Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 214 | thoughts on the gymnastics competition
Episode Date: May 22, 2024our thoughts on the gymnastics competition, the current girls competing, simone biles and more! #gymnast #olympics #marraige Get 15% off your first order of Slate high protein milk shakes & iced c...offees with code EASTFAM at slatemilk.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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what's up everybody
welcome back to couple things
a shot at Andrew
a podcast all about couples
and the things they go through
we just left counseling
should we go back
stop no
you're playing
life is good life is great
we wanted to give you a little update
on life this past week
because our crazy
the craziest two weeks of our life
are finally over which is great
it was a great two weeks
They were full.
I wouldn't describe it like hectic or busy.
It was like just full of good stuff that we wanted to do.
Yeah.
And we were executing on all cylinders.
It did feel very full.
I will say my cup of time with kids is a little empty.
Really?
Yeah.
It really is.
You have not told me that to me.
So I'm glad you're saying it now.
Thank goodness for podcast.
Well, I will say last week there was really nothing we could do about it because of work.
So I didn't think it was something I should like obsess over
because they were in great hands with grandma and grandpa.
But this week, my cup needs filled up with the kids.
Sean is such a big-time celebrity.
She's doing all these big productions, a bunch of cameramen, takes all day, the whole thing,
which takes you away from kids.
Olympic years are crazy, man.
They finished up school.
The kids did.
They did.
It is officially summer.
I spent probably five hours total so far working on the summer schedule.
And I don't want our summer schedule for the summer schedule.
the kids to be like too concrete it was just like what different activities can we cycle through
pool days play dates go to the art museum like all these different things try to get the schedule laid out
for travel it's going to be an epic summer and for those listening to have kids and you're at a point
where like I actually don't know what to do with my kids when they're at home here are some startup back
ideas that we have just realized recently you can take them to the local library yeah because you know
what the library probably has some book readings or some events for kids don't forget about the library
it's a sleeper museums the kid just just went to an art museum they loved it the museum had a little
drawing station for the kids there parks parks are the best zoo um festivals or farmers markets of any
kind yeah we don't like to overbook our kids but we do like to have stuff to do we'd like to have options
to be aware of.
I feel like both of our kids are super active and like to be doing things.
And so if we're in the house too much, they get stir crazy.
So I always want to make sure we don't have more than one or two days a week where they're
at home all day.
Please share some of your activities you do with kids because we could use them.
One of the things they're going to do this summer, I believe, is gymnastics.
And it's a relevant time to be talking about that because this past weekend was U.S. classics?
Core Classic.
Core hydration classic.
Yep.
No free shoutouts.
Core hydration.
It is the first qualifier towards the selection of the Olympic team in U.S.
Artistic Gymnastics for the Paris Olympics.
And I have some thoughts.
We have never done this before, but there are two specific things, maybe three things, a few things, that I really wanted to talk about.
I feel compelled to talk about.
The first of which, for the first time in U.S. history.
three returning all-around Olympic champions competed in the same event.
That's pretty sweet.
And I, Sunni Lee, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles.
Boom.
I want to make that as big of a deal as possible because I think there's a lot of weight in that
in the sense of if you grew up in the generation of gymnastics that I grew up in,
before the quote fall of USA gymnastics
there was this
stigma around USA gymnastics
that you could never return or repeat to gymnastics
because if you were older than 16, 17, 18, 19 years old,
you weren't able to keep up.
You weren't good enough, you couldn't withstand.
It was like the survival of the fittest.
They looked down upon an older-aged girl,
the maturity level, all of these things.
And to now see three returning,
some of which are still competing in college,
ones who have completed college,
ones who have retired for years on end
and now come back,
I think it's just a testament to what
the new government of the USA Gymnastics
has done for the sport,
and I think it's amazing.
So a quick recap, 2008, Nasty Lukin, all-round champion,
2012, Gabby Douglas, all-around champion.
