Aerobic gymnastics

Aerobic gymnastics

A sport aerobics team
Highest governing body	Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
First contested	United States, 1980's
Characteristics
Contact	Not with opponents
Mixed-sex	Yes
Type	Gymnastic sport
Presence
Country or region	Worldwide
Olympic	No
World Games	1997 – 2021

Aerobic gymnastics or sport aerobics is a competitive sport originating from traditional aerobics in which complex, high-intensity movement patterns and elements of varying difficulty are performed to music.

Nature of the game

The performance area is 7 metres (23 ft) square for juniors or 10 metres (33 ft) square for adults and for aero dance and step.

Since 1995, The international governing body of the sport is the FIG based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is the same body that governs Artistic, Rhythmic, Trampoline and Parkour. In their international events for the sport of Aerobic Gymnastics, there are 9 different events: Individual Women, Individual Men, Mixed Pairs, Trios, Group (five athletes), Step and Dance (both two last categories have eight athletes). The last four are regardless of the genders of the athletes.

The performances are made up of four groups of elements. The routine must be performed entirely to music.

In the competition, there are specific requirements regarding the outfit, the number of elements performed, the number of lifts performed, the number of elements performed on the floor and much more.

Performances are scored in the following areas: artistry, execution, difficulty and the chair of the judges panel determines the final score deductions based on deductions that change with each code of points. If the combined scores are the same, the tiebreaker is the team with higher execution scores.

The long-term ultimate goal of the sport of aerobic gymnastics is to be included in the Olympic Games.

Competitive aerobic gymnastics

National Aerobic Championships

The National Aerobic Championships was a competition of aerobic gymnastics started in 1984 in the United States until the last official event held in 2019. In the early days of the 1980's and 1990's, it was primarily known as a high level competition sponsored by various US corporations during the fitness boom that followed the Jane Fonda era of Hollywood Fitness videos, and the couple was in Hollywood seeking to make their mark...after taking aerobics classes, seeing the enthusiasm and athleticism of some of the aerobic class leaders...Voila...they had the idea to make aerobics a competitive sport. They landed an ESPN contract, and the sport took off in the USA and beyond.

Founded by Sports Fitness International (SFI) (Howard and Karen Schwartz), it was the first major championship in the sport before the FIG-governed World Aerobic Gymnastics Championships Aerobic Gymnastics World Championships.

Howard and Karen Schwartz are the founders of SFI and NAC (National Aerobic Championships) and ANAC (Association of National Aerobic Championships) and the original form of the competitive version of this sport in the USA and probably the world. It is all documented on YouTube. From 1988 onwards the individual events were separated into individual men and women, mixed pairs, and teams. The first World Aerobic Championship was held in 1990 in San Diego, CA by the Association of Aerobic Championships (ANAC).

The FIG (the governing body of Gymnastics worldwide) adopted the sport in 1995 which meant that all national gymnastics federations must follow their protocol, rules and vision for the sport.

The owners of SFI resisted following FIG rules for nine years and made similar rules that were authored by their chosen head judge.

For ten years, there were two World Aerobic Championships because SFI refused to stop using the title. Finally, the FIG put a stop to it, and in 2005, SFI/ANAC changed their annual "World Aerobic Championship" to the International Championship.

Meanwhile, since 1995, the FIG has held and continues to hold (as of 2024) World Aerobic Championships annually and later bi-annually and most of the top athletes in the world gravitate to events affiliated with the FIG. The level of the athletes who came to the SFI/NAC events slowly declined over time from 1995 forward. In 1996, at the height of the challenges of power between FIG and ANAC, Elaine Alfano (Krasne) won the Individual Women's category. Elaine was an award-winning college gymnast from Utah who entered into Aerobic competitions just as the ANAC was working to clean up the sport to appeal to the new FIG rules and to possibly maintain dominance. As a long-time Artistic gymnast, Elaine understood the new ANAC rules like none of her fellow US athletes and World Aerobic challengers who all came from the fitness world and the fitness version of the sport, and she maximized the impact of her routine using difficulty and clean execution, and, unexpectedly to all who followed ANAC for years, Elaine won the World Championship gold medal in women's individual. Her gold medal win at the ANAC event in 1996 was met with boos, and that was very challenging for someone newer to the sport of Aerobics, but who, as an incredibly experienced and successful gymnast in the sport of Artistic gymnastics, understood the direction of where the sport was going better than all of the leaders of the sport in the US who were still focused on the fitness roots of it.

In 2007, NAC/SFI sent three National and World Aerobic Champions and coaches to the annual USA Gymnastics convention to build awareness among USA Artistic and Rhythmic Gymnastics coaches and participants.

For a brief period in the late 2000's, Howard and Karen Schwartz worked with the FIG and hosted top-level competitions as a part of the FIG World Series events in the USA. During that period, some of the best aerobic gymnastics athletes in the world came to the annual USA event that was once called the World Aerobic Championship.

Against the advice of his top advisors including USA FIG judges, long-time coaches, and former USA National and World Aerobic Champions, Howard Schwartz opted out of participation in the World Series. Some of the advisors had been involved in the sport at high levels since 1989. At that moment, he essentially severed most efforts to work with FIG to the detriment of the sport in the USA outside of allowing judges to pay their way to events if they wanted to judge an event or to allow a USA athlete to go to an event to compete. They did the paperwork to allow those things to happen even though the paperwork ultimately always had to be approved by USA Gymnastics.

