Betty Okino (00:00:06) – I am able to access that brilliance when I am present in the moment of whatever it is I’m doing, without judging myself or without projecting into a future moment. Simply being here in this moment with myself, because I feel like in those moments is when I am connected to the very source of brilliance.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:00:33) – Welcome to the Black Gymnast Olympic Dreams edition of the Resilience to Brilliance podcast, where you’ll be inspired by the history and eye-opening accounts from Olympians who lived the dream. I’m your host, Kim Hamilton Anthony.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:00:48) – Here we go.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:00:53) – The Black Gymnasts Olympic Dreams edition of Resilience to Brilliance is a short podcast series dedicated to the young black gymnast and their families out there who have those Olympic dreams. In the 2024 Olympic Trials, you will likely see more black gymnasts competing at that level than ever before, so I thought I’d bring on some individuals who can provide encouragement and advice to these young athletes and their families on how to navigate this world of gymnastics while still embracing the skin they’re in, and also those who can help us to learn a bit more about the history of black gymnasts.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:01:28) – And then there are those who can also share their own stories about resilience and what it took to achieve their own Olympic dreams. I’m your host, Kim Anthony, and I am so glad you’re joining us. Betty Okino helped the US to win the bronze team medal in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. She is celebrated as the first African American, along with Dominique Dawes, to win an Olympic medal. A former professional dancer, Betty now brings her experience as a dancer and a gymnast to the US national staff, where she works with Olympic athletes on their dance and artistry. Betty and I sat down for an enlightening conversation about gymnastics, race, and of course, where she found the resilience she needed to make her Olympic dream come true. Let’s listen. Hi Betty. Welcome to Resilience to Brilliance. Thank you so much for being here.
Betty Okino (00:02:38) – Hi, Kim. It’s good to see you.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:02:40) – You as well. Thanks for having me. Oh, I’m so happy to have you. So let’s jump into a little bit of your background now.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:02:49) – You have a very interesting heritage, especially when you place it into this gymnastics setting. What did those formative years look like for you?
Betty Okino (00:02:58) – Okay, so well, first my heritage. I’m half African, Ugandan, and half Romanian, and we know the history of gymnastics in Romania.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:03:08) Oh yes.
Betty Okino (00:03:09) – So my initiation into even knowing about the sport of gymnastics came through my mom and came through stories of Nadia Comӑneci, who was obviously a very famous Romanian gymnast. And so in Romania when my mom was growing up. I mean, they’re similar ages. They’re similar ages, actually. But in Romania, when my mom was growing up, it wasn’t like, you know, fairytale princess, it was Nadia that was the the ideal, right? The gymnasts that brought honor to their country. So I heard those stories quite a bit as a child. Fast forward into beginning gymnastics in rural Illinois, where there wasn’t actually any gymnastics gyms, and there was a dance studio that I became a part of because I loved to dance and there was a tumbling gym.
Betty Okino (00:03:59) – They had gymnastics equipment, but they only taught tumbling, and so I. Again. It was in the 80s, mid to late 80s. I was watching the Olympics again. So Olympics gymnastics was on TV for World Championships and Olympics and maybe American Cup, and maybe they showed a US championship, but maybe not. But it wasn’t televised that often, so the only time you got to see gymnastics was really the Olympics. So I watched the 84 Olympics. I see Mary Lou Retton win for the US, and I became enamored by the sport and gymnastics and begged my mom to put me in gymnastics, so she put me in tumbling. I was already a dancer, so she put me in tumbling because that’s what existed. And then I was like, tumbling is not gymnastics. I still want to do gymnastics.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:04:47) – Yeah, you need the bars, the beam, the vault, the beam.
Betty Okino (00:04:50) – Yeah, like the equipment. Where’s the equipment? Not just this strip. And the tumbling gym where I was doing tumbling had a set of bars. It had like a beam. It had a vault. And so my mom asked if we could use the space and rent it out. And the owner, Tony Casa, was good, great friends of ours, and I guess saw potential maybe in me and said, sure, go ahead, you can teach her. You can use the space. So my mom started learning the routines for the entry level into the sport of gymnastics and teaching them to me.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:05:27) – Oh my goodness. So did she have a background in gymnastics other than watching Nadia?
Betty Okino (00:05:32) – She had a background in being a motivated and determined mom to help her daughter achieve. You know, you figure it out, right? And so she she went to like congresses and conferences and watched videos and started learning that way. And then there was a, she became close friends with a gymnastics gym that was about an hour away from where we lived, that we drove to, and they helped teach her how to spot me. And they had pits.
And so then I could start learning things there, and then we’d take them back to our gym, and then we’d work on it. And that’s how I started.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:06:07) – Oh my goodness. How long did that last? The relationship with your mom being your coach.
Betty Okino (00:06:12) – My mom being my coach was about two and a half years, almost three years, at which point in time we moved to a suburb of Chicago. And then I moved to a gym there called Illinois Gymnastics Institute, where my coach was Todd Gardner, and where I had real, real gymnastics, real teammates. It wasn’t just me.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:06:35) – Well, hats off to your mom for that long. She’s her baby is going to be a gymnast, and I don’t care what I have to do. Oh, that’s special.