2016 Simone Biles all-round champion 2020's Sunni Lee I'm so proud of you three of the four of those are competing now which is crazy that Gabby Douglas 12 years after she wins the all-around is still competing to your point yes that's crazy I remember you saying that Alicia Sacrimony competing in this she committed to yep that's a huge deal because usually it's like a one-and-done situation it was huge deal but now people are doing it for multiple cycles and I do
truly think it's a testament to everything that the girls, Simone, Ali, Gabby, Jordan, all of them
have truly fought for in our sport, which is a new government, people valuing the athletes over
the success and the win, and it has shown. It's encouraged them to stay within the sport because they
feel supported by it, which I think is really cool. Whole culture change. Whole culture change.
Whole culture change. But you have thoughts. Second thought was Gabby Douglas.
his return. I was so, so excited to see her
back in the sport. What's your background with Gabby Douglas, babe?
We go way back. So in 2010,
Gabby Douglas, as a little pipsqueak
in the best, I say that in the best way, walks into Chow's
gymnastics, and we immediately
become teammates and training partners. And she was so young
back then um but she was i remember watching her like quote try out and i was like holy crap i don't know if
i want her in this gym she's too good um she was incredible she's one of the most talented gymnasts i've
ever seen i remember chow even saying that and we got to train together for almost four years
and i adore her i adore everything she is i think she's a phenomenal human i think she is made of steel
And I think in certain areas of her life and her journey towards becoming an Olympic all-around champion,
she's just been dealt a bad hand in the sense of obstacles or, you know, just obstacles.
If you want to dig back into the archives, you can find them.
But through all of that, she has persevered and she has come back into this sport.
and she looks like an actual beast of an athlete.
She looks stronger than she has ever looked.
And watching her in warm-ups and watching her get ready to compete,
she looks amazing.
And it just made me so, so proud to see,
I think she's fought her way back to this on her own.
And it's really admirable.
And did she have the greatest showing?
No, she fell a couple times on bars
and then ended up pulling herself out of the competition.
And I just want to say there are trolls all over the Internet
who are salivating at the opportunity to jump on things like this
and tear someone apart.
But all I wanted to do was say I give so much respect to her.
And I cannot imagine competing in today's world
filled with so much social media and extra voices and stress.
I don't know how athletes deal with it.
I hesitate to even share my thoughts on gymnastics
Because you're the goat
But it is just knowing a little bit of the background
Seeing her there 12 years after
She won the all-around
And realizing how fragile it is
The mental condition that you need to be in
To perform well on gymnastics
It's such a fragile thing, right?
And when you're young, you have the advantage
of not having like this treacherous history behind you that throws your mental game off
or you have demons in the closet of whatever sort now gabby comes back and she has all these
expectations there's all this chatter about she's going to do great she's going to be bad
she has all these complications with uh you know like the the whole business infrastructure is
different now because she's a champion and there's like so many so many pressures and for her to
have the courage to step into that
and say, I'm doing it because I love it.
I got chills even thinking about it.
That is amazing what she did.
And it's not easy.
Chelsea Mimel did it where it's like,
you have a reputation kind of, right?
And why ruin it?
Why go back?
You could just retire on top.
But she wanted to because she loved it.
I'm proud of her.
I'm really, really hopeful.
Let me be very transparent here.
I don't know how the newest system works.
I don't know if it's only by qualification of score that you can go on to the next meet.
I don't know if wild cards are still on the table.
All that to say, I really, really, really want to see her at the next competition.
I want her to know just she's got an army of people out there supporting her and wanting nothing with the best for her.
And if that means she's like done and she's like, oh, this actually isn't my thing anymore, great.
I support her with that.
but if she wants to give it another shot
I just want her to know
no trolling on this side
and if you're a part of the East fam
you're not trolling
because Gabby you're a freaking boss
which leads me to the last thing
that I wanted to go on a rant about
you and I have talked about this
and it makes me really really sad
I actually brought up in counseling today
with my counselor because I was like
this bothers me
so much
and it's something that bothers me
about the world.
Simone Biles is back, of course,
because she's the greatest athlete
in the history of our sport.
And she ate up the competition.
She looked flawless, like she always says.
And sitting front row at her first competition back
was her husband, which also, so cool.
