Month: January 2008

In his Stretching Out column, International Gymnast editor Dwight Normile dreams of routines not dictated by a code of points rewarding primarily A-score difficulty.

I quote only a few of his “Skills and Combinations I’d Love to See”. Click through to read the rest.

Floor Exercise

• Full-twisting Arabian dive roll. I don’t think I would ever tire of seeing this breathtaking skill. Remember, it was the exclamation point that completed that memorable back-to-back pass by 1985 world champion Oksana Omelianchik. And refuting the notion that more is always better in gymnastics, I don’t think I’d like to see a double-twisting Arabian dive roll. Ever.

Click PLAY or watch Oksana on YouTube.

• Morgan Hamm’s Airflare is really cool, even if it’s been done already by B-Boys. However, to incorporate it in a floor routine could bring new fans to the sport.

Uneven Bars

…

• During her lengthy career, Svetlana Khorkina performed several different elements that took her from the low bar to the high bar, but my favorite was the Stalder-hecht she used only briefly. From a handstand on the low (back facing high), she dropped into a Stalder. But just when you thought she would complete her ascent to a handstand, she simply let go and caught the high bar. It was beautiful and unexpected. I can only guess that it also was inconsistent, because she didn’t keep it for long. Or perhaps her coach, Boris Pilkin, had already invented that crazy, whirling Shaposhnikova she used for years.

Parallel Bars

• I must admit, when I first saw Shinji Morisue chuck a tucked double back to upper arms at the 1984 Olympics, something inside me said it wasn’t good gymnastics. Not that it wasn’t difficult, mind you. I just didn’t think it belonged on the event. I had a hard enough time accepting bent legs on giant swings, but throwing a skill on p-bars in the tucked position seemed to show complete disregard for tradition.

Well, these doubles have overtaken what was once a beautiful event. So if they’re here to stay, how about following them with something other than a front uprise? And let’s be honest, some of the front uprises we see after Morisues are skidding, arm-scraping, reverse push-ups. Still others employ a small kipping action to reach a full support. Why not do a simple back shoulder roll? Or better yet, one of those interesting slip-kips, where the gymnast reaches back from the upper arms, catches in a piked inverted swing, then kips to a support. And if you’re really strong, maybe a Streuli? Or back shoulder roll to Streuli! See, the combinations are endless! …

Horizontal Bar

• More dismounts in combination with release elements. A Tkatchev seems the best candidate to link directly to a dismount, since the gymnast usually has plenty of swing and has time to tap after regrasping. …

read the rest – IG Online Interview – Dwight Normile

Canadian National Team member from Taiso, Saskatoon, Anderson Loran, training a double back over the bar with coach Markos Baikas.

At the Gymnastics Canada Level 4 Coaching course in Vancouver, BC just before Christmas.

Click PLAY or watch Anderson on YouTube.

related: video – 1.5 twisting Kovacs

I was at Anderson’s gym the other day. He’s doing some crazy stuff on trampoline.

Wow.

This is a big honour. Congratulations to the girls and their coaches. To everyone in USA Gymnastics, in fact. That team is a culmination of the system.

Details on USA Gymnastics.

(via Colorado Springs Gazette Olympic sports blog)

Brett on the Tramp and Tumble blog notes that trampoline is one of the “events” in a new game:

… the Sega video game Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games, released last month for the Nintendo Wii and to be released later this month on the Nintendo DS. Normally I wouldn’t post about a video game here, even a game about the Olympics, but in this case I decided to make an exception. You see, the initial gymnastics event that you can try your hand at is – Trampoline!!

I tried to find a video of the Trampoline part of the game that I could post here, but didn’t find one I could use. You can, however, see a video of the Trampoline (and other) part of the game at the game’s home page: click on the Events tab, then Gymnastics button, and you will see the button for Trampoline. …

Tramp and Tumble

The only other Gymnastics event is Vault:

screen shot

The October 2007 CrossFit Journal (#62) had a cover story on using a pommel bucket for general strength conditioning.

“Bucket Circles” – Gymnastics coach Phil Savage explains how to use a simple bucket-and-rope contraption to allow the Rest of Us to train like gymnasts. Working the ability to perform circles on the floor (as male gymnasts do in competition on the pommel horse) with the feet supported and rotating around the body provides excellent strength and coordination work that carries over to all sorts of endeavors.

CrossFit Journal: October 2007

I like these buckets for beginners, and for recreation. The flat floor (as shown) is safest. Be sure to put marks on the floor so the kids know where to place the hands.

The bucket shown, however, is not the ideal design. Having built many over the years, the best way I’ve found is to suspend the bucket in a “twist belt” by height adjustable chain and cable. Attaching to a boxing swivel on the roof.

Expensive, yes. But worth it.

Leave a comment if you have any other advice for coaches who want to build one.