Betty Okino (00:06:46) – I will figure it out. It was also a different time in the sport, though, where, one the difficulty level wasn’t what it is today. I mean, just by nature. Even the equipment, the equipment back then did not support the difficulty that the equipment today does.
Betty Okino (00:07:01) – And it was a different sport. So it was an the transition from being a dancer because I could tumble as a dancer because I was a competitive dancer. So I competed in all those dance nationals with my brother and my, my, my group. And I did lyrical jazz and regular jazz and tap and ballet and combination numbers. So all of those dance competitions you now see, like on YouTube, was what I was competing in. So I had some tumbling skill when I moved into gymnastics. So beam was easy to pick up. Floor, I could dance and I could tumble. So that was bars was the most challenging and also vault because they were foreign.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:07:38) – So you talk about your dance and the fact that you have a move named after you, a triple turn on the balance beam, and you would hit that turn like nobody’s business. And I’m just like, what? Incredible. So your dance background, obviously, has paid off, in your gymnastics career because you when I look back at your tapes, I’m, I’m dating myself. I’m saying tapes when I, when I look back at your video. Hey, don’t laugh that hard now.
Betty Okino (00:08:10) – Oh, my God, I know there’s tapes. There’s tapes in my mom’s garage somewhere. Still tapes. Because that’s.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:08:16) – True. Yeah. Those tapes. So when I look back at your gymnastics, it’s so beautiful. And now you’re actually helping the US national team. Be as beautiful as you were as a gymnast and provide artistry into the sport. And I’d like you to talk a little bit about that. What are you doing with them?
Betty Okino (00:08:37) – So I’m on the US national coaching staff, and I work with all the levels from our elite developmental all the way to our national team athletes, and I work with them on dance, dance elements, artistry and execution when it comes to beam and when it comes to floor. So implementing artistry and a foundation of dance back into the sport, which is the direction the International Gymnastics Committee is trying to go and how they have started changing the rules so that it can reflect a balance of artistry and athleticism, where they felt like it had tipped in a different direction.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:09:16) – How did it tip in the different direction? Was it just that people were throwing all these skills and not really thinking about the dance or artistry of it?
Betty Okino (00:09:24) – The FIG, who also now wants to move it back towards artistry, is the one who moved it toward in the direction that it went, the moment that they changed the scoring system for elite gymnastics into an endless scoring system. So you have a separate D score and E score where before it was a 10:00. You’re working on perfection, essentially with a piano you can only do so much difficulty. Now it’s who does it the best and executes it with the greatest amount of, you know, aesthetic and, you know, point of feet and straight lines and expression and performance when it’s from a ten out, the same way that college is still from a ten zero. So it it upholds that notice the athletes are doing all doing difficult gymnastics, but it’s who executes it. The cleanest. Whereas in elite gymnastics you can do endless amount of difficulty and no one can take away your difficulty. It is worth the value. So an A skill has a value one. A B skill has 2-10 three, C three and up the the letters to infinite amount of tenths. which they’re putting a cap on that as well. So with that the execution you’ll notice is much lower because you can get your score just from having difficulty. You still have to have a level of execution, but the higher your difficulty is, you’re still going to win. And so when they change that, they change the direction essentially of difficulty.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:10:53) – You think about the level of difficulty and swinging back in the other direction towards artistry. Do you think that will level the playing field more? I just want to know why. Like what’s the why behind the code, you know, swinging in that direction but coming back? I don’t even know if you have an answer for that.
Betty Okino (00:11:15) – I believe I do have a good insight into it, which is why I feel like I do have an answer. And yes, it does level the playing. It does level the playing field. America breeds stronger athletes. We are I mean, you just notice that when you look around the different countries at the physique and the build of the different athletes, our athletes, our power and strength. So the code of difficulty works in that way in our favor, whereas, I mean, for all the different reasons why, you know, who knows, we can go into that like infinitely. Why we do breeds, you know, maybe, you know, we have more we have access to more food and nutrition and all the things that we simply have more than other countries do. And so then we have a stronger athlete. And as you introduce this other element of requiring more artistry and execution, and they they, they change the values a little bit of the skills where they’re not letting you go to a certain level of difficulty. It does level the playing field. It allows for a different type of athlete that isn’t necessarily going to do that high level of difficulty on the power events, to also have an opportunity to win a medal.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:12:29) – That’s a great answer. Interesting. So. You are celebrated as the first African American, along with Dominique Dawes, to win an Olympic medal. What does that mean to you?
Betty Okino (00:12:44) – You know well, what it means now is I reflect on it, that it it puts it put into motion an idea of another possibility. I think because I’ve had a lot since then, I’ve had a lot of, parents and even young people that were, you know, teenagers during that time and not in this country, in other countries, like watching the Olympics on a very tiny TV on their beach in where was it? Saint Lucia. Some. Some were like that. But I had someone reach out to me and he was like, we’d never seen anybody that looks like us on the television before doing gymnastics, but we were always tumbling on the beach and loved doing it, but didn’t know what it didn’t like, know that there was like a future, like an opportunity to do something beyond tumbling on this beach.
