Competing, Surviving, and Changing the Game with Shenea

In this episode of the Breaking Silence podcast, we sit down with Shenea for a powerful and deeply personal conversation about what it truly takes to create safe spaces in sports and performance. Drawing from her journey as a former gold medal gymnast and professional Cirque performer, Shenea speaks to the importance of prevention, the power that language has in creating space for  cycles of harm to exist, and what advocacy looks like on stage, in the gym, and beyond.

Shenea is a force—an advocate, truth-teller, and educator—offering us the tools to recognize our right to ask questions and demand transparency in the environments where our kids are meant to thrive. Whether they are artists, athletes, explorers, or students, no space meant to develop them should ever be shrouded in secrecy.

To learn more about Shenea and the incredible work she’s doing, visit her website: https://circuspreneur.com/

Transcript

0:00

Hey Breakers. Thank you for joining us for another week of the podcast. Before we jump into this episode, I just want to send a friendly reminder that Shanae, our wonderful guest, will be sharing her experience of surviving childhood abuse at the hands of one of her coaches within USA Gymnastics. Her story is one of hope hardship, overcoming strength. Success. She's a world renowned athlete who, despite all of the odds, continue to move forward. Since Shene has so much to share with us from her life as a gymnast to the policy work that she continues to do to advocating for safety for all kids in all sports, we did decide to break this up into two episodes. The first, we'll cover the beginning. How'd we get here? What brought her to become such a fierce advocate? How did she move past years of abuse? How does she continue to perform at such a high level? It's a story of courage, but it's also a story of how you can become involved. The second part, we'll get more into that policy side. What is it that you can do as a parent or an aunt or anyone that's involved with kids and the activities that they do? What are things we should look out for? It's sort of the advice side. Of the episodes. We hope you'll take them both in and as always, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and enjoy this episode of the Breaking Silence Podcast.

Alli 1:41

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. We are so thrilled to have you here today because we're joined by Shana. Shana is a two time world champion gold medalist in acrobatic gymnastics, A USA gymnastic Hall of fame member in a world acrobatic society. Inductee. Her career includes a decade of collaborations with Cirque Sole, including the coveted hand balancing role as the Promise in Barai becoming the first ever African American female to play a lead character in a Cirque sole production. She was also a finalist on America's Got Talent and has continued to be a featured artist with prominent circus entertainment companies worldwide. We're so thrilled to continue to hear the work that she's doing, not only for those in the circus entertainment, but also for those who are survivors. Within gymnastics community, so welcome to the podcast.

shanae 2:30

Thank you, Allie. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here as a survivor and as an advocate speaking with your beautiful audience today.

Alli 2:40

Yeah, it means so much to us to have you and I cannot wait to just. Have people hear your story and your journey. You continue to be such a force and a voice and so many different sides of this issue. So again, we just really appreciate you being here. And I guess it kind of starts off, can you tell us a little bit about your story and experience being an Olympic athlete and how you journeyed from. Of things into being a professional circus performer and sort of your experiences both good and bad within both of those areas.

