On the Dutch floor routines

The Dutch floor routines have created quite a stir and some heated debate on the gymternet. People seem to have one of two lines of thought regarding their dance-skill-and-artistry-heavy routines:

Who cares about the tumbling? They have beautiful artistry. Why does it matter that they only have two D passes?

or

Right, they're pretty, but tumbling isn't supposed to be an afterthought in a floor routine. It's basically just a very pretty form of code whoring.


I'm in the second camp. I enjoy watching Lieke and Eythora, but I don't support their scores (Lieke especially, since Eythora's are pretty much unable to break 14) being among the highest in the world. To use an oft-ridiculed phrase, "It's gymnastics, not dance." Even back in the ever-celebrated 1980s, the top routines had three passes, most of them having at least one pass more difficult than Lieke's and Eythora's.

Now, I'm all for encouraging artistic routines. But with the intense focus the gymternet has placed on artistry, I actually think tumbling has been undervalued in the gymternet's collective conscious. I also think it has created a mindset of artistry and difficulty as two opposing forces, with one having to win out over the other. This is a very unbalanced mindset. The tumbling elements, dance elements, and purely artistic performance aspects of a floor routine are all supposed work in harmony with one another, not compete for prominence.

There are plenty of routines where the technical and performance aspects do work in harmony (some even having very high difficulty) that seem to be forgotten when the debate over the Dutch gymnasts arises in favor of a "war between difficulty and artistry" outlook. This is supremely unhelpful because the conversation spirals into an "is tumbling or artistry more important?" issue and the actual goal of artistic gymnastics floor routines- a cohesive routine where all the elements combine to make one strong performance- is ignored. Routines with two bare-bones tumbling passes but with lots of spins and lovely artistry are just as unbalanced as routines in which every pass is mind-blowingly difficult and even clean but the gymnast can't hit full split and the choreography and performance are sorely lacking.

I love the Dutch team and enjoy watching Lieke and Eythora on floor, but their approach to constructing their routines is flawed and only feeds even more strongly into a "Neither can live while the other survives" artistry vs. tumbling sentiment. I just hope that FIG makes changes to the rules on floor next quad so I can just appreciate these routines as the pretty routines they are after this quad and not be concerned about it becoming a trend.