Entries from December 2009 ↓

Happy New Year’s Eve.

Click PLAY. Or watch a catchy music video on YouTube.

2010: April 2 – 5

The best competition in Canada (in my opinion) is filling rapidly. Get your entries in soon if you plan to attend.

The floor will be on an Olympic-size podium. The venue moved to the Edmonton Expo Centre at Northlands.

In 2010, we are aiming at giving away close to $8,000.00 in prize money.

Prize money for gymnasts and coaches. Nice!

official home page

Gymnastike posted some FUN today for New Year’s Eve:

This year we’ve gotten access to shoot podium training at some big events like SEC Championships, Women’s NCAA Championships, and VISA Championships. Podium training days are always fun, but no one brings more fun to the podium than the Georgia Gym Dogs. They don’t train; they just dance!

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

The ring leader is Courtney McCool. It will be interesting to see if they keep up the dance to keep the team “loose” next season once she graduates.

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry leading, eventually, to Knighthood Dame-hood.

Congratulations!

… superstar gymnast Beth Tweddle will become an MBE after being included in this New Year honours list.

Beth, from Bunbury near Chester, is one of only twenty people named as members of the Order of the British Empire sporting honours list for her services to gymnastics.

The 24-year-old, dubbed Tweddle the Medal, joins Formula One racing champion Jenson Button on the list which was published yesterday by Her Majesty the Queen.

Speaking to the Leader, Beth said: “I was very shocked when I found out. …

Chester star gymnast Beth Tweddle made MBE in New Year honours list

Thanks Chris.

UCLA Gymnastics is well known for having their athletes go on to careers in the Circus after graduation. Less well known is how many girls go on to stunt work.

UCLA magazine posted an excellent article on Bruin gymnasts getting work as doubles on TV and in the Movies.

Five former UCLA female gymnasts work on Make it or Break It.

… Natalie Padilla ’08, Jordan Schwikert ’09 and Ariana Berlin ’10 perform as stunt doubles for some of the lead characters; Tasha Schwikert ’09 plays a gym-nast on the show; and Karin Silvestri-Coye ’98 serves as the show’s gymnastics coordinator. …

2008 NCAA Champion Tasha Schwikert

… Other former Bruin gymnastics stars who have found stunt work in Hollywood include Dee Fischer Murphy ’96 and Kiralee Hayashi ’00 …

… Heidi Moneymaker, has been doing stunts full-time since 2001 …

Read the article – Stunts and Circuses

Related – cool new ad for G2 (Gatorade) features Chellsie Memmel on Bars

Update – check the comments for more information on stunt work gymnasts

Selected Most Heartwarming Interview Of 2009 on Gymnastike … and that’s saying a lot.

Nina Kim was an integral part of the University of Utah team as one of their two All-American seniors, but was also best friend of Olympic Champion Nastia Liukin and got to travel to Beijing alongside Nastia. In this interview, Nina talks about how her relationship grew with former WOGA teammate Nastia Liukin and watching her journey to Olympic glory.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

It gives me even more appreciation for what Nastia accomplished in winning the Olympics.

What a success story.

Have you seen Nastia’s new website?

NastiaLiukinTour.com

It promotes her travel as a clinician, motivational speaker and for appearances. … Not all that easy to do if she’s supposed to be in the gym training full-time.

This initiative is getting some negative buzz on the internet. I’m happy to see Nastia organize her own personal schedule. … But is a retirement announcement next?

I cannot recall when the older girls first started using “butt glue”. (… At least that’s what we always called it.)

kj, in response to the pros and cons of bike shorts post, linked to the butt glue she used in competition.

Gymnasts the world over are plagued by wedgies. Happening at meets everywhere is the dilemma of wheather to take the deduction.

Sticky Buns liquid adhesive and sticky strap adhesive tape help to solve this problem. The kit contains a 0.5oz jar of adhesive with its own brush, 20 tape pieces and 20 alcohol prep pads (skin does need to be clean and with no oils on surface). All is packed into a plastic pouch to throw in your gym bag.

Ten.0

Leave a comment if you have any other products or methods of keeping leos from “riding up”.

GymSmarts is far and away the best and biggest publisher of gymnastics DVDS.

Here’s there biggest sellers from the past year. (In case you didn’t get the ones you wanted for Christmas.)