Betty Okino (00:13:34) – And so we saw you, and it was the same with parents putting their kids into the sport of gymnastics. Like, we didn’t see that as, like a viable avenue for our for our child’s gymnastics. You know, you would look towards the other sports, perhaps, but not necessarily gymnastics until, you know, you see that you see that example.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:13:53) – Exactly
Betty Okino (00:13:54) – You see that example. And so that’s what that meant to me.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:13:56) – And I’m sure at the time, you had no idea that you were going to impact the world the way you did.
Betty Okino (00:14:03) – No.No idea, no idea.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:14:06) – Now everyone’s story is different. And. I don’t want to make assumptions that everyone has certain experiences based on the color of their skin, but I do want to ask you if there were any experiences or feelings that you had being a black gymnast in a world where most of your teammates, if not all of your teammates, didn’t look like you? Were there any things that you experienced that maybe your teammates or your coaches would never have understood?
Betty Okino (00:14:36) – Absolutely.
Betty Okino (00:14:38) – I mean, I mean, you simply you just and maybe I mean, I don’t know if it’s isolated to America because of our racial history. Anywhere. I would I would travel, I would notice people just looked at me differently. And because I look different because of the color of my skin, they would want to touch my hair. Because they, I don’t know, they’ve never seen curly kinky hair. And so, you know, things like that. Like my teammates didn’t have their hair cut. People weren’t walking up to them to, you know, feel their hair necessarily where they would do that with me. And I don’t think it was understood as. Why? Why is that in any way? Why does that make you feel anyway? That isn’t why does that make you feel in any way singled out or different or just uncomfortable like that? That part I don’t think is necessarily understood. I had the great benefit though, of like I said, my mom was my first coach, so it was only me.
Betty Okino (00:15:44) – But when I went to competitions, I obviously look different and she would always say, don’t, people are just looking at you like that because you’re beautiful. This is what she would say to me. They’re just looking at you because you’re beautiful. So just never mind them. And of course, it happened all the time because my mother is white and I look black. And so when we would walk into restaurants, people would just stare at us all the time like. What is what’s, what’s happening here? And that’s and that was what her response was to me. That being said, I moved from there to a gym in the suburb of Chicago where I had diversity, complete diversity. So my closest friends and my closest teammates were they were Italian, they were black, they were Jamaican. They were, you know, they were Irish. And we were a big group and we had lots of fun. So I during that time in the sport, you know, I felt very much at home.
Betty Okino (00:16:35) – They understood the the dilemma of the hair when my head would get all sweaty and then it would get chalky and then it would just grow into this, it would just grow into this like unmanaged situation. And, you know, it was embarrassing because I was trying to make myself look like the girls that I saw on TV and nobody looked like me. And so I wanted to try to make my hair like theirs and and just didn’t. That’s not that wasn’t me. So it just didn’t work.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:17:06) – What does that do to an athlete or anyone, really?
Betty Okino (00:17:11) – II think it can be very isolating. It can feel very isolating, especially when you feel like there’s no that, that you’re not being understood or also that, that your, your feelings aren’t necessarily valid because it’s not like it might not be outright like it’s easier to validate that sort of feeling with an outright attack than it is with sort of like a passive-aggressive, a passive, a passive racism rather than an aggressive racism.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:17:44) – I think about all of the little girls.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:17:46) – I was one of those little girls. I was trying to make my hair look like everyone else’s, and it just wasn’t working. And, you try so hard to fit in as a young girl, right? And you want to look as much like everybody else as possible, because you think that’s one less way that I’m different. Speak to the little girl who maybe she has her hair in braids. Maybe she is wearing her hair natural and she has an afro, or she has little puffs, or speak to her in terms of how she can handle the comments, the the touching of the hair, or the attempts to touch the hair.
Betty Okino (00:18:33) – Well, how I would have done things differently had I the wisdom that I do now, and I mean the most the most important thing I can say is, is: fall in love with you and begin embracing what is unique and beautiful about you. It wasn’t until I started. I stopped trying to be like other people, and then I started turning inward into, well, what are my what are my strengths? What what, what makes me unique and what makes what makes me beautiful? What are the differences about me that make me beautiful? How can I lean into those things and start cultivating those? And as I started doing that, even with my gymnastics, because I wasn’t the powerful gymnast, but my strength did come from the background of dance.
Betty Okino (00:19:20) – I did have like a long, lean body. So bars came easily to me with the swing. my hair is kinky and curly, so how am I going to use that and make that work for me and into my own unique style in my own look? And so that is what I would, I would send the direction of all your, your energy to a young person inward, inward in, into the, into that soul, into that being. And then the outer world won’t affect you in the same way anymore. It just, it just sort of blows off. And insofar as people touching your hair, if you don’t want that to happen, then I’d rather you not touch my hair. You know, it’s a simple enough comment. And if it’s, you know, I just it’s just so cool. It looks so cool and I want to touch it. Thank you, I appreciate that. It looks so.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:20:14) – Cool. It’s okay to set that boundary and say, hey, you can look at it all you want, but.