I don't know how many U.S. gymnasts
have actually had spouses in the audience
as a testament to like age in the sport
which I think was so cool to see
were you going to say something
no we have not talked about this
whatever you're about to say
we have you'll go there
and Simone actually posted something
so this is the two days after the
competition
right now that we're filming this
and she posted on her stories
is three pictures of her and her husband post competition
and she just wanted she says
I'm going to quickly address this
the joke was never a joke
y'all are blatantly being disrespectful
to my relationship and my husband
so I'm going to go ahead and say this one time
respectfully
f off
and if you keep commenting or tweeting
at me I'm just going to block you simple as that
what happened
I think what happened is what
you and I have talked
about before. I've seen it on social media. People for some reason feel really compelled to tear their
relationship apart. And I want to, again, similar to like a Gabby situation, I want to stand with
Simone and be like, back off. That is not your marriage. And social media can tear people down so
easily. And the fact that people are feeling like it's okay for them to inject themselves within
their marriage, I think it's wild to me. Well, what happened? What's the backstory? I'm so
curious. I don't know. I don't have the details of it. Nor do I think it's appropriate for me
to have the details. But I do think people are, people have in the past torn him apart for
ridiculous things.
They interpret his demeanor
that is shown exclusively on media
as, you know,
not up to par to their standards
towards being Simone Biles' husband,
which I think is everything that I just say
I want to throw into a trash bin
because it doesn't make sense.
So you're saying people have,
because Simone is the greatest athlete
in gymnastics history,
they have expectations of who she needs to marry.
Yes.
And then if those expectations aren't met,
then there's a lot of commentary around that.
Yes.
They're like, oh, he didn't look happy enough.
Oh, he didn't respect her enough
and the words he chose to use in an interview.
And to all of that, I want to say,
do you realize social media
and the media shows maybe a millisecond of a lifetime?
and two, they have chosen each other.
They are each other's people.
They have gotten married.
It is in no way, shape, or form appropriate for the world of outsiders.
To be judging that.
Yeah, a couple thoughts.
I mean, it is interesting to separate people's adoration of Simone as a gymnast
versus like they know her as a gymnast.
They don't know her as a person.
And for them to try to extrapolate
this is who you should be based off of the talent that she has
doesn't make much sense upon further investigation.
It also makes me think about how disappointed people
must be in you to marry a long snapper.
I'm kidding, babe.
I love self-deprecating humor.
It's not like a friggin.
I know, but I love that within,
within us but take that one step further to have the world then jump on that bandwagon
potentially right so this is the this is the other thought though like okay there's always
going to be people who have opinions whatever that's the world that simone has entered into
as a great athlete being in front of millions of people it's a world that we've entered into
you for the same reason and then us with making a podcast you
open yourself up to commentary yeah i think i disagree with simone and responding that way because
what good does that do other than encourage people to be like i'm going to do more of that
i'm going to do more of this commentary that clearly she doesn't like because she's responding to me
they feel heard to her to her our strategy has always been if it's a negative comment you don't
give it to lie today yeah if it's a positive comment you respond to that and you kind of
reap what you sell but hold on to a certain extent i totally agree with her a thousand percent though
because she just debuted her craft again right people chose to watch the core classic
and watch simone byles to see gymnastics okay i would be so frustrated if the only thing you took away
from that was critiquing my marriage.
Okay, but
here's a thought.
Simone,
there's a bunch of amazing athletes
competing. She is
pretty established as the best.
So the plot line of interest
in the competition is thin.
So let's find a plot line elsewhere
is kind of how people start.
You're basically saying she's so good
at gymnastics, people are just desperate to find
something to critique the perfection of.
Unfortunately, that's
the state of humanity.
in the context of our show
where all we talk about is
relationships and marriage and how wonderful it is
doesn't it make you so
sad though that something
is so beautiful within their life
like
the the true
good there
that is being shown on national
television
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Is the one thing that's, it's the first thing that is torn.
down first of all we're feeding into it right now she's in in many ways telling us to
f off respectfully because here we are doing commentary we'll delete this whole no no no no no you
see my point i know but it just makes me sad because you love that she's married and you want them
to thrive yes me too there is a a excited happy loving husband sitting front of
row at his wife's competition.
That's cool to see.
Clapping, cheering, yelling, kissing, screaming.
And it's just like, yeah, that's amazing.