Related post: forearm circles on the pommel bucket

From photographer Doug McNeall.

cliff jump 1 on Flickr

Sports Girls Play, inspired by Tom Burgdorf, posted something really important. Something you just don’t read about very often.

I was a very average athlete. Yet gymnastics became my life.

It’s great to see someone thinking about the most of us.

Parenting the Average Athlete

If you have a child on a sports team, chances are they are an average athlete – after all, the stars are few and far between. Every team is made up of more average athletes than it is stars, yet so much self worth of parents and athletes is caught up in the star mentality.

When Tom Burgdorf’s Parenting an Athlete newsletter showed up in my inbox this morning, his first message really struck a chord with me:

Teams will always be comprised of athletes who are different. Teams will always have “stars”, “athletes with a little less of everything” and “athletes with even less of everything.” That is the way it has been, is now and will be in the future. The kids had better learn about it and get used to it.

They are going to be faced with the same situation in EVERY aspect of their life where there is a group. Middle school, high school, college, sports, business, relationships, everything. We can’t all be stars in everything we do. To learn that you are talented in some things and that others are more talented in other areas is a huge life lesson.

…

A team is great because of a lot of people, not just the “stars.”…

Parenting the Average Athlete

In 2007 the BBC aired a documentary called Children of the Chinese Circus.

On the BBC website, the viewers were “horrified”. Read the comments.

This grim and fascinating documentary looked at the Shanghai Circus school. …

Behind the scenes, we witness gruelling training regimes with kids as young as eight having their limbs stretched to the point of agony and tested to breaking point. Seeing these children being pushed around while a trainer shouts “REMEMBER YOUR COLLECTIVE DUTY!” and “YOU SIMPLY DON’T WANT TO BE SUCCESSFUL!!!” is heartbreaking.

…

The documentary/film is without narration… leaving the tale to be told by the people being filmed. This leaves the whole thing feeling incredibly stark, cruel and cold… which in itself is a masterstroke as it shows the incredible hardships suffered by the children as they learn horrific looking postures like ‘The Sweat Push’. The pressure and the seething anger of the trainers is almost palpable, which is all the more hard-hitting without being softened by an overdub from an overly concerned saccharine thespian.

To watch these children being mentally abused, pushed to the point of injury and pressure by everyone they meet is amazingly woeful. Robbed of their childhood and forced to met unfair demands, you cannot help but wonder what becomes of them in later years. Briefly, we see a man in hospital who used to perform with a circus, and his list of injuries is frankly appalling. Children of the Chinese Circus is one of the most terrifying and depressing things I’ve ever seen. Tragic and grotesquely fascinating.

TV Scoop: TV Review – Children of the Chinese Circus, BBC4, Tuesday, 10pm

A similar documentary is up on YouTube. (I think it’s not the BBC special. Leave a comment below if you have seen Children of the Chinese Circus online.)

Here’s a sample of the kind of unbelievable acrobatics children do at Chinese Circus Schools.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Before we get too judgmental about severe coaching of children in China, consider the alternatives for those kids. Would you rather have them working in a factory?

I want to hear what they and their parents think about the coaching.

Yet more great captures from Trent Nelson, Chief Photographer at the Salt Lake Tribune. Utah gymnasts:

Two eerily similar photographs of dismounts. Above: Katie Kivisto, Below: Jamie Deetscreek.

Tribune Blogs — Fly on the Wall

You might expect the girls to have their arms pinned to their sides. (That would be more artistic.) Having the the arms forward like this allows them to either increase or decrease rotation slightly, depending on what is needed to “stick” the landing. (This is the NCAA, remember. Landing is everything with their scoring system.)

Related:

vault photos from the end of the horse

great gymnastics photos – Trent Nelson

by Rick McCharles

A group of experts brainstormed the best ways to introduce rope climbing to children at a recent clinic.

I volunteered to put together a short video of the techniques discussed.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Note that none of the activities shown have children climbing high. In fact, we said any athlete who wants to climb to the roof must first prove ability to climb half way, down, half way, and down. Then you can be sure they have the “stuff” to get to the top.

We also asked every demonstrator to climb down with feet. This reduces the risk they might be tempted to slide down, burning their hands.

Not yet included in the video is this point emphasized by Keith Russell:

Knots at the end of a rope are a danger when “flicking” through the air. They also make the rope deteriorate more quickly. (If you must have a knot, make a figure-8. And remove it once the activity is finished.

Better is to set a “no knots” rule. And be sure to buy your rope long enough so that it lies flat on the ground:

Want to know more? One website documents the decline in the popularity of rope climb.

I’m not so sure about that. There are more kids climbing ropes better today than ever in history, I reckon. Thanks to gymnastics coaches. It’s one of our very best activities.

If you have any suggestions or additional drills for the video, leave a comment below. Thanks.