Betty Okino (00:20:18) – You can look at it and admire it. I think it’s pretty cool too.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:20:21) – Right, uhhuh. You know.
Betty Okino (00:20:23) – Just just own it and embrace it. But I would say embrace your uniqueness because that’s that that diversity and that uniqueness is what. It’s what the world needs. It’s what gymnastics needs and wants. Not for everybody to look the same or for you to fit this mold. We don’t want that.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:20:38) – Beautifully said. And and as you think about that talented pool of gymnasts who are vying to make the 2024 Olympics, the appearance of the group is a lot more diverse than it has been in past years, especially when you were competing and when I was competing in 84 trials. What challenges might the African American gymnast have as they’re trying out for the Olympics that others may not experience?
Betty Okino (00:21:06) – Today, in this day, I, I mean, I don’t know that I can necessarily say and again, I could be wrong, that there would be that there would be a difference in the challenge being experienced by the African American, the Asian, the Indian or the white or what, you know, whatever race of athlete is competing, I don’t think there’s that that division doesn’t exist in the same way anymore.
Betty Okino (00:21:36) – With regards to to elite gymnastics and vying for a position in the way that it maybe did in the past. With regard to you, notice that maybe a difference in scoring, right. Because the the it wasn’t there wasn’t the same aesthetic or ideal that once existed where, you know, you have this lean European look small, lean white, bouncy ponytail or bouncy bob cut. You know, it was just like the look. It was it was the look. And they all had the same thing. And I felt the judging was much more subjective in that direction. Whereas now, I mean, and that you can see that just in the result of our, you know, last US championships and our last World Championships, the podium was all black and brown, one, two and three all around. So it’s, it’s evidence that, there’s no there’s no longer a division in the way we judge elite gymnastics. So with regard to our African American athletes vying for the Olympic team, I feel like the playing field is even.
Betty Okino (00:22:44) – It’s purely based on talent, talent’s ability, consistency and, you know, their their history and the day. The day.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:22:58) – So what that makes me think about is one of the things you said was. You don’t feel like the judges are being discriminatory, maybe, or biased the way they used to? Years ago. One of the things that I heard about is how Jordan Chiles was encouraged to change her floor music, and some people say that it was because of racism. And, you know, everyone has their different opinions. Why do you think the music was changed? Especially coming from the standpoint of being a choreographer and helping and the artistry of it all.
Betty Okino (00:23:36) – Right, I have no idea because I found out about that as everybody else found out about it on, on a post on, on social media. Because, again, me working with them and with her, that was never a discussion that was that was had regarding music being changed. So that’s a decision that her and her coach came to.
Betty Okino (00:23:57) – And I’m not exactly sure how they came to that decision, because I fully favored that last routine. And she knew that, you know. Yeah, we talked we talked about it and we discussed it and how to to how to make the performance of it translate into elite gymnastics from collegiate gymnastics. and how it was important that she brings her style to it still that she, that she doesn’t like eliminate that because again, that’s going to be part of her unique performance. And we’re looking for performance of character in a floor routine as well. That’s literally one of the artistry deductions. And in order to do that you have to you have to feel it. You have to bring your own authentic self. You can’t perform a character that doesn’t match you because it’s not going to translate. so that was a very important part of that performance and that specific floor routine. So with regard to it changing, it was news to me. Other than I mean, I simply assumed that it’s a new year. She wanted to get a new floor routine because she had already competed that at the world level.
Betty Okino (00:24:59) – And our athletes normally do. They’re not going to compete the same floor routine in the Olympics that they competed last year at World Championships or Pan Am games.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:25:07) – I’m so glad to hear you say that, because for those who are watching this podcast or listening to this podcast who look like Jordan Chiles, they may get the idea that they can no longer express their unique styles. The way you were talking about and what you just said was the complete opposite is you, you were helping her and and you were enjoying the fact that she’s expressing her personality and that it was different. So that I, I hope people hear that because that is so important, Betty. It really is.
Betty Okino (00:25:46) – I hope so too. That’s like that’s my primary work when I’m working with with their coaches and the athletes at our national training camps, is is finding that unique expression within their floor routine. And if it doesn’t exist there, then we need to find you some different music that you do connect with. And you and you do feel because you can’t fake that.
Betty Okino (00:26:05) – I mean, until you develop a certain level of acting skills, which we’re not here to be actors, but we do need you to perform. You can’t fake it. So let’s find something that’s real and true and authentic to you and make the movements work. and that’s what we’re looking for. Absolutely. You have to be unique, you have to be true to yourself in your performance, whatever that is.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:26:26) – Well, the name of the podcast is Resilience to Brilliance and we’ve seen your brilliance in the Olympics, in your gymnastics career as an actor. Now, as a choreographer, is there a story of resilience that you would like to share that could encourage those out there who are trying out for the Olympics? Or maybe they’re wanting to be a collegiate athlete.
