Entries Tagged 'Blogs' ↓

Will be offline Nov. 11-28 trekking the Everest region of Nepal.

More Canadian gymnastics news.

Kristina Vaculik has verbally committed to Stanford University. This is a big gain for Stanford. Vaculik is currently back in the gym working basic skills. Peng Peng Lee has just returned to the gym and is starting conditioning again. …

Aunt Joyce’s Ice Cream Stand – This and That

little Peng Peng (Sport Seneca) from 2005 – Gymn.ca

I’m from Canada. Yet the first I hear of this good news is from Aunt Joyce.

That blog breaks more news than any other of late. Gymnastics and Figure Skating.

Profanity warning if you click through to Aunt Joyce’s Ice Cream Stand.

But there’s no profanity on the Dominique Moceanu on Dr. Phil post.

You can watch the Dr. Phil interview online – Pressure for PERFECTION

I’ll be a couple of days hiking Haleakala National Park, Maui.

by site editor Rick McCharles

Personally I think twitter is a stupid fad.

It’s weak and cryptic compared with Facebook. Not to mention other social networking services.

And inane. Have you ever actually read the garbled nonsense posted by Ashton Kutcher?

Yet twitter does have a few unique advantages, especially for bloggers like me that monitor the internets for interesting “news”.

Many stories break first on twitter.

Here are the most followed gymnastics twits that have signed on with wefollow.com.

Samantha Peszek is #1.

Every Artistic coach needs to read the wrap-up commentary posts from Andrew Thornton:

Andy’s Angle on the 2009 Worlds Part 1…

Andy’s Angle on the 2009 Worlds Part 2…

A sample:

…
The women’s scoring in particular was the most unpredictable and undecipherable I’ve ever seen. I was confused, lost, and actually ostracized as a knowledgeable fan. I can’t imagine how lost the fans were who haven’t followed the sport for 20 years like I have.

Execution scores on the women’s side are ridiculous beyond explanation. They give every gymnast a mid-8 regardless of the performance. High 8’s and rarely a 9 are only possible on vault. What a bunch of nonsense! …

In fact, Andrew was driven to draft his own Code of Points.

1996 Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu and her husband, former-gymnast-turned-surgeon Michael Canales, blog on the hits and misses of the 2009 World Gymnastics Championships, taking place this week in London.

Dominique Moceanu was a wonderful gymnast. But her involvement in gymnastics since has been controversial:

• suing for legal emancipation from her parents
• coming out of retirement in 2005 (after 5yrs)
• competing in 2006

Whenever the media needs someone outspoken, they go to Dominique. Especially to get a negative viewpoint on her former coaches, Marta and Béla Károlyi.

You could call Dominique a loose cannon. Or “flaky”.

Yet, I was very surprised how insightful and interesting I found their commentary on International Gymnast magazine. Check it out at:

From the Stands: Women’s Qualification

Kathy Kelly and Marta Karolyi

Yes, there are shots at the Karolyis.

Thanks to all the bloggers, twitterers, Facebookers and photographers for the many long hours you spent scrambling between the meet and the internet. It was appreciated by those of us who could not be there.

A special thanks to Inside Gymnastics’ Grace Chui. (I believe I’ve linked to her work more than to any other.)

Some good WOGA leap photos posted on IG Forum by Bekah lead to a comparison of two greats.

Switch Ring.

Anna Pavlova

Nastia Liukin

click through to read the thread

Gymnastike announced the new home page for World Championships Team member Tim McNeill from Cal Berkeley.

I’m a big fan of Tim’s elegant gymnastics.

Check it out.

tim-mcneill.com

Gymnastike will be adding more gymnasts.

That magazine does a terrific job of updating on both Twitter and Facebook.

If you are using Facebook, find them on this page.

As you know, Facebook is confusing. Often I click links from their posts expecting to go to the online magazine, … only to find myself on the Inside Gymnastics Facebook page. Recently Facebook bought Friendfeed, a far better competitor, but one that never caught on. Hopefully Facebook will adopt some of Friendfeed’s simpler “river of news”.

The Inside Gymnastics site seem to crash today during the live broadcast of their Radio show with host John Roethlisberger. The Radio page is back up now. Hopefully they will post it soon so we can listen to a “repeat”.

Better than this, of course, would be a regular gymnastics audiocast available from the Podcast section of iTunes. There are no gymnastics audiocasts available currently.

If you are a Twitterer, follow them at twitter.com/insideGym

I’m so happy that the Smooth Skills series highlighting great performances has been resumed on Andy Thornton’s American Gymnast blog – Andy’s Angle.

Smooth Skills Episode 3 highlights amazing Chinese beam workers

Click PLAY or watch Li Xue Hong Beam EF 2001 Chinese Nationals on YouTube. Very pretty.

Along with a number of Chinese gymnasts in Episode 3, Andy includes one PRK Bar routine. Click PLAY or watch Han Jong Ok Bars 2005 East Asian Games on YouTube. Tkachev direct to Geinger.

All WAG coaches need click through to every video Andy links:

Smooth Skills Episode 3

I’ve just subscribed to a blog flying under the radar posted by a gymnast named Kayleigh. It’s quite good. I’ve linked to it under BLOGS in the right hand navigation.

Kayleigh is also a video editor, kimberlyann56 on YouTube.

Check one of her recent posts … a first draft of montage from the 2009 VISA Championships: Fame Montage Teaser

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Check out GymChat – the blog … not to be confused with GymChat the online forum.

Gymnastics blogs are normally one main voice, with one point of view.

Sure they have comments. And contributors. But on this blog, for example, you’ll find some very consistent themes if you assess the many hundreds of posts. If you like those themes, you might return to this site. If you don’t, you’ll be gone.

Forums are entirely different. That’s where people can go to brainstorm. To rant. To share. To flame. To have a conversation on different threads.

If you’ve never lurked or participated, check out one of these:

The Couch Gymnast blog recently shared some love with IG Online:

What I love most about the International Gymnast Online forum- aside from the fact that a lot of these people who frequent the forum seriously know their @#$%-is how frank and funny they are in giving their opinions. Here are some of my favorite funny-slash-brutally-honest moments in recent discussions. …

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS….

It’s true there are some amazing people on the IG Forum, Senor Nico, for example. I wish Senor Nico would start up a blog. Unfortunately I cannot subscribe only to Senor Nico comments. (Many of the other forum commenters are not nearly so smart and humorous.)

It’s easy to waste time on a forum. Waiting for the odd comment by Senor Nico.

One more complaint about the IG Forum: It’s got more comment spam than any other right now.

Why can’t they fix that problem?