I’m just about to pull the trigger for myself. Early Bird Registration offers a discount until February 18th for members.
Congress is hosted with Olympic Trials this year, not VISA Championships. The American teams will be named then and there — adding excitement for attendees.
48th ANNUAL USA GYMNASTICS NATIONAL CONGRESS and TRADE SHOW
Held in conjunction with 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials-Gymnastics June 29-July 1, 2012
San Jose Convention Center-San Jose, California
Three days of education with over 150 sessions. Something for everyone — 15 full tracks of education from all 6 disciplines.
The Friday prior to Congress is normally the independent National Business Conference. But this year it’s been renamed The Business Forum (PDF), an add-on to Congress. Highly recommended!
The FIG Academies, a worldwide education programme for coaches in the federation’s six competitive disciplines that was launched in 2002, celebrated the 10th year of its existence in 2011. …
• 118 Academies overall
• in October, overall participation reached 3,000 coaches
• three levels of coach education (for now)
• FIG Technical Committee must have L3 by 2012
• L3 candidates who meet special pre-requisites and achieve exceptional examination results will be awarded with an FIG Coaches’ Brevet.
A total of twenty-five Academies are planned in 2012 …
It was Bruno Grandi who hand picked former MTC Chair Hardy Fink for the job of FIG Director of Education and Academy Programmes. Obviously a good choice.
Right now at an Artistic Academy in Tokyo coaches are being “coached” by Fink, Keith Russell and Valeri Liukin. I think they might learn something.
… The Academy Programme for Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics has been supplemented this year with a comprehensive Age Group Development, Competition and Testing Programme that was introduced to 17 countries in 2011 to which will be added as many as 25 more during 2012. …
Philippines MAG adopted the new Age Group rules this season reporting good feedback from coaches.
I was very happy with how the coaches handled the long days and lengthy curriculum.
As in most nations — I’m looking at you Romania — Bars is highest priority.
At the clinic we constructed our own ‘trench pit’ on the low bar, setting up a ‘tower of power’ on the high bar.
I also recommended they embrace “Bar Straps” training, not yet popular nation wide.
Filipino girls have great genetic potential for Artistic and Acrobatic sports. The kids are very flexible.
The immediate goal is SEA, the Southeast Asian Games, held every two years. Vietnam dominated that competition this year, their girls benefiting from training in China.
A special thanks to National Coach Janna Eftimiu who led the Beam section.
Have you wanted the G.S. George text but been deterred by the $79 plus shipping price tag?
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Of course there are already discounts for buying more than one book at a time. The best deal, I think, is Flat Rate Priority Mail shipping for 3-6 books in the USA fixed at $15.00. … Or 3-6 books overseas for $45.
Thank to Wellness Press for advertising on this site. And for giving us first notice of the Christmas special.
On behalf of FIG, I’ll be leading a Women’s Artistic Gymnastics coaching course in Manila, Nov. 30 through Dec. 5th. We hope to have 25-30 coaches.
One of the mandates of the International Olympic Committee is to help grow Olympic sport around the world. To this end they budget money to support the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) in building sport programs.
I love this program having previously enjoyed courses in Cambodia and Bangladesh. (In fact, I just noticed that Wikipedia is using one of my photos from the Bangladesh course.)
It’s now been over 2yrs since the death of adult recreational gymnast Michelle Maitland who hit her head on concrete at Townsville Gymnastics. Nothing can bring her back. But this report — released the day before what would have been Michelle’s birthday — might help prevent future catastrophic injury.
My friend Mike Outramsurvived after hitting his head on concrete.
Surely the very first thing coaches must do in any facility is make sure it’s impossible to hit concrete or steel. Long term, we need modify all foam pits to suspended systems, the best being the Jim Walker design.
Here are the 9 recommendations:
1. Gymnastics Australia should review the level of training, assistance and monitoring provided to clubs to implement the Club 10 program. This review should include the methods of monitoring compliance with, and implementation of, the program.
2. Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, Sport and Recreation Services and Gymnastics Queensland should research how to link improved safety outcomes in the sport of gymnastics with the funding and non-financial support provided by SRS.
