advanced skills on the other three events, plus her thoughts on meet preparation, overcoming practice and performance jitters and working with coaches.
The course includes more than two hours of video, including performances from world championships and USA Gymnastics events. But it also includes Biles’ calamitous performance at the 2013 U.S. Classic, where she performed so poorly that her coach, Aimee Boorman, scratched her from the event. A few weeks later, though, she won her first of six national titles.
“You don’t really want to look at the down moments, but growing up and maturing, I realize it’s good for kids to see that we’re not always perfect and we do have our downfalls, what some people say are our failures,” she said. “So we mention some of the struggles I’ve had because they’re relatable.
“You relive those moments as you watch, and it kind of hurts. But those moments shaped me to who I am. If you’re perfect all the time, you don’t learn. I like that kids are going to see me mess up.”
Biles, who recently won her sixth USA Gymnastics national all-around championship in Kansas City and has not lost an allaround meet since 2013, said she was surprised while compiling the video to recall some of the fundamentals that have been elemental to her success.
“You don’t really think that much about the basics, but once we sat down and planned the lessons, you get into details that I hadn’t thought about until we were breaking each skill down to the nail,” she said. “On a couple of skills, it took me back to the basics and I said, ‘Wow, I hadn’t thought about this, but the higher level skills come from the basics.’ I was able to backtrack and go through things again.”
Other MasterClass.com contributors include photographer Annie Leibovitz, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, actresses Helen Mirren and Natalie Portman, magicians Penn and Teller, guitarist Carlos Santana, director Ron Howard and actor Samuel L. Jackson.
Biles said she has dabbled in lessons on basketball from Warriors guard Steph Curry and a variety of cooking classes. Her individual class costs $90.
“I’m excited to get feedback about it from the gymnasts and the athletes,” she said.
And as for the notion that she is teaching bars to young gymnasts, Biles said, “It’s kind of scary, but I like the ring of it.”
Meanwhile, Biles said she recently completed a week-long series of workouts with the French women’s national team at the Biles’ gym and is preparing for a pair of training camps in Florida where the world championships team will be selected.
“It was exciting to train with the higher-level athletes,” she said. “We’re all doing it for the same reason and will be together (at the world championships).”
Biles also promoted the instructional series release in an appearance Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” during which she discussed her debut in Kansas City of two twisting and tumbling skills on balance beam and floor exercise that will be named in her honor if she performs them successfully at the world championships or Olympics.
She also continued to express her skepticism about changes at USA Gymnastics, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and attempting to retain its status as a national governing body in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.
Regarding comments by Li Li Liang, the federation’s new president, that changes are being implemented, Biles said, “I feel like you can always talk the talk, but you have to show up and you have to prove. You just have to do your job at the end of the day.
“It would almost be better if you just proved to everyone rather than talking, because talking is easy.”