Entries from December 2011 ↓

More Power Tumbling. Some excellent triples.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Mike went on to Cirque du Soleil, working the excellent act in La Nouba, Orlando.

Thanks Ws van Wijk for the link.

Jenna Perry loves this tumbling vid.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

by site editor Rick McCharles

Want my OLD job? I was Men’s Head Coach at Altadore in Alberta, Canada for 10yrs. Kelly Manjak was Head Coach for 14yrs.

The Opportunity: Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Coach

The Club is seeking an extremely motivated permanent full time Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Coach to join the current coaching team. …

The primary responsibility will be for the development, scheduling, implementation and monitoring of the Boys Competitive gymnastic programs, evaluation of program effectiveness and children’s progress, testing and selection of gymnasts ready to join the competitive program; Supervision and evaluation of staff. A full job description is available upon request.

Applicants should have 5 years coaching recreational /pre-competitive children or 3 years coaching children at the National or International level. Level 2 NCCP Certification (or international equivalent) preferred. If not currently certified, the successful candidate will be required to complete Canadian certification within the first year of employment.

Competitive experience at national level is an asset. This opening could appeal to someone with proven leadership and communication skills, excellent knowledge of physiology, physical development and gymnastic safety who is compassionate, caring and enjoys working with children.

We are offering $48,859.20 per annum for a 40 hour week plus benefits. Deadline for applications is January 8, 2012. Resumes may be faxed to 403-720-3110 or sent by email to altadoreartisitcdirector@gmail.com

That’s a good salary in this part of the world. This is one of the best opportunities I’ve seen in some time for MAG.

Altadore Gymnastics Club

Not many for those athletes preparing for the Olympic Test Meet in January. Louis Smith, for example.

… athletes will have only four days off for Christmas and two at the New Year in a schedule that takes them right up to the crucial test event …

Guardian – London Olympics countdown: 32 weeks to go

Leave a comment if your athletes are taking fewer than 4 days off.

I always look forward to new instructional videos from Nick Blanton. He’s a great coach.

We recommend coaches start with the John Geddert progressions (DVD) and add / delete drills from there.

Nick has many different drills on this edit to consider.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I love these:

• backhandspring – flyspring series
• all the ‘block drills’ to stop in bridge

But for me any use of the belt on this skill is more trouble than it’s worth. Bit of a non-issue, in any case. I don’t think I’ve even seen a traveling belt since the late 1970s.

Personally I don’t like any drills involving salto over the horse. The safety argument is specious. And it’s a too high preflight drill.

(Many, many coaches better than me still use it. We’ll have to agree to disagree.)

Missing from this video are a critical series of drills — distance drills. It’s easy to flip your first Yurchenko — the hard part is not kicking the table on the way by. Therefore I wait until even small gymnasts can get their hands on the end of the table. And show me good distance on the ‘timer’ to candle.

Lastly, I wouldn’t let several of those boys advance to Yurchenko. They are physically prepared, but technique on round-off and backward handspring is not there yet.

These girls I would advance to Yurchenko. (VIDEO). … A subtle difference, perhaps.

Path 2 is getting rave reviews. It’s a free app for iOS (iPhone) and Android.

The interface is gorgeous. Like the new Facebook Timeline, but far better.

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

Path 1 was considered a joke when originally announced because of it’s 150-friend limit. Then they turned down $100 million Google dollars buyout.

Confident, or what.

Indeed. It may be that private social networks like Path might be the future. I’d like to test it by having all of my coaching staff, or all my competitive team, sign up for the same Path.

Get the app via path.com.

Leave a comment if you’ve used Path 2.

Jeremy linked to this fun edit. Over 1.5 million views.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Happy Hanukkah.

Coach Kazukuni Ohno on Facebook claims their girls training quad and quintuple turns are tearing the Beam cover.

original photo on Facebook

That’s Iketani Gymnastics Club in Japan.

American Girl is (a line) of 18-inch dolls …. The dolls portray ten-year-old … girls …

… sold with accompanying books told from the viewpoint of the girls. …

They are a sponsor of the world’s biggest gymnastics competition, Chicago Style.

Rumour is that next year’s doll of the year will be a gymnast named McKenna Brooks.

Doll Diaries has a photo that comes from Time Out Kids NY magazine.

NOT available for Christmas.

(via Sports Girls Play – Next American Girl Doll of the Year Is a Gymnast)

I’m surprised how many Men are using twists to increase start value. They are difficult to land and easy to deduct.

Click PLAY or watch Kenzo on YouTube.

Not as good as Kent Caldwell, but pretty incredible.

… Yet my main reaction watching that routine is to bemoan the lack of artistry. Rush, rush, rush.

Andy Thornton:

… I wish we could start from scratch and make things simpler again; I wish we could shred the hundreds of pages of documents that have turned this sport into something none of us understand anymore and go back to the basics of why we all loved this sport to begin with. …

On the 1st Day of Christmas, Gym Santa Gave To Me… A Brand New Code of Points!

RELATED – Gymnastics Zone – Coverage Roundup of Bruno Grandi’s Letter on Gymnastics Scoring

Mary Wright on how special needs kids enjoy her program at Olympus, Utah.

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

(via Rec Gymnastics)

My go to site for Men’s Artistic Gymnastics in the States is Stick It Media.

Ron’s posted a good summary of recent happenings for USAG and NCAA – Random Thoughts on Men’s Gymnastics – 12/20/12

One link from that post:

University of Michigan men’s gymnastics sophomore Sam Mikulak (Corona del Mar, Calif./Corona del Mar), the 2011 NCAA all-around champion, is one of two gymnasts selected to represent the United States at the 2012 Olympic Test Event, to be held Jan. 10-13 at North Greenwich Arena in London, England. …

The event, part of the ‘London Prepares Series,’ is being held to test aspects of competition, as well as the workforce, condition and performance of equipment. Additionally, the results and scoring aspects of competition will be put under the microscope.

Mikulak Selected to Compete at 2012 Olympic Test Event

I have no idea why.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.