I'm so curious what the thing that she read that pushed her over the ledge was.
Maybe, again, I have no idea what she's responding to.
It does seem like it's something around the marriage.
Maybe the comment that he made a couple months ago about, what do you say, being the better athlete?
Yeah, which was joking.
maybe he was a great athlete she's a great athlete that's all i know both better athletes than i am
i don't know i did just made me sad i wanted to vent on it fine we'll move on no no no no you
don't want to do it we have a whole podcast scripted here and it's going to be great and we're
going to do it later but for this episode i know we're closing script we're going unscripted babe
buckle up i'm scared since we're on the topic what
I wanted to talk about some of your favorite gymnastics moments.
Wow.
Okay?
And I want us to start before we get there with you giving us background on falling in love with the sport and the effect that it had on your life.
Just from the sport standpoint, the training while you're in it.
um okay wow um i fell in love okay let me give you the background story the cliche story i was put in
gymnastics at the age of three this was after my parents put me in ballet and dance and i basically
got kicked out of it because i had way too much energy i couldn't stand in line or listen to
the instructors sounds like one of the kids we have definitely does spot on spot on um
And so my parents walked me into a gymnastics gym.
I had so much energy around the house.
I had already been to the ER a few times.
Sounds similar.
Staples, stitches.
I thought I could fly as a kid.
And they were just desperate to find an outlet for my energy.
So they walked me into a gymnastics gym.
I found the trampoline and fell in love.
That was my first falling in love moment with gymnastics
because it truly made me feel invincible.
I loved the stomach and your throat feeling.
I loved the adrenaline of it.
I loved being able to just run wild and free.
It was amazing, and I would go home tired, so my parents loved it.
Fast forward, I was moved to Chow's gymnastics at the age of five or six.
He had just opened to the gym in West Des Moines, Iowa,
and my parents moved me there because it was closer to our house, and it saved gas money.
so I could basically stay in gymnastics longer because of the budgeting side of our family.
Never knew that, you know, it would turn into something.
And my second falling in love moment was at that gym.
I fell in love with Chow.
He was a child at heart.
And unlike the first gym, I didn't have any, like, negative experience there.
But the first gym was more, like, structured.
And Chow just his goal,
in life as a coach at Chow's gymnastics at the time with all of us was to let us be kids and run wild
and have fun and learn gymnastics. And I truly felt like within Chow's gymnastics, it was this safe haven
of being able to play as a kid and just learn amazing things. Purposeful play?
For sure. Because it's like there's one thing to play on the playground. It's another thing to have Chow
who just mentioned meant a lot to you.
Kind of like, have you play towards a goal?
Yeah, it was truly play.
So he always had these terms that was really funny.
Even as a kid, we would come in at different seasons of the year,
and he'd be like, we are in the shopping season.
This is day one of shopping.
And I remember he would show us on his phone or on a computer,
different skills, and he'd be like, which one do you want to try?
that's like and we literally as in his terminology got to shop the gymnastics you know book of skills
and we would just get to play for weeks on end and we would find little niches each and every one of us
individually into different skills that we thrived with and they made us happy and that happiness
turned into a passion that he would foster and it was really cool and then we would spend the rest
of the year, working on the perfecting of it and the execution and turning it into a routine
that then we got to perform.
Wow.
That's excellent strategy on his part.
It was beautiful.
I was just reminded of the feeling I literally had to stop before.
I knew we were going to talk about this, but Bear is learning how to crawl.
Yeah.
He's five months and learning how to crawl and I put him down next to the couch.
Just so happened, his feet rested on the side of the couch and he was pushing off it.
And I was remembering that feeling of like learning something new physically like that.
I was like, I haven't felt it in a long time, but watching him, are you burping over there?
I am.
Sorry.
Watching him, I was like, oh my gosh, that was so fun when you learned how to like do like my first one-handed catch or sprinting for like wide open for the first time.
or like when you learn how to do shuttle cuts and it's like I miss that I miss that so much
and then the playfulness side of it of there is an aspect of engagement and curiosity and
excitement that I think makes the stickiness of what you're doing greater when you're playful
with it right and like the fact that you're able to incorporate that into a broader purpose
such as a gymnastics dance routine, thank you, thank you, it's awesome, right?
