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The supernova that is gymnast Simone Biles has been explaining a phenomenon called “the twisties” for we who are more earthbound creatures. It’s “not having your mind and body in sync,” she says. Not great for most people, but if you’re upsidedown and six or eight feet above the ground, that disconnection can be deadly.
On July 30th, days after upending a truckload of other people’s expectations by pulling out of her the American team’s all-around final at the Tokyo Olympics in order to focus on her mental health, she posted videos on Instagram revealing that she still can’t shake the twisties and she “literally can not tell up from down.”
That’s when the twisties started to sound familiar to me. Because the insidious thing about that loss of control and perspective is that once it happens, you can’t forget it. So fearing a recurrence of the …