shanae 3:16

Thank you, ally. Well, I began my competitive acrobatic gymnastics career at the very ripe age of around eight or nine years old. I had a very prolific career of, first, I was the first acrobatic gymnast to do many things. I was the first American acrobatic gymnast to win a world championship, to be a two time world champion, to be an honorary Olympian, to be inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame. These were things that were, so at the time, again, historic and I had a really high level career. I even moved away from my family for a portion of my acrobatic gymnastics career, which is under the umbrella of USC gymnastics. For those that are maybe not familiar with my particular discipline, it's the discipline where you have partners, most people know it a. Which discussing in this. This discipline of acrobatic gymnastics is very partner oriented and very relational. I was competing alongside of those that, you know, you see competing in artistic gymnastics or rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline and tumbling, and so I had this very worldly career. I was very grateful to have those different opportunities. In the midst of that really amazing career, I unfortunately was. Molested and raped by one of my acrobatic gymnastics coaches hundreds of times actually on the way to garnering this really historic career and doing all the things, winning all the gold medals and doing all the things that everyone is, you know, hoping to achieve with their career. And there was, you know, my, my former coach, David. Was very well known in USA gymnastics. He was very famous, very popular, very well known. I always say, and for some reason, I don't know why this is important for me, but he was my only American coach outside of the Eastern European coaches that I had because he was not my only coach, but he was my coach at a very crucial time, my development. I knew him ever since. I was a very little girl, fight of the horrific sexual abuse that I did suffer at his hands and was quiet about. Through that period, he was, subsequently discovered, but years and so throughout of competition. I was also fortunate to be a part of the circus or the Cirque world. Cirque de Soleil at that time used to scout gymnasts as minors. They still do now, but that's when you could work with Cirque de Soleil as a minor, which you're not allowed to do that now. Now you've gotta be 18 to work with Cirque Soleil. But when I was growing up, you didn't have to be. And so they were scouting me from when I was quite young, probably around their, the age, around 13, 14, to come and work with c. And so that crossover, which was starting to be very popular at the time, was great because they gave you the opportunity, especially with my sport and USA gymnastics, acrobatic gymnastics, we don't have the opportunity to compete NCAA much like rhythmic gymnastics or like trampoline and tumbling, right? That's just exclusively for artistic gymnastics at this point in time, even still now to this day. So our careers, the. The physicality and the technique and you know, that hard worn skill and level comes in the form of circus. And so my journey post competition, which was also due to like lack of funding from USA gymnastics, it was, you know, gymnastics is a very, very financially all consuming sport and very expensive. And so, had I had the proper funding, I probably would've been like six time world champion. To be honest. I wouldn't have left. And It was great that I did have another option, which was to go into the circus world and to continue to expand on my talents because it didn't make sense. I actually retired from the competition quite young. For me, I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity to continue that journey in the form of being an artist.

Alli 7:18

Yes, absolutely. It's. I mean, it's such an interesting space. Every sport, you know, we start kids young, but I feel like dance gymnastic, in your case, you're basically doing dance and gymnastics into one. The idea of hitting your pinnacle tends to exist in your teenage years, not in your mid twenties or even thirties as we see with other professional sports. How did that sort of shape. The experience that you had with this coach and in general, just your development into you're now a professional athlete, the age of puberty is, that's not something I feel like a lot of people experience or think of. Even if you're on a track as like if you're playing soccer, you're gonna be a competitive soccer player. Rarely are you entering into the pinnacle of your sport. At the age of 16. Can you talk a little bit about that dynamic and sort of how that influenced you and the culture? It does create,