3. Gymnastics Australia should review their GA lesson plan template, in consultation with its members, with the view to developing a lesson plan template that includes coach positioning and key safety controls. Consideration should be given to sample lesson plans for each apparatus and level.
4. Gymnastics Australia should conduct a training needs analysis and ensure that access to coach accreditation and professional development courses is available.
5. Gymnastics Australia should research and develop methods to assist gymnastics clubs to conduct risk assessments, specifically in the use of gymnastics apparatus.
6. Gymnastics Australia should review the Club 10 equipment maintenance policies and procedures with a view to achieving greater compliance with Club 10 documenting processes.
7. Gymnastics Australia should research and develop methods to assist gymnastics clubs in managing the risk of manual task injuries in gymnastics coaches.
8. Gymnastics Australia should review coach knowledge on spotting and provide additional guidance and training where required.
9. Gymnastics Australia should research the viability of a simple method to document skill progression of gymnasts, including any injuries suffered. This may vary for high level, competitive gymnasts and low level or recreational gymnasts.
This report needs be circulated to sports governing bodies worldwide. Leave a comment if you have ideas on how to make that happen. I’ll send it to some FIG committee members and Gymnastics Canada.
Update: As commenters have pointed out, an improvement to this report would be to better specify exactly what parts of the gym need be “padded”. In the past I’ve narrowed it down to pits and trampoline devices. But it should be broader than that.
After 14 days at the World Gymnastics Championships, a few BIG memories stand out.
click for larger version from USAG
One of the biggest – Coach John Geddert and World Champion Jordyn Wieber.
photo by Larry Nassar
This time the gymnast who does everything “right” and the most sharing elite coach in the world, finish atop the World.
Well deserved. In fact, I can’t think of a more deserving duo. In 2011 it’s more difficult to get out of the States than any other nation. The USA is deep with talent.
Jordyn will be listed with Sloan, Liukin, Johnson, Memmel, Miller, Zmeskal, Patterson and Retton as one of the greatest of all time.
… At this point, Wieber has not given up her NCAA eligibility and is interested in doing college gymnastics, although she and her parents have decided not to make college visits before the Olympics. Even with a world title under her belt, the Wiebers say they are hesitant to have her go pro.
“You really need to do well in the Olympics to make that sort of a thing pay off,” Dave said. …
My man Bobby Kriangkum from Edmonton, Canada is in Tokyo competing for Thailand.
Good luck.
There are many others doing the same thing.
… U.S. collegiate gymnasts have made the trek to compete at the Tokyo World Championships.
Thanks to @CalMensGym for linking to a story about Christian and Jean Monteclaro. The Cal juniors will be competing for the Philippines, accompanied by Bryan Del Castillo, who will be their coach.
Representing Bangladesh will be Michigan All-Big 10 senior Syque Caesar. We hope to get some updates from Caesar, detailing his experience. No doubt he’ll be sending out some tweets. …
Personally, I think it’s great to see athletes training in more developed nations compete for their homeland. It should raise the level of gymnastics worldwide.
Yesterday I bumped into an old friend from Sri Lanka. Good news there. The guys are improving rapidly, the sport growing, in part due to the FIG Academy courses.
There are fantastic male gymnasts from all over the world. The level of difficulty is insane. Even the weakest gymnasts at Worlds 2011 could have qualified for Olympic Finals in 1984.
The importance of form (body shape) should be patently obvious to all professionals associated with judged sports.
Yet more often than not, specific interpretations of correct body shape are incomplete, inaccurate, or both. Rarely does this concept go beyond aspects such as locked elbows and knees, pointed toes, legs held together, deep pikes, wide straddles, and the like. Asymmetrical cervical, thoracic, and lumbar curvatures, improper pelvic girdle alignment, and poor arm-trunk or leg-trunk angles are some of the typical body-shape deviations that slip by seemingly undetected. …
Karleena Hatch from Kimberley’s gym won the Bronze medal at the Western Canada Summer Games this past August. Head coach is Megan Conway. Maya Asselin-Debelic from the club made the B.C. team for that competition, as well.
Things are going well in Nanaimo, B.C. … You may not have heard of the remote city, but perhaps you have tasted Nanaimo Bars.
January 8, 2012
