camp Gymnasium at Burning Man 2016

Burning Man festival this year saw the second installation of our theme camp Gymnasium, which refers to the Ancient Greek institution for athletics, philosophy and socializing. You can read more about the concept of our camp on its webpage, but here is our report with some imagery that should help you imagine what it was like (or evoke some good memories, if you participated in our events).

Even though our theme camp was first conceived with an idea to revive the ideals of the Ancient Olympics, this year besides the athletics we put more effort into another aspect of the concept of ‘gymnasium’ in its original meaning – philosophical discussions (with wine). For one session, each participant received a quote of a Greek philosopher and lead discussion on its subject, which let us cover all kinds of topics. We also had a session when we talked about our personal attitudes towards nudity as well as our views on the possible role for naturism in the [default] society. The common theme was the feeling of liberation and bonding with others that brings the simple act of social nudity – and the photos here seem to confirm that.

An entirely new idea for this year was the gymnastics wheel (aka German wheel). Several month before the festival, I stumbled upon a photo with German wheel gymnasts from 1920’s and immediately got an impression that it would be a big hit at Burning Man. As you can see below, it provided a perfect link between the theme of our camp and the theme of Burning Man this year  – ‘Da Vinci’s Workshop’.

We of course refer to the drawing of the Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci, and expectedly the Man himself took the iconic shape this year.

We were so happy to see that our idea was immediately understood by other burners – as soon as we rolled the wheel onto the playa, we had people queuing to take a picture,

and it seemed like it was self-explanatory that one was supposed to get naked for a photo à la Vitruvian Man 🙂

This was a big success in terms of bringing all kinds of people to try a new fun activity in the buff and in public,

and they were creative with poses.

But we didn’t forget the primary function of the gymnastics wheel,

and  the flat playa surface was perfect to roll it.

We had to be careful to avoid possible injuries, as even one rotation proved to be a lot more difficult than we had anticipated. The gymnastics wheel turned out to be a great magnet for people back at the camp too – dozens of passers by stopped to try it every day; only a few managed though, even with helpers.

In their defense, I have to note that in the first days we only knew one, difficult way of holding yourself in the wheel during rotation: pushing up with your arms with all power while maintaining them as straight as possible. That was until someone came by and said that there had been a workshop on gymnastics wheel at Hellfire Society camp. (On what subject isn’t there a workshop at Burning Man?) So we went there, and the camp lead gladly arranged another workshop specially for us. It turned out that while our technique wasn’t impossible, the typical and much better way to hold yourself during rotation on the wheel was by hooking your feet.

After we learned that, the success rate among all the newbies to gymnastics wheel skyrocketed, and we were on the roll 🙂

Our first athletic event in the week was the running race.

This year we only had a short race on our street,

but it was a nice way to get attention from our neighbors and passers by.

It was all for fun, but it was a competition nevertheless.

It was no surprise that David won the race, as he was among the top runners at Bouncing Buns trail race two years ago.

Our Gymnasium also offered daily fitness exercises, with Matt leading push-up sessions every morning.

This year we had a certified yoga/acro-yoga instructor among our campmates,

so we had a few sessions at the camp

and also played a bit on the playa.

We probably should have spent a little more time posing with those amazing and massive art pieces,

but unfortunately some of them were burned much earlier in the week than we had anticipated (e.g. the pyramids on Friday morning).

Some installations were quite interactive and served as great frames for photos, literally.

Other installations referred to familiar views of the “default world”, like NYC skyline at the Kostume Kult, making the whole experience only more surreal…

(I wish we could sip our morning coffee in Manhattan just like that!)

Unfortunately I enjoyed my nights out in an immediate manner, and recorded neither my own naked dancing on the ashes of the burned Man and at the White Ocean nor the performance by a couple of naked fire-spinners at the Mayan Warrior art car, which was probably my favorite mutant vehicle in terms of the music (and certainly in terms of the lights). But here is a short clip from that night I found online, where you can see those two naked fire-spinners, but resting in the crowd at the time – perhaps a video with their performance will appear at some point too, but I’m just happy to have witnessed it.

As you can see, our camp was primarily focused on providing interactive events rather than art and installations,

but we arranged some decorations to highlight our reference to Ancient Greece.

This year we added a statue depicting Hercules wrestling Diomedes for his 8th labor. By the way, I haven’t been able to find an explanation behind that ‘penile grip’ – so if there are specialists in history of art among the readers here, please enlighten us in the comments 😎

Speaking of wrestling, finally getting to our camp’s most famous feature – naked oil wrestling – with more than 600,000 views of our last year’s wrestling video on Vimeo and a mention in the Independent, we can truly say famous!

As you’d expect, our wrestling matches are preceded by oiling up (with a pure Greek olive oil),

which feels great in the arid environment of Black Rock City.

Our entertainers led the show,

and we had a good turnout of spectators and participants for all three matches that we hosted.

Just like last year, we used sumo wrestling rules, as the simplest to adopt at a festival setting.

The wrestlers had to stay within the boundaries of the blue mats,

and only their feet were allowed to touch the ground.

There was a great deal of pushing

and lifting,

or even carrying the opponent outside the rink.

Though pushing was certainly the favorite technique,

and sometimes our puzzle mats did not withstand all that force.

But some matches looked a lot more elegant,

almost like a dance.

And surely it helped to possess a good grip (which the oil made more difficult)

and/or ability to escape one (which the oil made easier).

We had some well matched participants,

so their matches were intense

and unpredictable.

Sometimes we’d need a few judges to decide who stepped outside or touched the ground first, but often enough the victory was clear.

When the most active participants had wrestled each other a few times, we selected those with most victories for semifinals and finals.

You could tell the finalists took the competition seriously,

although all they’d get was a laurel wreath and glory, just like in the authentic Olympic Games 😉

After the winner was determined for each of our three competitions,

we awarded them at our ‘temple’.

And the winners awarded us with their glorious smiles 🙂

Besides giving the golden laurel wreath,

we added one more touch of the Ancient Greek ceremony by scraping dust, oil and sweat from the winners with a strigil (bought on eBay, supposedly authentic!)

And here is a video compilation from the wrestling matches – our only video from Burning Man this year. Enjoy, hopefully it’s a good reward for your long wait for our report!