UCLA Floor Routine By Sophina DeJesus Goes Viral, Scores 9.925
A UCLA floor routine has gone viral. Sophina DeJesus threw in some unconventional dance moves during her gymnastics floor routine on Saturday at UCLA. The 21-year-old women’s gymnast said she had some help with her choreography, according to Fox 11 on Tuesday.
DeJesus’ dance moves during last Saturday’s UCLA floor routine were reportedly choreographed by her sister, Savanna.
“My sister Savannah is an awesome dancer,” said DeJesus. “She helped me with the choreo and made it more fun.”
Gymnastics floor routines are usually a 90-second combination of leaps and flips and rolls with some added dance elements to show creativity. Sophina DeJesus took the floor routine to a whole new level on Saturday, with hip-hop dance moves set to a hip-hop beat.
This video of a UCLA gymnast doing the Nae Nae during her floor routine has gone viral! https://t.co/fZTeDXOqyp pic.twitter.com/Lu8fmu5sRF
— Us Weekly (@usweekly) February 9, 2016
A video recording of DeJesus’ UCLA floor routine hit social media and has since gone viral. Hollywood Life reports that since DeJesus’ floor routine video was posted on Facebook and uploaded to YouTube on Saturday, it’s had at least 400,000 shares with over 19 million views, and 16,000 comments. DeJesus nailed all the conventional acrobatics expected in a gymnastics floor routine, but attracted viral attention through impressive hip-hop moves.
With a home-court advantage and hoppin’ music in the background, the UCLA senior from Temecula, California, swayed, stepped, and whipped across the gymnasium floor with a floor routine that had the audience on their feet and yelling for a 10 score. According to NBC News, DeJesus even threw in an unexpected old-school Harlem shake.
DeJesus’ tumbling and dance show helped the UCLA Bruins beat the University of Utah women’s gymnastics team on Saturday. Fans say Sophina DeJesus’ UCLA floor routine should have received a full 10 score for energy and creativity, but judges awarded DeJesus with a nearly perfect score of 9.925, which still allowed UCLA to beat Utes by 0.025 of a point. DeJesus herself tied for third place against two other women on her team, even though their performances were less popular.
Olympic silver medalist and former UCLA teammate Samantha Peszek says she believes DeJesus didn’t get a 10 score because judges really only look at the tumbling.
“Commentators mostly talk about tumbling because it seems to be more impressive to an audience and it’s easier to spot the deductions in landings, height, and form.”
Judges don’t exactly know how to score dance moves, but Peszek went on to say that floor routines like DeJesus’ help to bring energy and life back to the audience and the other teams watching.
DeJesus also did very well on the balance beam during Saturday’s competition, scoring a 9.850, but says she loves dancing the most and planned to add choreography to her UCLA floor routine, saying she wanted to end her senior year with a bang. Saturday’s floor routine was DeJesus’ first for the gymnastics season at UCLA.
WATCH: UCLA gymnast Sophina DeJesus hits the Quan, Whip & Nae Nae in floor routine https://t.co/ePsIXbwB03 pic.twitter.com/iPLBaMIS0H
— NewsOne (@newsone) February 9, 2016
According to DeJesus, the floor routine is not usually her best event, but with a dance and acting background, the sociology major managed to put together an entertaining floor routine that got a strong reaction from not only the UCLA crowd, but also the Internet crowd.
According to The New York Times, DeJesus started dancing at a young age on the Discovery Kids and TLC children’s show, Hip Hop Harry. At 12-years-old, Sophina DeJesus performed on the live action educational show that taught kids in the 3–9-year-old age group physical, social, and creative skills using dance moves and hip-hop music.
“We’d teach kids about the importance of drinking water, and stuff like that,” said DeJesus about her time spent on Hip Hop Harry.
Oddly enough, DeJesus said she would often throw some gymnastics moves into her Hip Hop Harry routines, much like she threw some Hip Hop Harry moves into her UCLA floor routine on Saturday.
[Image via Facebook/Sophia DeJesus]
