Coffee Table Book of: Gymnastics (Paperback)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Gymnastics is a large-format coffee table book of gymnastics, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: the beam, the bars, the rings and the horse, the vault, mats, chalk and grips, the apparatus of rhythmic gymnastics, trampolines, practice, and old halls and open-air grounds.

Then the horse, the vault and the bars: a modern horse alone on a blue mat, a vaulting table, a springboard, a runway leading across a large hall to the table, the uneven bars in an old hall, the parallel bars, the high bar in warm low light and a beam in a quiet modern hall.

Then the apparatus of rhythmic gymnastics: a ribbon lying in loose curves beside its stick, a hoop standing on its edge, a ribbon drawing a spiral in the air, a pair of clubs crossed on a mat, a ball on a herringbone floor, a hoop rolling across the stone floor of a tall old hall and a hoop hung on a peg.

Then the apparatus from new angles, trampolines and tumbling: the rings seen from below against a dark roof, a beam seen end-on, the uneven bars in morning haze, a trampoline alone in a wide hall, a small round trampoline, a long tumbling track and an old wooden vaulting box.

Then practice, the gymnasts anonymous in plain dark kit: a still stand on the beam with arms out, a hang from the high bar, a handstand on the parallel bars, a ribbon swung in a spiral seen from above, the run to the vault, a still cross on the rings, a split leap and the last walk across an empty hall at dusk with a towel over one shoulder.

Toward the end: hand grips hung on a peg, a ribbon lying across a hoop, a vaulting table far off at the end of a long runway in an old whitewashed brick hall, a springboard and its long shadow, a beam and its shadow in late afternoon light, a rolled ribbon on a stack of mats and a lone ball on a pale floor at dusk.

Short notes run through the book, on the apparatus and how it is used, chalk and grips, the rhythmic apparatus and the halls, and the early history of the sport: the still rings hang from straps fixed high above the floor, a padded vaulting table has taken the place of the older vaulting horse, gymnasts rub magnesium carbonate on their hands for a dry grip, and the balance beam is ten centimetres wide and five metres long.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.