It's like, okay, now you're, not that everything needs to have like this greater purpose,
but the playfulness was for a purpose.
It was really cool with Chow how he was able to preserve that for so, so long.
He always said his mission was to preserve the joy of a child.
and his history was
that was kind of taken away from him
within the Chinese training system of gymnastics
there was no enjoyment it was just job
and when he came to the United States
and opened his own gym
he wanted to reverse that
and he wanted all of us to truly be kids and play
and at the same time learned
the discipline and routine
that it took to make it to the next level
and he did a phenomenal job
I can remember all the way into the elite level
still feeling like a kid that got to go play in the gym
which makes a difference back to the gabby douglas thing
like when you're on the bars having to fulsin the thing
with no reservation yeah any mental hiccups
or pause or fears or baggage
like you're hanging on to the bar for a split second longer
which throws off your timing and if you're playful
it just frees you up anyway that's my thought you're not done yet answering the question
what was the other i forgot the second part of the question what was it what were um some of the things
you took away from gymnastics i'm asking this partially having come from counseling where you talk
about the things that shape you and i don't know the term perfectionism came up today at some point
I was to say, this is really interesting because my counseling session was potentially about a lot of like the baggage that came from gymnastics that wasn't good.
So I'm trying to like skew that in the light of giving the good things.
I and before we go down the route there of like what baggage or whatever, I something that I said in counseling is we're working on this chapter of like forgiveness.
and learning how to forgive
wholly, wholeheartedly,
you know, things that have gone on in your life.
And I'm working on forgiving
the little girl that was hurt in gymnastics.
And that's not by Chow and that's not by Larry Nassar
and that's not by, it was truly by
insecurities with my body and perfectionism
and obsessiveness
and feeling like I had a job
at 16 that had to
carry the weight of a lot of people
and I'm working on that
the things in my sport that I
absolutely adored
and that I loved
and I have learned and taken away from
is something that Chow taught me
from the very beginning
and he's truly one of the people
I respect the most in my life
was this concept
of like
gymnastics is
the best sport in the world because it's one of the only sports in the world where you literally
have to fall on your face and fail at something a million times before you ever succeed at it and within the
sport of gymnastics I don't know how many skills there are but I think there are thousands I think within my
career I probably learned at least a thousand or two with every single one of those individual
skills I had to fail at it miserably for a long period of time before I ever got it right and I think
that's a massive life lesson that I've taken with me.
I might not be good at it.
But it's something that I love that I learned at a young age.
What?
It's so fascinating to couple that with perfectionism.
For sure.
It's hard to couple it because what's interesting about my sport is the evolution of it from my career.
I started out not good at gymnastics.
I was just fearless.
and I spent 15 years perfecting it
and getting to this obsessive place in my life
that led to the Olympics
to where nothing else in the world mattered
except perfection.
Which, if you've ever seen Sean's beam routine,
I've not seen that many in my life,
but hers is my favorite person.
We'll play it here for you.
It's really good.
It's really good.
so at such a young age where like your brain is still forming in such a monumental way
I was taught the obsession of perfection so now transitioning out of gymnastics
yes failure is what leads to success but then when you reach success you have to
tame perfection that's the thing
I have to break
that's interesting
okay so falling on your face
what are some other things
that I've learned
life lessons
I just think it's good
it's definitely good to see
the scars
that have shaped you
I also think it's good to see the
blessings that have brought you here
I think it's overflowing in blessings
so tell me
what else
this is such a vague
I'm trying to
It is, it's very vague
I'm trying to hone in
You want to skew it anyway or you want me
Just go off the vague
The vague okay
It's partially
Purposely vague
Okay
Another life lesson
I was a
debilitatingly
shy
kid
I would
I truly was
I could not have a conversation
with people. I couldn't look people in the eye. In school, I felt like a misfit. I couldn't really
find my group of people that I could click with. I just always felt like this misfit.
Gymnastics gave me a sense of community that I never wanted to let go of. Andrew and I talked about
this too this morning, I think, or yesterday, of being an only child. I didn't have those siblings to go home with
and share such a close bond with that I could play and laugh and giggle and run around the house.