shanae 8:19

it creates a very abusive oriented environment because the stakes are too high. Yeah, they are that high. I mean, from one season to the next, you may have outgrown your entire career. And that's devastating. That is devastating. I mean, I'm very tiny. I don't come from a very tiny family, which most folks think that I do. So, you know, the possibility of me becoming very tall were actually pretty high. I remember having one gross birth that I did have, where, I bumped up to like 4 4, 4 10, 4 11. And, uh, you know, five feet around there. And I had a very difficult time. I didn't hit full puberty until I was past being an adult actually. Mm-hmm. But my body did start to change and start to grow and have certain shifts around that age of about 14, 15, 16. It was very challenging to make it through that being in these spaces where, you know, that. Everyone is consistently telling you, you've got this window, you know that this isn't gonna last forever for you, what are you thinking about doing next season? I mean, what about if you're not gonna be a flyer anymore? The little one that's on top. What about if that goes away, whatcha gonna do? Then? Are you gonna really be the one that's the base? That's the strong one on the bottom. Do you wanna do that? Well, you've like worked all these skills. What about you can't do those skills anymore? You're just not gonna be able to do that high level of difficulty anymore. That's a shame. I mean, you're hearing that constantly, constantly. And sometimes it's in a very loving way and it's a very innocent way. In other ways, it's proclamations for folks to manipulate you, to make you feel like they have so much of. Your success in their hands and that there is this precious particular time limit that only they could see. Like my, my abusive coach, David Rippa, would always talk like Jayden the only one that can really see where this is going for you. And oh, we can get this done. And you know, you would hear and see girls during. My time in competing where folks would say like, oh, well yeah, I mean, she's just way too big now. It's never gonna happen for her. She's never gonna get to worlds. Look how, look how big she's living in the spaces of that and all those triggers all the time. And that negative talk, and knowing that I. It could be you at any moment. Maybe you're going to get injured, maybe it's going to be a career ending injury. And then also too, not just that, but the effects of becoming a teenager, going from being a tween and a teenager, and then you are no longer regulating your emotions in the exact same way. That's when you start to fight. That's when you start to rebel. That's when you start to act Very non-compliant, very different from, you know, a 10, 11, 12-year-old who is just happy to be there. Now you've got an opinion. You have something to say, no matter how much of a respectful teenager you might be, which I was, and most of us are, you know, we're very sheltered in gymnastics. We were all very sheltered. We lived that entire experience. I was training eight, nine hours a day. My parents tried to keep me in regular school for as long as possible because they didn't want. Friends that were outside of gymnastics, but it was more and more difficult. I was traveling all over the world. I was away from my family a lot. That was also back when you could fly and go around and travel with your coaches without parental supervision, so your parents were not even there. And it was so expensive that my parents had to forego going a lot. I was the youngest of five. They were paying thousands of dollars for choreography, for leotards, for training camps. You know, I was going to Texas Ranch, I was going to all of the clinics, all of those things. All of that breeding into the fact that now you are in this space where you're starting to change, but you're in this very demanding environment that is asking for your compliance at all times. Where also too, with you wanting to, you know, maybe explore a little bit more in your own personal realm as a child that's starting to grow up and starting to be given a little bit more freedom. Folks that are in that environment willing to take advantage of that because now they see, oh, I've got a child that is a little bit more open, has a little bit more freedom, and there's no one around, right? There's no one around but me because I'm essentially God in this situation, which your coach essentially is, I don't think as much now as it was back then, but during that time. And it's still very easy for that type of brainwashing to happen in these environments where so much of your potential in your future is in their hands at such a young age. And if there's not enough counter to that in your immediate environment to tell you, hey. Just not the be all, end all for you. Your life can go in a multitude of ways. It doesn't matter if you go to Cirque de Soleil or not. It doesn't matter if you go to worlds. It doesn't matter if you become an Olympian. It ultimately doesn't matter. This might not be the best thing for you. This might not be the rest of your life. It might not be what you love for the rest of your life, but if there's not a strong counter for that. Consistently, and I'm saying this even in parents that are very innocent because they're thinking, well, I don't wanna tell them that they won't be motivated to follow their dreams properly. How do I get them to go to the gym night hours a day and get hurt and have, you know, have all of this pain and structure by telling them that it's okay. If it doesn't work out, it's okay. It's like nobody chooses you, you know? So I understand the conundrum and how difficult that space might be to communicate and coordinate with your child at that time.

Alli 13:42

Well, first of all, thank you for sharing all that. I think it's such an important. Way of describing the environment because what I hear is a deep culture of success is the only thing we care about, and an environment that's built on success. Inherently makes people disposable if you don't live up to the expectation. And that has really kind of wild standards. You're too tall, you are too big, you're too ti like, I mean it's right. These standards are in so many ways out of kids control. 'cause again, we're talking about kids or not. Yes. Getting about fully developed, you know, brains or fully developed bodies. These are all things that happen because they happen and. If the standard is you have to control even the things that are uncontrollable, that pressure on a kid, even if it's presented as not pressure, it's there, right? The idea of you can lose everything if X happens, that allows for manipulation and harm on a lot of scales, obviously. Sexual abuse being one of those because it is saying, I control the environment and this helps you become a better athlete. This amount of care, this amount of love, this kind of attention allows for this ultimate thing of success. And don't go away from that. Don't ever stray away from the formula, basically because of awards and accolades, and I. It is hard for sporting environments. It's hard for parents and athletes that wanna succeed. I think, and you get to tell me if I'm wrong on this, is that you can have empathy, boundaries, kindness, and not push a kid to extremes and they will still be successful, and I think that is what we have to strive for. But I guess in your interpretation of. You were very successful in this environment of intense rigor. Do you think there was another path towards that success and can we build it today?