Betty Okino (00:26:48) – Resilience, right. Latin for bounce back or, or, rebound essentially recoil and what, so one story that comes to mind because in in in all stories of resilience, there’s the moment of, there’s the moment of choice. So to bounce back you either fall and stay down.
Betty Okino (00:27:13) – But resilience bounce back means you’re choosing to get back up. So you keep bouncing back. So I’ve noticed like so as I was thinking about this moments in my life. I feel like I always know the moment of choice. So before the Olympics, before US Championships, the year of the Olympics. So US Championships trials are the competitions that lead up to being selected for the Olympic team. I broke my back and I was landing a dismount and I fractured it and I remember the moment of, well, that that moment of, oh crap, because it was literally a week before US championships like, you know, this is it. So, you know, you go to the doctor, the doctor does the X-rays and the MRIs, and it’s like, this is the situation. Your back is fractured. You need to be off of it for six weeks. No moving, complete brace. Well, we leave for the Olympics in six weeks. What? You know, and essentially my question to him was, can I hurt myself further if I continue going? And he said there could be a 1% chance of paralysis if, you know, you do this and this happens.
Betty Okino (00:28:26) – And in that moment, essentially, my brain said, okay, so you’re saying there’s a chance. And from that moment on, I had decided that I am going to keep stepping in the direction of this dream. I’m not done. And it went from like, shoot everything, just like. All possibility and opportunity left to possibility is back, and it didn’t matter what the end result was. Butt it mattered that, okay, what can I do today? So me and my trainer came up with a plan. Okay, so we I needed to have the brace on for a week. But you can do this so you can, you know that if you visualize your routines in your mind, it fires through the neurons and fires through all your muscles in your body as if you’re actually doing the routine. Your body will sweat. It’ll work the same way. You’ll fire the same muscles. So I went into a visualization routines. So as my teammates had six beam routines, they did. I had six beam routines that I did that I visualized, but I visualized all of them on the podium at the Olympics vault.
Betty Okino (00:29:32) – I visualized as many vaults as they did bars, I visualized as many bar routines. And then we went into doing like activities in the pool. But it became about this day-to-day and moment-to-moment process of moving in that direction and doing what I could do until I finally came to an end result which, had me at the Olympics.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:29:55) – Wow. So where were you able to find the ability to bounce back again? Especially. I’m sure you were in quite a bit of pain.
Betty Okino (00:30:09) – Mhm
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:30:10) – And you have a 1% chance of paralysis. Where did you get that? Is that just something that you were born with the ability to just be resilient.
Betty Okino (00:30:21) – I feel that everybody has it existence. It is within every. It’s the seed, within every single one of us. We simply have to need the knowledge of that choice, For me, however, I have a very, very strong faith in my grandmother instilled that in me. So the moment I experience, I had a habit of prayer, I turn it to God.
Betty Okino (00:30:46) – The moment I experience difficulty or pain or something that I can’t compute or understand or I need just, I need strength. I always turned to prayer and and to faith. So, that combined with having certain tools in place, which was the power of my own visualization. the tools of knowing that once my mind has decided something, my body is going to move in the direction of that decision. And so applying the combination of faith. And those tools acting in one instant is what created the bounce back. And so the moment that you make the decision, you have now started the recoil process.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:31:31) – That’s good. Betty. Ooh, that is good. When making an Olympic team or competing at a high level and you just want to win, there is always an opportunity to be in a situation where perhaps a coach may use some unhealthy training tactics. And you hear in gymnastics the word abuse and in different settings all the time. So how do you counsel a parent? Your mom coached you? How do you counsel a parent who has an athlete in that situation? Not in an abusive situation, but has an athlete competing in the sport of gymnastics? How do you counsel them to coach their athlete to avoid such abuse? What does a parent tell their son or daughter?
Betty Okino (00:32:27) – I think it’s important to understand the and to know internally the difference, because there’s a certain amount of push past comfort that is required to be elite at anything.
Betty Okino (00:32:46) – I mean, that that’s that’s the nature of even trying to grow muscles. If you’re trying to lift or build build anything, you have to push past that comfort level in order for growth to start happening. there needs to be a little bit of that. And so, I think it’s important to have those discussions and to understand like where what is that point where, where you just don’t you’re uncomfortable and you don’t want to push yourself any further, but you need somebody to help you do that. And when it when is it now destructive. It’s damaging. You’re doing too much. It’s it’s too much. It’s not past the point of discomfort now. It’s just it’s just repeated. It’s repeating repetitive. It’s pounding and it’s not no longer helping. I think that’s an important discussion for each person individually and with their parents because we all have a different threshold and we all have a different limit. But it’s important to understand that. I feel like there’s a generation of young people that hit a level of discomfort or challenge.