SETS
Mas Watanabe’s Tumbling Set
Tony Gehman’s Advance Tumbling Set
Mas Watanabe’s Bar Set
Mas Watanabe’s Vaulting Series
Beth Gardner’s Preschool and Rec Gym 1-3

SINGLE DVDs:
Tammy Biggs – Leaps and Jumps
Tammy Biggs – Beam Complexes
Mary Lee Tracy – Core Strength
Mary Lee Tracy – Circuit Training
Tammy Biggs – Flexibility
Tony Retrosi – 5 Bar Skills
Tammy Biggs – Round-off
Tammy Biggs- Flipping Drills
Tammy Biggs – Aerials

GymSmarts is Tom & Reiko Beach. Click through to their home page if you want more information. Most DVDs are $30.

GymSmarts.com

The World of Gymnastics posted an article called Are Gymnastics Shorts Harmful or Helpful for Your Gymnast?

Often a controversial issue.

First, I will start with the positives. Many girls who wear shorts feel like they need them; wearing them can give them more confidence and make them feel more comfortable with their body. The shorts keep the gymnastics leo in place which helps prevent wedgie picking.

Now for the negatives, shorts are NOT technically part of the gymnastics attire. When working out, the gymnastics shorts tend to twist from side to side. This causes the gymnast to have to stop what they are doing and fix them every time they twist (which is A LOT). Many gymnasts tend to hide behind their shorts. They can’t do gymnastics without them (so they believe). They rely on their mini bike shorts way too much and get very uncomfortable if they are made to take them off. But worst of all, once they are off the wedgie picking doesn’t stop. Without shorts their gymnastics leotards “ride up” even more. For this reason you may think shorts are great because they stop this problem but this IS NOT THE CASE! At gymnastics meets or gymnastics competitions your gymnast CANNOT wear shorts. Since they are NOT use to this, they may forget and pick their wedgies in their routines which will cause them to get a 0.05 deduction for each and every time they do it. This can add up and cost them their placement for an award!

I do not believe gymnastics shorts benefit a gymnast in any way. When my gymnasts ask me about wearing shorts I ask in return, “do you wear shorts over your swim suit when you go swimming”? Of course the answer is always “NO!” Then I tell them, “There is no reason to wear them here either.”

Keep in mind, you should practice the way you compete; this means No gymnastics shorts; at least not for those that participate in gymnastics competitions or gymnastics meets. They can be more harmful then helpful! If you have a correct fitting gymnastics leotard you shouldn’t have problems with picking wedgies anyway.

A good compromise is requiring leotard during routine training but allowing shorts the rest of workout.

Leave a comment if you have an opinion.

The new NCAA season is nearly upon us. I can hardly wait.

The intro-video for the 2010 University of Utah Gymnastic Team.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Utah hosts UCLA Fri. Jan 7th to open the season.

UPDATE: all UTAH GYMNASICS VIDEOS FROM GYMNASTIKE are posted online from one page

Check out the skill our new World Champion is training on Horizontal Bar.

It’s at 5min in a long Japanese interview.

I’ve linked to the correct part of the video. Simply click to watch it on YouTube – 2009.12.17 Kohei Uchimura interview part 2 of 2

Could a male gymnast compete triple back regrasp before a female gymnast competes double back regrasp?

Uchimura seems to be able to do just about anything. With ease.

Barcelona1992 posted the original video on Gymnastike. Thanks.

UPDATE: He’s playing with a handspring front triple full on vault, as well.

AUSTRALIA’S first family of gymnastics has moved …

Vladimir Joura and his wife Irina recently moved from Western Australia to Alexandra Hills to take up the positions of head coach and senior coach respectively of the women’s artistic gymnastics (WAG) high performance program at the Queensland Academy of Sport at Nathan, alongside their 14-year-old daughter and national junior squad member Natalia. …

Vladimir, Natalia and Irina Joura

Star gymnast family moves to Alex Hills

Big sister, 2008 Olympian, Dasha Joura stayed at WAIS. She’s attending University in Perth.

(via #ozgymblog)

This excellent site is posted by Enrique Trabanino from Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy, Mary Lee Tracy’s gym. He is a former National Team member from El Salvador.

He sells his gymnastics coaching Clinics on DVD for $25 each.

There are some free “teaser” clips on his Videos page. One sample.

Looks great.

There are more free Bar training tutorials on his YouTube Channel. (If you’re a Bar coach, you need to see those. Awesome.)

SUBSCRIBE to Enrique’s channel if you want him to post more video.

(via Coaching Gymnastics in the New Millenium)