Water Ballet

Have you ever watched the summer olympics, and seen women in the water doing a synchronized “ballet”? Lifting people out of the water, holding their breath for many counts, and performing many feats in the water. Well that is called synchronized swimming, it used to be called water ballet. It may look easy, but that is how it is supposed to look. But how much do you know about it? Many think of synchronized swimming when it was accepted into the olympics, as a sport. What many do not know is that it is almost as old as the olympics itself. Women in Ancient Rome would perform plays in flooded amphitheaters (usually playing the part of water nymphs), back then the sport was called water ballet. Soon people started putting it to music, and finally

The swimmer has to do a ballet leg, double ballet leg, boosts, continuous spin, and everything that goes into the hybrids and routine. A hybrid can sometimes last for 30 seconds. During that period of time, they do a double tabletops, cranes, verticales, ect. To keep them upright and balance, the swimmers use a technique called sculling. “Rather like gymnastics, there are whole range of terms used in synchronised swimming, many of which apply to particular moves and are specific to the sport. There are also terms which you may recognise from other sports of a similar nature, such as diving or figure skating.”. The swimmers also have to move and keep the pattern. They have to do it in a certain order, perfectly synchronized, and continually count the beat and beat changes. In synchro, there is more than 50 terms to use. The swimmers have to make sure they have all elements in the routen. They practice and change the router every day. Always improving, and foolproofing it. They do it on land and in the water, and work on the deck work. Finally when they are ready to perform it, they wear very uncomfortable, beautiful swimsuit, heavy makeup, and they put knox (gelatin). The knox is in their hair, to keep it from moving. Knox is unflavored gelatin, it’s like putting boiling hot gelow in your hair, and letting it dry. Sure, other sports have complicated terms, but try memorising it, and perform it in a certain sequence. Synchronized swimming is a very complicated