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Rewriting Gymnastics - the Code as Cultural Dictator

When I began this blog, almost a year ago, part of the intention was to consider the nature of gymnastics today and the continuing changes the sport has been through over past decades.  I questioned whether and how the Code of Points played a role in shaping the progress of the sport, and reflected on the continual struggle between the artistic and technical as exemplified by earlier conflicts between Jahn and Ling (see Aykroyd, 1987, for a fuller discussion).

More recently I have considered fairly closely the FIG's Code of Points from the perspective of ongoing efforts to simplify its next edition, due to come into force from 2013.  I have observed that the Code has developed from (i) a set of guidelines into how to judge gymnastics performance into (ii) a highly deconstructed and directive set of standardized measures stipulating how gymnastics skills should be valued and marked.

I am reverting briefly to Bourdieu's notion of sport as cultural capital (1991) and his thinking on cultural distinction and art (1979) which strike me as interesting given the struggles of identity inherent in modern gymnastics.  Bourdieu contends that social class lends meaning to sporting participation.  For example, he particularly speaks of gymnastics as a 'hygienic' (369) sport, one that the dominant classes associate with health, while, he contends, the working classes use it as a means of producing a strong body.  Bourdieu does not directly consider elite competitive gymnasts but I would suggest that they are a further social group whose participation and perceptions are somewhat different.  Then we have the dominant political classes of judges, coaches and senior administrators as those who possess the sporting cultural capital to provide distinction in questions of taste.  In primarily competitive sports such as football questions of distinction tend to revolve around rules and the interpretation of rules.  In subjective sports, and in particular the sport of gymnastics these questions are enriched by debates relating to artistic value, aesthetic appeal and technical quality, making gymnastics a field of abundant cultural struggle.

The Code of Points as a product of this struggle has become a dictator of the shape and identity of gymnastics.  In the case of gymnastics the struggle is not only about distinction, it is also about the evolution of gymnastics and indeed its very existence as an art form.  The Code dictates what is good gymnastics down to a nitpicking level of detail, gymnasts will only perform those routines likely to give them good marks and so therefore we will only see those routines that the Code deems to be of value and can present in verbal or diagrammatic form.   If artistry is not valued by the Code then it will disappear from the sport.  The state rewards 'high art' by providing funding to support its development, leaving other less elevated forms of 'entertainment' to the free market.  The Code of Points rewards the form of gymnastics it discerns to be of highest value, leaving what is omitted to wither on the vine. 

The development and production of the current Code of Points has been motivated by a desire to establish transparent rules for the judgement of the sport.  The large scale migration of sporting cultural capital from the Eastern bloc over the past twenty years has contributed to a process of knowledge transfer that has been verbally documented and interpreted for different uses, not all of them appropriate. There has been a consequent attempt to democratise cultural sporting judgements by a parallel means of deconstruction.

I would argue that the process and methodology of change adopted has led to a less culturally democratic approach to judging than before, progressively as the Code has become more and more prescriptive and attempted to rule out areas of ambiguity.  The necessarily detailed and specific verbal instructions fail to reflect the range and complexity of gymnastics identities and leave significant gaps in what can be assessed.   As a result the artistic depth of gymnastics has been denuded and impoverished.

Interestingly, an attempt to disseminate cultural capital and promote greater democracy appears to have led to a position of cultural dominance and even dictatorship by a document that few, if any, can completely understand, and that even fewer can truly influence.

References

Bourdieu, P (1991) 'Sport and Social Class' in Mukerji, C and Schudson, M (eds) (1991) Rethinking Popular Culture  Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press pp 357-373

Bourdieu, P (2010) Distinction: A Social Critic of the Judgement of Taste London: Routledge - translation from the original French Language version (1979) La Distinction: Critique Sociale du Jugement Paris: Editions de Minuit (other English language editions are available)

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