shanae 16:01

I. And I think that we are building it now, and I do wanna counter with the fact that my parents were not obsessively crazy about my career. Yeah. I wanna make that very clear because I was with other children where their parents were obsessively crazy about their career. Like they would've done anything. To make them win. My parents actually were not like that. They were just generally supportive. They, you know, I would call them crying, like, I don't wanna do this anymore. You know? And even at the time when I was being sexually abused, they had no idea. They were like, well, she's just frustrated about Jim, do you wanna come home? Like, do you wanna come home? And then it's like, no, I don't wanna come home.

16:42

Yeah, I

shanae 16:42

still wanna pursue this. I still wanna do this. So, you know, again, not not understanding the signs, which again, at that point in time they didn't. But that can still present itself very similarly, even now. It doesn't matter what generation we're in, the children are gonna present similarly because it's a very hard sport. It's very challenging. Gymnastic is always. In coming into these times where you see how the coaching is, do you need to abuse children to get them to do what they need to do to get them to those next stages of development? No. Do you have to have structure and discipline to keep them safe? Absolutely. Because you are teaching them things. They kill them, right? They can die in these certain situations of high level and high intense training. Now you have to decide as a parent. That's the course that you want to take for your child. I always tell everyone, high level competition is not for everyone.

17:30

Mm-hmm.

shanae 17:31

So high level competition does not have to be abusive, but high level competition is also not for everyone. And so I've also been in enough environments where I've seen parents take a certain approach. You know what? We're not willing to go ahead, like beyond level 10 or level nine, not child, don't. Are there spaces now that, in terms of growing that, in terms of, you know, prevention and having the necessary tools? Absolutely. Do I think that children need to be in spaces where they have therapists and psychologists and things of that nature to help them through these environments? Absolutely. Do we need to continue to have these increased checks and balances around these environments like SafeSport and things like that? Absolutely. We need these different levels of prevention so that the space at the very. And Unarm, right? Because the sport on its own and as it exists is dangerous. It is a very dangerous sport. So I think that parents being very realistic about putting your child in an environment that you know is physically and psychologically dangerous because high level sport and gymnastics, it's scary. Yeah, and you have to have the important people to help your child through those pathways and journeying of being fearful of their own sport and of being in intense pain because they may have unfortunately, hurt themselves. Now, beyond that, it comes down to who are we allowing in these spaces to teach our children and. If you can just continue to show up in a space, you don't have to have a particular degree. You don't have to have particular credentials outside of even what you have to do now. And you don't know a lot about these coaches. You don't really know very much about their coaching history. I understand that. Parents can come into an environment, you know, very green and very naive to how these environments are set up and how they work. But the potential to continue to restore these environments, to make them healthier, to make the approaches less stressful and less abusive is absolutely possible. And if there is anyone out there that says that it's. Not possible. I would steer clear of those spaces because I hear that a lot. Parents come to me still a lot with these stories, and sometimes I ask them, would you have even allowed that in your house, in your household? That behavior that you're seeing from that coach that they're telling you is totally normal, even to this day in the gym. Would you allow that in your house? Oh God, no. We would never allow that in our house. Well, then why are you allowing your child to be in that gym? Right, and what are the excuses that we're making to keep them in that gym, because then my next question is, what are you doing to remove your child from that space and from that gym? And if they've removed their child from that space and from that gym, wonderful. If they're on the fence, like I still hear a bit too much of, from my taste, it's what are you accepting? What are you making acceptable? For you to allow your child to stay in that abusive space, in that abusive environment or program. So this undoing of all of these years, of this cultish like behavior that, you know, gymnastics and the sport has to be abusive on some level from the folks that are controlling. It has to go now again. I will come back. Is it dangerous? Is it difficult? Is it a journey that will take a lot out you and the family? Absolutely. But we continue to. Legislate and look into policy prevention that is instituted across the board in all of these environments, so that it's not just hyper-focused into the important gymnast or the important athletes, or the ones that have a certain level of career, or once your child gets to this point, now we step in with these preventions. The preventions need to start young. And they need to start early and they need to be implemented every single step along the way, which I still consistently do not see that or get that feedback.