Betty Okino (00:33:51) – And they want to just give up. Or like maybe, maybe that’s just not. I can maybe just go this route instead to attempt to get to that goal. But you can’t. You’re going to have to push through. You’re going to have to walk through the fire at some point and understanding the difference between walking through the fire and burning in it.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:34:15) – So having that awareness and having conversations with your parents is one of those.
Betty Okino (00:34:22) – Yeah.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:34:24) – If the child and the parent aren’t having those open conversations then it’s not going to work, right?
Betty Okino (00:34:34) – No, and there’s also there’s no way to know unless you’re actually communicating and having a conversation. I feel it’s also important for the child to know, you know, because we do experience this sometimes where the drive of the parent is a little bit greater than the drive and the will of the child. So then it, it creates, a difficulty. The child doesn’t want to necessarily have that conversation with their parent because they don’t want to let them down, because the parent might have a different idea also of what, you know, working to a certain level or pushing through means than what the child feels and experiences.
Betty Okino (00:35:13) – So it’s very it’s very individual and it needs to be very open. And the, the, the drive to do the thing requires to be the child’s vision and goal. And I know how challenging that can be. Like there’s there can be a where you’re so invested in your child, there’s a point where it kind of crosses like you’re their dream now becomes your dream because you know, you want to help them reach that. And if you’re a parent who’s, you know, been a competitive athlete also at a high level or anything at a high level, then that’s going to one’s own urge is going to kick in to, come on.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:35:47) – You can do this.
Betty Okino (00:35:48) – You keep pushing through it. You can do this.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:35:50) – Suck it up. Come on. Yeah. No.
Betty Okino (00:35:53) – Yeah. Exactly. Meanwhile there like I it actually physically hurts. It’s not like me being sore because I’m building, but I’m actually in pain. Okay, so now we have a different conversation. This is a different conversation.
Betty Okino (00:36:06) – You don’t continue to push. You back off a little bit. Like I have that conversation often with athletes. Like, can you especially the young, younger developing athletes? Can you tell the difference between pain and like soreness, the soreness of growth and the pain of injury?
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:26) – That’s really good. I never had that conversation with with yeah, it just didn’t happen back in my day.
Betty Okino (00:36:33) – No, I think back and back in our day it was you push past everything. Everything. And if you can’t then go off to the side until you can again or don’t.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:47) – Or someone else will and they will take your place.
Betty Okino (00:36:50) – Or someone else will and they will take your place. Exactly. So you just did.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:36:55) – Right now that’s good. I think that open communication is so, so important. And creating a safe environment for your child to be able to come to you with whatever’s happening in the gym that they may feel uncomfortable with. Good stuff, good stuff. So one of the things I’ve heard you talk about is winning the bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics, and how the media and other people.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:37:23) – Had a response that was not a positive one, especially for you all who did the work to get there. Tell me about how that affected you.
Betty Okino (00:37:34) – It’s interesting because we were pretty happy, like backstage before we walked out to get our. It was it was mixed. It was mixed. We definitely wanted to we wanted at least the silver medal. Gold would have been fantastic. That’s what you’re all. That’s what you’re like competing towards. But we were happy that we that we pulled it together and we earned to some degree a bronze medal.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:38:01) – Wait wait wait wait. To some degree?
Betty Okino (00:38:03) – To some degree, because there was mixed. Not that we earned it to some degree, but the happiness.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:38:09) – Oh, okay.
Betty Okino (00:38:10) – Because there was mixed emotions backstage. There was some that were crying because it wasn’t a silver or gold. And then there was some of us that were like trying to bolster everybody up and saying, come on, guys. Like, we fought for this and we were we earned this.
Betty Okino (00:38:25) – This is what this is how it laid out today. But we are on the podium. We have a medal and they’re going to put up the flag. so moving from that into going into, you know, we thought it was going to be a little bit of a celebration like, yay, medal number one for team USA.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:38:41) – Exactly
Betty Okino (00:38:42) – Let’s, you know, let’s keep moving from this. And instead it was.
Betty Okino (00:38:46) – Wah wah.
Betty Okino (00:38:49) – The questions were more like, so you guys lost the silver medal? By this much, I mean, how does it feel that you guys ended up with a bronze? How does it feel to be to to have a to have gotten a third third place where at World’s you guys were you know in second place you were favored to be vying for the gold.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:39:17) – This is right after competition.
Betty Okino (00:39:19) – Right after in the press. Yeah. The press conference.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:39:23) – So that had to.
Betty Okino (00:39:24) – And it was fascinating because I thought, wow. I mean, it wasn’t until the question was asked that like in my head, I thought, oh, oh, I.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:39:31) – Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that.
Betty Okino (00:39:32) – I hadn’t considered that this is how we’re perceiving this experience. Okay. Well. And so it definitely colored it, it colored it for our whole team for years after that whenever we like talk about it or even have conversations, it’s kind of like it’s not it’s not a, it’s not a conversation of victory. Like we did something great. It was it was more like a defeat.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:39:57) – But in fact, you did do something great. And you made history for the US. Which is it’s mind-boggling to me. I. I wasn’t there, Betty. But when you describe the questions that they asked and the way they ask them after the meet, it hurts my heart. So I can’t even imagine having gone through the grueling training all those years to get there and to have somebody downplay what you accomplished.
