The Health Diaries

Viral Gymnast Katelyn Ohashi on Learning to Show Emotion

‘Find those things that help you mentally and give you passion. This can help you through those dark places, when the sport is gone and you don’t know who you are without it.’

There are many ways to live a healthy life. The Health Diaries is a weekly series about the habits that keep notable people living well.

Katelyn Ohashi walked onto the gymnastics floor on Jan. 12 with one goal in mind: to have fun. Her new floor routine was high energy, technically brilliant, and extremely challenging. She danced to Earth, Wind & Fire, Tina Turner, and Michael Jackson. Finally, the music ended and Ohashi flung her arms into the air, victorious. The judges handed her a perfect 10.

That floor routine changed Ohashi’s life, vaulting her from a well-known gymnast (she beat Simone Biles in the American Cup in 2013) to a viral superstar. UCLA’s video of Ohashi’s routine now has 34 million views and counting. But the 21-year-old UCLA senior says this is one of the final chapters in her gymnastics career. In a few months, she’ll be graduating and going on to her next adventure.