Alli 21:43

I wanna jump into that, the policies that you're working on and the things that you advocate for. And before you jump there, I just, it's so ironic to me that so much what you said in that was it is a very dangerous sport, therefore it needs to be safe. Is. Quintessential. I don't know. It should be the tagline of gymnastics, I guess, but it's the safe part, right? Like everyone should be the safest. If I am having my child be thrown up in the air and I'm trusting a coach to know technique to teach other kids how to catch them or keep them safe, or watch them on bars, whatever it is, I. Should know Fullheartedly on this other side, that they're taking injuries seriously, that they're thinking of their mental state before they're thrown in the air. And how important it's to keep that safe and, you know, safety, right? Like that is, and to have that be manipulated to say, actually screaming at someone helps them be safer or not having access to. Your parents at certain times keeps them safer, not allowing them to discuss what happens in the gym. Keeps them safer. Should always, I feel like it helps people every time you think of emotional abuse or physical abuse, to put it into terms of physical injury, that if a coach was like, don't worry about the techniques we are using to ensure your child doesn't break their neck, it's fine. It's like, as a parent you're probably like, no, no, no. I need to actually understand, and I think those questions are okay from the emotional side. From the things we maybe don't know, like, well, how long? Why was she in PT for an hour? And those are just as reasonable of questions as. The physical safety of, I don't want my child to get so injured or potentially die. And it's like gymnastics is kind of ripe for those conversations, but it feels like it got flipped on its head at some point, which comes in these policies and changes. So I just, yeah, it was, you were talking, I was like, oh man, just safety is everywhere in this, except not. So you're working a lot on that side. Do you mind just telling us some of that too?

shanae 24:03

And that is such a brilliant way that you broke all of that down, Allie, and connected all of those dots and conversations, and I love that you came back to asking questions. And again, the parents staying too much on the periphery and handing things over is. What I believe is, again, one of the bigger parts of the problem in these environments. Just because you don't understand the environment doesn't mean that you don't have the right to ask questions. And we have been intimidated out of asking questions in our environment, whether it's gymnastics, and I see that a lot in the circus arts of like, oh, it's just so out there and it's just so you know. Cool. I want you to come back to your senses and look at the reality, like what you're saying, ally, of what is happening in this particular case. Whether you're sending your child off to go do a sport or have them being touched by someone that you dunno. And sure, you might think that it's innocent, but. Who has given this person that you want your child to quote unquote, have fun with permission to be physically involved with your child. And I hear it so often, of which is very harmless and it's fun and all of those things. So I think coming back to looking at the reality of these environments for breaking it down and you know, not over glamorizing these environments and not using these words and not allowing people to hijack you. By using these words because people say that to me a lot when they're speaking to me about my circus career. Cirque Dele. It's so amazing. It's so cool. It's so great. And back to the policy that you were discussing, creating the US Center for SafeSport and being a part of the creation of SafeSport is one of the best things that I've been a part of in my entire life as a survivor and working to amend that policy because even these spaces are incredibly corruptible and we've seen that even with SafeSport. Coming back and having to ratify that policy and speaking on the preventions and what that looks like, what you're discussing Ali, of why are they in PT for that amount of time? Who gets to say who they go with? How long are they going to be in these certain spaces and with how many people? I mean that's now the preventative steps and the guidelines. You know, for example, new. By themselves to a competition or overnight to a camp, or having them drive with certain people, with coaches or with trainers or those associated with the gym or those associated with a circus school or a circus program, which we're seeing, and I will get to that about how the thing that are now national governing bodies are now something that are the green light within the entertainment performing arts world because they're not there yet. How folks are kind of capitalizing on the fact that those worlds are very enmeshed but don't the same exact standards. Always find a way to manipulate. So these policies to me are very important. The fact that you can now go to the US Center for SafeSport and file a report that did not exist during my time of competition, where there also, it's not even just about the fact that you can go into these spaces and file a report and that you know that it's that you have the knowledge. There is now someone else in charge.

