“Gymnasts use grips which go on your hands for when you do bar work.  Do not touch someone else’s grips, it is very bad luck if you touched or used someone else’s grips.  They are molded to your hand so you don’t want to mess up the shape. Sometimes you write yourself a message on your grips for good luck.  I once wrote “go for it” on the grips.  Most grips are leather which gets supple and bendy.”

She thinks the grips are so vital to gymnast performance that it makes sense not to interfere with another person’s grips.  Touching really will mess up the shape so she believes this superstition is still around because of its practical purpose, keeping your grips in their original form.

Since gymnastics is a very individual sport, it makes sense that people are even more competitive over different aspects of the sport.  You can only rely on yourself, so you might be even more particular about anyone sabotaging you.  Thus it seems like a logical transition to make even touching other people’s items taboo since it discourages people from even coming near your items.