Entries from December 2010 ↓

Cleveland Rocks.

The Women will compete April 15-17, 2011 at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Men’s Championships goes same weekend, also in Ohio.

Ohio State University, Columbus will host. It’s less than 3hrs drive between the two cities if you’re insanely contemplating seeing part of both, as I am.

We’re back at it today.

Kids have competitions coming up SOON where I live. Many took only 3 days break for Christmas.

The boys at Calgary Gymnastics Centre posted a cute Christmas greeting.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

That’s on coach Miguel Costante‘s Olympic Gymnastics YouTube Channel, must watch video tutorials for all Men’s coaches.

Miguel plans to expand it into a full educational channel with a focus on technique, not KOOL TRIX. Subscribe.

Aliya Mustaphina (artistic gymnastics) and Evgenia Kanaeva (rhythmic Gymnastics) are among the top ten Russian athletes of the year 2010 …

FIG

Mustafina pic courtesy of GYMNET.org

Nice facility. European Fitness Center in Moscow offers recreational gymnastics in “in a popular format worldwide”.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Here are some younger kids, age 4-6. Click PLAY or watch them on YouTube.

Note the Springfree trampolines.

Feel free to critique, in the comments. There are a number of things shown that would be coaching mistakes in my gym.

More videos and photos.

Club home page translated to English.

Jun Chen told me of big new American style for profit gyms opening in China, as well. There’s obviously a demand. A shrewd business person would invest in those growing markets.

Prediction … a new Recreation Gymnastics website will launch SOON.

The elusive Perfect 10 may have died in elite gymnastics, but it’s still alive and well in college and club gymnastics. We saw a few Perfect 10.0 performances on gymnastike this year. Many of them were debated by viewers, but there’s no debating this one! Anna Li of UCLA nailed this beautiful set with a HUGE tkatchev to receive the first perfect 10.0 score of her career and lead her Bruins the the Pac 10 Team Title.

Click PLAY or see more like this on Gymnastike. They are running a Best of 2010 Countdown.

The biggest deduction I can detect is leg form on the double layout. It’s quite possible the judges couldn’t have seen that from the side.

I was in the audience for that meet. It was a well deserved 10.

I think she loves this song – Obsession – Sky Ferreira

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Merry Christmas. We’ve missed you.

In my experience, gymnasts and acrobats are at lower risk of anorexia nervosa than the general population.

Though it’s possible to be a “functioning anorexic“, it’s not easy in Artistic Gymnastics.

Females are treated medically at something like a 10 to 1 ratio to males. Yet the only competitive gymnast I’ve ever had hospitalized, was male.

In that teenager’s very specific case it was triggered by him trying to meet a weight class in rowing. (He was doing both sports simultaneously.)

Here’s another detailed case study of male anorexia nervosa, Eric Ostendorf:

… Eric’s anorexic habits began when he was 10.

And more children like him are developing eating disorders early, researchers warned this week in a report in the journal Pediatrics. …

The perception that eating disorders affect only females is wrong, especially for younger kids. …

When Eric’s parents noticed his fixation on exercise and diet, they initially thought it was part of his obsessive-compulsive disorder. He had always been particular with his food, said his mother, Becky Ostendorf.

“He was very compulsive with exercise and of course losing weight,” she said.

Eating disorders give kids a sense of control that’s related to their anxiety, Weltzin said.

“There are rigid perfection obsessive-compulsive characteristics,” he said. “They get locked into a behavior in a compulsive way.” …

age 15 - 94lbs

CNN Health – Inside one boy’s anorexia: ‘How can I burn the most calories?’

Eric is over it. At age-17, 145lbs, he can now see that he had a serious problem.

There are a lot of skinny boys compulsively doing sports. Let’s stay alert to this rare psychological disorder.

Their astonishingly great gymnasts are helping keep down the average weight.

Yet British men weigh 7.7kg (16.9lb) more than they did 15yrs ago.

British women are up 5.4kg (11.9lb).

(via BBC)

From the brilliant Awkward Family Photos blog.

Shining Star

From the excellent French site GYMNET.org edited by coach Eric Harrison. Click on any of these photos for a larger version.

Mustafina was perhaps the story of the year in Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

Going into Rotterdam the question was … Is she for real?

Leaving Rotterdam the question is … Can anyone challenge her in London?

It won’t be Nabieva atop the podium at the 2012 Olympics. She’s simply too inconsistent.

Never count out Americans when the money’s on the line. That goes for all sports. They have an incredible ability to rise to the occasion in the BIG GAME.

Pundits have been touting Russia as the team to beat for some years now. And they’ve proven the pundits right.

See more of Eric’s Worlds photos on GYMNET.org translated into English. Don’t use any of those without permission, though.

Barriers of language on the internet are falling. Google Translate helps.

Blythe Lawrence of Gymnastics Examiner has been living in France part of the past 2 years. And she’s bilingual … though Eric still laughs at some of her phrasing.

Joyeux Noël et une Bonne et Heureuse Année.

After reading the high praise on Aunt Joyce, I had to check out the pre-Christmas Intrasquad.

I was keen to see what NCAA Floor Champion Brittani McCullough was doing this year. She ups the bar from her awesome routine of last season. Huge tumbling. Entertaining choreography.

Click PLAY or click here to jump to Elyse Hopfner Hibbs and Brittani, the final 2 routines.

YouTube does not do justice to College Floor. It’s not easy to tell from watching this what routines will SELL with an audience. McCullough‘s was by far my favourite routine LIVE last season. And it’s looking like she’s the routine to beat in 2011.

From Finland.

Race Horse Company is … Petri Tuominen, Rauli Kosonen and Kalle Lehto. …

Click PLAY or watch a trailer for their 70min show called Petit Mal on YouTube.

… The show has no story or plot, and not much sense to speak of. It does not tell a story, but certainly has its fair share of action. …

Cirko

Looks great. The last tour has finished. Hopefully it will eventually be scheduled elsewhere in Europe.

Thanks kinesthesist for sending us the link.

Gimnasia Peru on Facebook linked a cartoon video.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Bernard … is a series of animated shorts centered on the fictional polar bear and main character of the same name. It is a Korean-Spanish-French co-production.

Each three-minute episode focuses on the bear’s curiosity …