27:03

Mm-hmm.

shanae 27:05

You know, before it was like there was nobody in charge. Right? There really wasn't. There were people with very flimsy credentials that were in these positions of power, and I'm not saying that everybody that's in these positions of power right now are the proper people. That's a journey. That's why there's still hearings, congressional hearings that I participate in. There's why, there's, again, amendments to policy, like the new safer sport policy that I just worked on. With a few different offices that are, again, looking at things that have not worked perfectly over the last, you know, six, seven years of when the creation of SafeSport came into being. And now because the policy really has to be alive, you have to see how it works in real time and see, did we go far enough with the policy or does the policy need to go even further? Are there things that now. Maybe should have been inside of a SafeSport policy maybe seven years ago. Yes, absolutely. But the great thing is that you can always come back to it and change it, and that's the part that I'm working on. The other addition to that is that I've seen within the performing arts space that we need a lot of the same policy preventions and guidelines and structures that we have in the sporting world. We need them definitely in the entertainment and the circus arts and the art world, because there are none of those regulations. You will come into spaces now where folks can pretty much get away and do whatever they want. And I know that's kind of terrifying for parents to hear. Yeah. Especially when they feel like these environments are getting so much better. But now we have. Something else to worry about. And so, you know what my work is at this point is getting, you know, an extension of SafeSport that is safe art or safe circus, where it would be a branch of the US Center for SafeSport. And so you wouldn't feel like there's nowhere you can go if you're in a circus program, in a circus school or in a performing arts space and you think, wow, there's maybe some not great behavior going on here. There's maybe abuse happening. Where do we go? Directly to the police. Where do we go? Because the police cannot always help you or be the answer to all of your issues and all of your problems when you are in spaces where there is abuse that's happening. You know? That's why again, the US Center for SafeSport is so important because it teaches you the laws, it teaches you what are your legal rights. Any situation. And then also too, what's the legal responsibility for the national governing bodies? And I hope now that they will have the right to go in and say, what are the legal rights to this dance space? Right? To this dance studio, to this circus school, to this theater club, which again, folks think. There are these systems of guidelines and things like that, but there's not, and the more that I got into my environment with circus and in being in the circus environment and being in these different programs, the more I saw that there was a need for just as much legislation and policy as the environments that I came out of and have been advocating around for so many years now, and seeing just how important it is that I think, to me is the only way. To change these environments with a combination, obviously, of advocates and of boots on the ground. You know, that is obviously incredibly important, but there needs to be, I think, like a three-pronged approach to these environments in terms of regulating them properly because the abuse is so cunning and so manipulative, and is so smart the way that they will navigate around anything that's been put in place. And how abusers operate, they will find a way. And so that's why it's important to keep these environments evolving. You know, nothing is set in stone, whether it be policy or any kind of rules or any kind of. Bring a bit of actions because from my experiences, they just keep on getting more and more evasive trying to outsmart things that folks feel have been put in place and who could get around that. But we've seen it's definitely possible.