Betty Okino (00:40:33) – Yeah. It was.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:40:34) – Makes me mad, honestly.
Betty Okino (00:40:36) – I would love to say that that would never happen again. But you know, the same questions are being fired at these athletes as soon as they step off the podium.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:40:44) – Exactly. Unfortunately. And I wonder if those people who are asking those questions. Have been elite athletes before.
Betty Okino (00:40:58) – No.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:41:00) – And perhaps that’s why they think it’s okay to ask. Because they don’t understand. Oh, the pain that causes an athlete and they don’t understand the work and the the sacrifice that goes into accomplishing what they do, what they do out there every single day.
Betty Okino (00:41:20) – And they don’t understand.
Betty Okino (00:41:22) – That the the victory is, is not only in this one moment that you guys are watching right here, it’s that this whole journey that led to this and whether or not the result is a bronze medal, a sixth place finish or a gold medal, it doesn’t take away from the athlete’s journey. That’s that’s the victory. Like the struggle that the journey that it took to get to that to that point, regardless of the result. They, you know, they’re champions.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:41:52) – Yes, absolutely. I remember being at an event like, a year ago, and someone asked me, hey, did you make an Olympic team? And I said, no, I didn’t make an Olympic team.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:42:04) – And he goes, oh, I’m so sorry. Like it was the end of the world. And I’m like, oh my goodness,
Betty Okino (00:42:14) – I, I, I’m actually good. I’ve had a really great life. Let me tell you about what my experiences were, I mean.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:42:20) – But he just felt like it was the end of the world for me and I must be the saddest person in the world because that didn’t happen for me. But the truth is, there are not very many people who will make an Olympic team. So I think about the athlete who’s out there, and there’s nothing wrong with that goal, of course. It’s a wonderful goal you should always go for, you know, as far as you can get. But what do you say to those athletes and those parents who have those Olympic goals, and they may not realize them? Is there more to gymnastics than making an Olympic team?
Betty Okino (00:42:58) – Oh my gosh, there’s so much more. It’s so fascinating because it’s especially every four years right around the Olympics, the conversation comes back up and I’m having discussions and conversations again about the Olympics, but it feels like another lifetime.
Betty Okino (00:43:11) – Truly, for me, it was an experience that I had another lifetime ago, and I have to go back into that like life and world. But I mean, so much life has happened since then and has happened around that and happens up into that moment where it’s simply it’s an experience. It’s an experience, it’s a blink and it’s an experience in the sea of millions of other experiences that we have and are going to have in life and. Yes. The the it’s important to have the target or else the arrow that you shoot doesn’t have anything to to hit. And in that in the, in the journey between shooting and hitting that target, that arrow travels a long distance and through a lot of space and a lot of different experiences. And the target is just but a blink. It gives you a trajectory, it gives you a point of focus, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that your destination, the destination is nowhere. It continues like there is no final. And that’s what I realized from even being there at the Olympics.
Betty Okino (00:44:22) – Like as I was standing there, me and my teammate after, like we’d finished all around and we’d finish event finals and it was just the two of us on the floor. Everybody had dispersed. You’re so used to everyone being around you all the time, like ushering you here, ushering you there and never leaving you alone. But literally like, it was like cockroaches. Everybody scattered as soon as like, it finished. And we’re like, okay, we were just standing there taking selfies of ourselves with the, the, the mascot on the gym floor. And then we looked at each other for a moment and we’re like. That’s it. All that.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:45:00) – Wow
Betty Okino (00:45:03) – That’s kind of what it felt like. All that. And so it was my first, like, moment of, like, perspective and realizing that that all of this was for the journey, all of the experiences that I had up until this, this moment. And it’s not the beginning or the end of the world. It’s simply a it’s a a point, it’s a direction.
Betty Okino (00:45:20) – It’s pointing you in a direction that you are meant to move in, to get to the next experience.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:45:26) – Absolutely. And the things that you learn, the skills, the, you know, the tenacity you take with you.
Betty Okino (00:45:34) – Absolutely. I feel like that’s probably the most unique thing about gymnastics. And I’m it might be every single sport, but this is what I’ve lived and been involved in my whole life. But the amount of, the, the determination and I feel like resilience is a built into gymnastics and maybe it is a built into sport, but it’s the nature of learning anything in this sport, right? From learning a kip to learning any skill, you’re going to fall, you’re going to fall, you’re going to get back up, you’re going to fall, you’re going to get back up, you’re going to fall, you’re going to get back up, and eventually you’re not going to fall anymore. And then next, next, what do you do? So I mean, and it develops that, that sort of that way of being, it develops that body habit that we can bring then into to life.