And I had myself.
I had my parents.
And so gymnastics gave me this place, this community of truly like sisters that I could lean on.
I could go into a gym and play and gain confidence through my skills, gain confidence in myself,
gain confidence in the world.
And it built up this armor in me that I was able to like take on everything else else.
outside of it and it
I don't know if that's a life lesson
but it taught me about
building a community around you
which was really cool
I like how you said that
the community was your armor
yeah
one more
oh my gosh baby
um
okay here's one
this was truly
um
all chow
but he'd
tried his absolute best to preserve this as long as possible within a professional career.
He valued self-improvement more than any other external competition.
And what I mean by that is even at the Olympics,
Chow could have cared less about who I was competing against.
The only thing he might have internally, but he never told me.
What he always valued in his words, in his actions, was did I do the best that I possibly could do?
Did I give it my all?
Did I try my hardest?
Did I do a little bit better than I did last time?
It was always a solo competition.
And he would be the first person to say, make sure you tell every girl competing, good job, and hug them and reward them, even if they're standing on a higher podium.
because it's not about them, it's about your competition against yourself.
And I think that always made me a better competitor because I was never obsessed with watching other people.
It was always this internal drive to do better than I did the day before.
And it drove me, I think, more than watching competition because I had to create my own standard.
But I think I've really tried to take that into outside life of, I have to remind myself of it a lot, but don't look at other people.
to drive your ambitions.
It's truly, like, what internally is driving you.
Don't compare yourself to anybody
except the person you were yesterday.
Yeah.
Which we've also talked about is very different
because you relied on a team
where I never did.
Coming from, like, a solo competitor status
to a team status is very different.
Yeah.
Coming from the team side,
I look at individual sports.
I'm like, dang,
that really put you to a test in a way that team sports do not on the other hand i think team sports
teach you a lot of beautiful things of encouragement of understanding your role in that of
of relaxing control on things that you don't have a role in sports are great dude i love
I was at the national championship for NCAA tennis yesterday.
My buddy Ryan Lippman was coaching the Texas Longhorns.
Shout out Ryan.
They lost.
But here's what I realized.
They came in second.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That was good.
I just think I love sports because it ingrains in you at a young age how to learn from a coach, how to listen well, how to cooperate, teaches you the discipline.
It teaches you that if you do A, then B might result, right?
there's like a meritocracy involved
and then tennis
by the way it's a whole different world than football
but yesterday there was a grown man
for the other
team
that was in the audience
yeah it was yelling at the refs
and like belittling this little
20 year old this guy's probably 45 50
and it
and he was getting shamed by the people around him
which I think is a good thing
I think I think
had he had more of
that community around him to set him
straight, that old guy wouldn't be
who he is today. And that's what sports is,
especially like team sports again.
It's like
you need to
respect other people and you need to understand that we're
on this together and we're learning.
And what? Am I disrespecting him now?
No. What is this?
You're proving my point about Simone.
100% I agree. Yes.
I don't think it's Simone's fault
that she's opening herself up to criticism.
I think it's the world's fault of not respecting her craft.
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More people need to play sports.
I agree.
Yeah.
We all need to play sports.
Yeah.
I just think that it also.
trains you how to behave when there's something at stake, when there's something at the line,
on the line. Are you going to win at all costs if that means cheating or doing something shady
or taking a shortcut or belittantly the other person? Or are you going to actually like stare
the competition in the face and say, you're freaking good, but I'm going to be better? And thank you
for challenging me in that way. Is there any else, anything else I want to go on a tangent on?
Anything else you want to go on a tangent on?
Is there anything else about,
this is one of your only chances
to get gymnastics stories out of me?
Is there anything else you want?
Do you realize that we will be in Paris
largely for the purpose of gymnastics?
For sure.
Sean and I really don't talk a lot about gymnastics
or I talk way more about football,
which is hilarious given how short my career was
versus yours.
Your career was amazing, baby.
Short, my list of accolades was.
Andrew Dean.
Do you want to know something?
You absolutely amaze me.
Thank you.
You have accolades to your name
that I aspire to have.
Thank you.
You don't give yourself enough credit.
