Entries from July 2011 ↓

Gymnastike:

For the season 2 premiere of Technique Tuesday, University of Michigan assistant coach Shannon Welker shows us a drill he uses with his team to open up the shoulders in the preflight of yurchenko vaults. …

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

Watch more video of Technique Tuesday, Season 2 on gymnastike.org

Even better, with little kids, is to spot and have them stop in the contact position. … Then front limber to stand on the tramp, with spot.

…Japanese guest Naoya Tsukahara took the lead on day one of the Australian men’s championships, held Saturday in Perth.

Still seeking Australian citizenship, the 34-year-old Tsukahara outscored the domestic field by nearly 2 points. Tsukahara, though ineligible for Australia’s national all-around title, nevertheless helped Queensland win the team title in Perth.

The son of legendary gymnast Mitsuo Tsukahara, Naoya won world all-around medals in 1997 (bronze) and 1999 (silver). He represented Japan at three consecutive Olympic Games, capped off by a team gold at the 2004 Olympics. He last represented Japan in world competition in 2006, winning a team bronze medal. He unofficially won the Australian championships in both 2009 and 2010, though was ineligible for awards.

Tsukahara scored 86.850, 1.2 points higher than his result at the Japanese championships in April, where he placed 33rd. Two-time defending titlist Samuel Offord of South Australia was second (85.050) over Victoria’s Luke Wadsworth (83.550). …

results and more on IG

Click PLAY or watch his Vault on YouTube.

(via Masters Gymnastics)

Christopher Brown …

One of many similar drills for teaching beginners to keep stretched.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Check the Gymnastics Minute YouTube channel for more. And GymSmarts for DVDs.

5 year old Kaylee takes 3 hours a week of Classical Russian Ballet.

This is very helpful for her rhythmic, artistic gymnastics and competitive dance. …

Click PLAY or watch a clip on YouTube.

The secret of the former Soviet system was to schedule for young kids an hour daily of artistic preparation (mainly ballet) and an hour daily of tramp.

But in 2011 in a free market, most gyms simply cannot afford that much time. Nor can they budget for ballet instructors, many who insist on being paid more than coaches.

It’s a dilemma.

Many little girls who love acrobatics, hate dance. Another dilemma.

That clip was linked by Adriana Pop via Pohoata Mihaela on Facebook.

The GALA was very good, selected acts from participating nations.

Click PLAY or watch a few highlights on YouTube.

The act that I best recall, however, is not shown. A joyous dance troupe from South Africa (VIDEO). So unexpected. So different than all the other spectacular acts.

If I had any criticism, it’s that the GALA is just a wee bit sanitized of any real originality.

Check RecGymnastics.com for more Gymnaestrada posts.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

via THE ALL AROUND GYMNASTICS NEWS on Facebook

Wordsmith went again this summer to the Forster Bar clinic. This time TumblTrak was there filming.

Click PLAY or watch a promo clip on YouTube.

… It got pretty funny too when, as a running gag between Resnick and Forster, they’d mention the Tumbletrak namebrand in an overexaggerated, obvious manner whenever they needed to move Tumbletrak mats and equipment in order to teach and demonstrate stuff. …

Gymnast Crossing

details on TumblTrak

The sport of Swinging Rings is alive in Switzerland.

At Gymnaestrada there were plenty of Swiss athletes who could dismount double back (or more). I watched the new World Record, within some random Guinness time frame (750 seconds).

… 78 gymnasts, including three woman, took up the challenge and performed 790 somersaults (dismounts) in the required space of time. It was a great success. They even have exceeded the requirements for the record and will now enter the Guinness Book.

wg-2011.com

Click PLAY or watch a Bird’s Eye view of the World Record on YouTube.

… the gymnasts had to go out with a double somersault and land on their feet without using their hands, and not fall. …

FIG – World record at Bellerive

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

see more routines on Gymnastics – No Ceiling – Favorite moments of 2010 – The best floor routines

Linked by Beast Skills on Facebook.

The water fountains featured in this clip is one of the BIGGEST highlights for many of the kids.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I tagged along with the Nebraska girls when coach Dan Kendig and team visited the show in Orlando before Nationals in Florida. Kathryn got inspired, that evening, to audition.

With her college gymnastics eligibility exhausted, the All-American performer was finishing her advertising degree at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln when she got a call from Cirque du Soleil, the Canada-based circus company with shows on six continents.

The company had an opening in Macau, and two weeks later, Howard was in China training for her new role.

Read more on the Journal Star – Husker gymnast now performing in Macau

Hoo hoo. I just got tickets for Cirque OVO playing Sept. 7th in Calgary.

Volker Minkus has been the official photographer of the International Gymnastics Federation since 2002.

He has about 14.000 watermarked photographs on minkus-images.de/en.

But here’s a much better way to see some of his best pics.

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.