Betty Okino (00:46:22) – What do you do when you fall? You get back up. Try it again. And you learn from it. Maybe. Maybe you’re going to do something a little bit differently this time. Okay, try it again.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:46:34) – We talked about your work with the US national team as a choreographer, helping to bring that artistry in. But the person listening does not have to be on the US national team in order to work with you, because you have dance for gymnastics classes and clinics. How can someone get involved with that?
Betty Okino (00:46:55) – So I started a subscription, dance dance for gymnastics program. And it’s online and it’s video courses that take you from the beginning stages of what you would require dance applied to gymnastics all the way to the more advanced stages. And there are 30-minute classes, so anybody could actually do them, from the beginner gymnast to the more advanced advanced gymnasts. And they, you know, they teach anything from basic ballet technique that would be required for gymnastics to turn drills, to flexibility, to developing our active flexibility using some pilates.
Betty Okino (00:47:37) – And there’s, of course, fun dances in different styles. So you have lyrical jazz, you have some hip hop, you, you have, jazz, funk and different choreographed routines that you can then learn and warm-ups and different things like that. And that is now becoming an app, which we’re launching in April.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:47:57) – Realy? April of 2024.
Betty Okino (00:47:59) – Correct. April of 2024 for the DFG. And it’s going to present slightly differently, only because we’ve observed the different way that learning happens now with young people.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:48:11) – Ok
Betty Okino (00:48:12) – And it needs to happen in quick, intimate bursts. they need to be challenged. So all of the different classes, if you will, are instead challenges and not classes. So it’s a ten-minute choreography challenge and that’s broken down into three parts. Can you learn this? Go. You know and then I teach it and or it’s quick ballet footwork combination. Can you learn this? And this is what you’re going to be focusing on. And so then we’re using that platform as a way to
Betty Okino (00:48:48) – one educate on movement and balance. And it’s not just dance for gymnastics, but it can be applied to all sports, technique, but also, all of those. All of those beneficial elements of dancing. You know, the dopamine that is created when you dance to music and you move together and you just and the feeling that comes out of it at the end. So we’re trying to bring a mindset element as well as a movement element and for for young people. But the next generation of it, which will launch in six months, will be for the parents as well.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:49:29) – I’m excited about that. I might just have to get the app and kind of start over myself. Check it out, check it out, see what it’s like. So how can they find you?
Betty Okino (00:49:40) – Go to danceforgymnastics.com to access the app and the subscription program and to access a clinics for your gym.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:49:50) – Wonderful. Now, Betty, there’s a question that I ask everyone at the end of my podcasts. And the question is, what does BrillianceMode look like for you? And I’ll define BrillianceMode for you.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:50:03) – It’s basically when you are operating out of the fullness of who you were designed to be. You’re using your gifts, your talents, your interests, those things that make your heart sing, those things that you’re passionate about. I call that BrillianceMode. So, Betty, what does living in BrillianceMode look like for you?
Betty Okino (00:50:23) – Living in BrillianceMode for me. I feel like when I, I am able to access that brilliance, when I am present in the moment of whatever it is I’m doing. So without judging myself or without projecting into a future moment. Simply being here in this moment with myself or whoever I’m with, doing whatever I’m doing because I feel like in those moments is when I am connected to the very source of brilliance. And that’s what I try to help our athletes do, that this is those are the moments when you experience the zone in in sports, if you do any amount of research on people who have been and experienced the zone, and I’ve experienced it once and it was when I was when I was doing it was an exhibition, actually, and it was in Holland, and it was somewhere in 91, I think maybe.
Betty Okino (00:51:25) – And I was doing a beam routine in this exhibition and I completely felt. It felt so easy and effortless and present, as if I was watching myself do the routine and I didn’t have to think about it or worry about it. And everything I did was flawless all the way to to the landing, and it was the most, like, magical sort of experience. And it is where that, you know, that level of that preparation, and presence in the moment. And then when we, when we’re in that moment, there’s like a surrender. And in that and this is the place where I try to access as much as I can on a daily basis, because that is when I feel brilliance comes through me into the world. Does that answer that question?
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:52:15) – That answers that question. Oh, oh, does it. Yes, absolutely it does. I might have to listen to that again and just feel it. So the presence. Oh yes. Presence.
Betty Okino (00:52:29) – Presence. I feel like that’s probably our biggest challenge.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:52:33) – Because I don’t know about you when I would compete, even if I was standing on that first place on the podium, I would still be thinking about next week. Can I do this again? And I wouldn’t enjoy that moment. So I love that BrillianceMode for you is being present in whatever it is you’re doing. Thank you, Betty.
Betty Okino (00:52:58) – Thank you, Kim.
Kim Hamilton Anthony (00:53:05) – Thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn more about Betty Okino, check out our show notes on InBrillianceMode.com/podcast and to connect with Betty on Instagram, follow her @bettyokino. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Resilience to Brilliance, please share it with others who may be encouraged by it. And to make sure you don’t miss future episodes, please follow us or subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. You can also follow me on Instagram @realkimanthony. Any use of this podcast without the express written consent of BrillianceMode LLC is prohibited.