And yes, when it comes to us being in Paris
because of my accolades,
here's the deal.
I agree.
my gymnastics was great.
I get it.
Okay.
But I am not competing anymore.
That spotlight is not for my gymnastics anymore.
Can I appreciate everything that I did?
Yes.
But my gymnastics back in 2008 has now given me a platform to help celebrate those that are competing today.
Love that.
Yes.
That's fantastic.
So doing all these like, let's watch Sean's Bimertine.
I love because you're a husband who is so excited to support me and celebrate me.
But my duty now is not to look back at myself.
It's to celebrate Simone and Gabby and SUNY and everybody competing.
Love that.
Yes.
I admire that.
This is the thing I always talk about.
You are so incredibly talented, so incredibly humble simultaneously.
I do think there is more than what you're seeing in that you talking about this stuff,
you talking about Simone from a place of having been an Olympic champion yourself,
actually does celebrate her.
So I know you have reticence in talking about gymnastics because you don't want it to be about you
and you feel like that's a past version of yourself and whatever.
But if you really want to, I think, do what you're saying,
which is celebrate the other people.
You being the megaphone is way better than whoever on the internet doing it.
You know, some rando that has no authority to speak on this.
Sure. Yes.
So it's a challenge for you because we're going to be talking about gymnastics more.
I think it's humility is not.
thinking less of yourself
it's thinking of yourself less
yeah right
and what I'm saying is
don't try to be like
I'm gonna try to make myself smaller
and all my accomplishments smaller
no it's just this is who you are
you God made you to be a dope
freaking gym I'm not trying to make my accomplishments
smaller I just don't think
they need to be
I don't think it's the time
for me to like
bring back up
my career
I think it's the time for me to use my career and say, watch Samo.
Yes.
Let's talk about Samo.
But when you say use your career, it's like, hey, that was an incredible beam routine.
She did that so flawlessly and graciously, and I would know because I did four flips on a freaking balance meme, too.
But I don't need to say that.
Are we saying the same thing in different ways?
I don't know.
Do we actually have a different perspective?
I don't know.
thank you for gracing us with one of the only times we'll ever hear you talk about gymnastics
I'm not here to talk about gymnastics all the time either I freaking like I like gymnastics
I like other sports more I'll tell you that much really I had no clue watching gymnastics
is like pulling teeth for you no what are you saying I was fully oh my gosh really
Sean was trying to like you wanted me to you want me to watch it full
we engage and also like
engage
I was enjoying it.
Really?
I love watching gymnastics.
It's incredible.
It is.
Is that all we got?
We were supposed to do a whole different episode.
This turned into a tangent.
I will say this
on the topic of a couple things
and you and I.
I can't imagine
competing
while being married.
I would love to know that the dynamic.
Because, I say that because when I was competing,
here you go, throwing you a bone here,
I was so obsessive and selfish towards my career.
I don't know how people who are spouses are able to juggle that.
Well, I think, I think Simone would say respectfully,
Fuck you.
No?
Me?
That didn't play like I won't.
It did it.
It did it.
Yeah.
Say more.
There's no more to say there.
You're saying relationships take a certain amount of time that you're not sure you had while competing.
I'm just fascinated by that.
that dynamic
I feel like there's a lot of like
compete there's even competing spouses at the Olympics
like where both of them are competing
and I would love to know
how that balance works out
yeah if you're one of those couples let us know
we'd love to have you on the show too
please tell us I'm sure there's
a understanding that this is a phase
and we're probably going to see each other less
as we both train aggressively
yeah right yeah
it's cool i'm glad she's doing it like she is i'm so excited for it i think it is changing the sport
which i think is so cool i think she has changed this more the sport more than anybody else
ever will well done sima yeah thank you thank you
on behalf of gymnasts everywhere.
Is that all we got?
That's all we got.
Okay, let's wrap this sucker up.
Thanks for watching, guys.
If you made it this far, subscribe, give the show a rating, comment.
Again, we started with parenting topics initially and then it turned on gymnastics.
Yeah.
I also think we're going to do a gymnastics for dummies video on our YouTube channel.
So jump over there to the Sean and Andrew channel when you get a chance and we'll see you there. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean. Peace.