Efforts to build relationships with USA Gymnastics, the largest and most powerful gymnastics in the world were minimal from 1995 when the FIG adopted the sport.

In the mid-2010s, just before news of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal, efforts were made, again, at the suggestion of the top advisors of SFI/ANAC to bring in a top member of the executive team for USA Gymnastics to build awareness of USA Aerobic Gymnastics. A high-level USA Gymnastics official was sent to the event, meetings were held with Howard and Karen Schwartz and the top advisors, and the USA Gymnastics official watched several rounds of competition. He was very excited about what he saw and said so in the meetings that followed with all of the advisors present. It should be noted that he was a member of the 1980 Men's Gymnastics Olympic Team.

It is unclear why no follow-up occurred by SFI/NAC founders, and no inroads were made to become a recognized discipline of USA Gymnastics as the FIG recommends for all gymnastics federations worldwide.

Bucking the FIG system of how Chair of Panel Judges is determined for events, the founders of SFI/ANAC named two people to the position in 2009 when their previous FIG Level 3 ANAC head judge (Chair of Judges Panel) resigned.

In the late 2010's the two ANAC designated Chair of Judges Panels (designated by Howard and Karen Schwartz outside of FIG protocol) were warned of improper behavior and later, both judges lost their FIG Judges brevet in a decision that the FIG Disciplinary Commission made for violations of the General Judges rules at the 2018 ANAC International Aerobic Championships held in Phoenix, AZ, and both were fined $1000.

From 1995 through 2019, the sport experienced huge growth in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, and Australia among other countries but never grew in the US as the creators of the sport in the USA struggled to transition from fitness to gymnastics. It was a failure of leadership and failure to face the loss of power in the sport and do what was best for the athletes, coaches, and judges who sacrificed to keep the sport alive. As other countries blended successfully with their gymnastic federations, the US, where the sport was created, was unsuccessful in making that transition.

USA Gymnastics still does not officially acknowledge aerobic gymnastics as an official gymnastic discipline. Almost all other countries who were originally involved with the SFI/NAC/ANAC founders and the events it created have national federations that honor and support aerobic gymnastics under the same umbrella as all versions of gymnastics that are recognized by the FIG.

In 2022, the USA hosted the World Games in Alabama.

SFI/ANAC sent no one in an official capacity to the event. The owners of SFI/ANAC did not attend.

Unofficially, USA National Aerobic Championship Gold Medalist, coach of many US and World Champions, and FIG judge from 1995-2021, Dale Duncan went to the event and watched the athletes and judges who had flown from all over the world. He met with judges and athletes for photos, and he thanked them for coming to the USA for the World Series.

As of fall 2024, the founders of the original form of the sport, SFI/NAC/ANAC leaders Howard and Karen Schwartz resurrected their social media NAC Facebook page which was dormant since 2022 to honor themselves and the athletes who participated in ANAC events as the 40th year of the original form of the sport while featuring some great memories of their time of active involvement in the sport.

The last person to hold an international event in the USA was an individual USA coach, Stephanie Kalkbrenner, originally from Hungary, who hosted the event in Las Vegas in 2022 without any financial support or active promotional support by the Schwartz's to produce the event. On her own, she led the efforts to get a multi-national group together to continue the annual event without any support from the founders. Several countries sent athletes and coaches to the event.

In the fall of 2024, NAC social media shared photos with FIG Technical Committee members on the NAC Facebook page, as of fall 2024, the ANAC appears to be reconnecting and rekindling relationships with some key technical committee members of the FIG who were affiliated with ANAC from the early days, with whom they've had relationships.

According to photos on the NAC Facebook page, Howard and Karen Schwartz were present in Pesaro, Italy for the 2024 FIG World Championships.

None of the FIG promotional videos of the event include any mention of Howard or Karen Schwartz or their contribution to the sport or that they were present for the event.

FIG aerobics

The competitive aerobic gymnastics are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG). The FIG designs the Code of Points and regulates all aspects of international elite competition. Within individual countries, gymnastics is regulated by national federations. In 1995, the FIG recognised sport aerobics as a new competitive gymnastics discipline, organised judges and coaches courses and launched the 1st Aerobic Gymnastics World Championships in Paris (34 countries). In 1997, the IWGA (International World Games Association) included Aerobic Gymnastics in its programme of the 5th World Games (Lahti, Finland). Since 1999 The European Union of Gymnastics has been conducting Aerobic European Gymnastics Championships in every odd year. Leading nations who have provided World Medallists are: Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Romania, Russia and Spain.

FISAF aerobics

FISAF stands for the Federation of International Sport Aerobics and Fitness. It is an independent, not-for-profit, international sport aerobics association with over 30 member countries around the world.

In popular culture

The sport was added in the biannual Idol Star Athletics Championships for Lunar New Year, 2017 as a male team equivalent to the female individual rhythmic gymnastics, and the scores are given in accordance to FIG Standards. Seventeen (9.8 Technical+9.3 Execution-0.0 Penalty) and ASTRO (9.75+9.45-0.1) both scored 19.10 out of 20.00, but since ASTRO scored higher in Execution, ASTRO won the inaugural event.

In the American sketch comedy television series Key & Peele, the duo parodies the '80s video footage of the National Aerobic Championship in a sketch showing one of the aerobic dancers experiencing a meltdown while dancing to the championship theme song.

See also

• Idol Star Athletics Championships
• Aerobic Gymnastics European Championships

External links

• The Association of National Aerobics Championships (ANAC)
• http://www.fig-gymnastics.com/site/site/miniSiteNews?id=14712