Year: 2011

Sept. 7-13th, 2011

What are the Commonwealth Youth Games, you ask?

… a small-scale version of the Commonwealth Games, … (for) the youth of the 71 Commonwealth countries …

The 4th CYG will be hosted by Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown Dependency.

Artistic – Team (3 to count), Individual All-Around & Individual Apparatus.

FIG regulations for Junior competition:

Men: 14 – 18 years of age (athletes born in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 & 1997)
Women: 13 – 15 years of age (athletes born in 1996, 1997 & 1998)

official website

Different age minimum for boys and girls?

High profile international meet for the (supposedly) vulnerable youth younger than age-16?

Some must feel this is too much, too soon. But not me.

Charlotte Sullivan, Rebecca Morrison and Brittany Robertson have been selected to represent New Zealand.

I’m happy and excited for you. Good luck at the Isle of Man.

Has anyone ever said you are manic about gymnastics.

You’ll say that about these folks.

Jig tells the compelling story of the 40th Irish dancing world championships in Glasgow. Thousands of dancers, their families and teachers take part in the drama-filled seven day event where dance talent is pushed to the very limit in the quest for perfection.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

I volunteered last week at Renmore, an up-and-coming club. They’ve doubled (or tripled) their membership since moving into a full time facility about 18 months ago.

I tried to work with as many kids as possible,( … though I wasn’t much help with the Rhythmic girls). Renmore offers Tumbling, Rhythmic, WAG and MAG Artistic. And a bit of Acro.

Here’s a brief glimpse of what happened that week, culminating in the Year End Show.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

That was one of the club’s first late Blind changes without spot.

GymFest was scheduled during the last few days of the school year, helping motivate kids to keep coming to gym. 🙂

See a longer highlights video edit of the year end GymFest on RecGymnastics.com.

Thanks sincerely to Head Coach Sally Batley, the multi-National coaching staff and parents representative Rob Fuller for inviting me.

This cute pic is from a new shoot being distributed by Alan Owen.

She’s not really going into Acrobatic Gymnastics, though. 🙂

$10,000 will provide sports programs to 200 disadvantaged children over the next year worldwide via Right To Play.

high resolution version on flickr

That money was raised at the inaugural Kyle Shewfelt Gym Fest.

Kyle plans to do it again next year, but bigger and better.

He’s revamped his blog, by the way.

» Details. Comments will not be moderated. A few new posts are scheduled daily.

I got the chance to meet Sally Filmer, Coaching Development Manager for Irish Gymnastics.

… Sally has been involved in gymnastics for many years, having coached and tutored in many disciplines at all levels within the British Gymnastics system.

A former gymnast herself reaching national level, once Sally had retired she embarked on a career path in coaching and coach education/development which started with an extended educational trip to Stravpol in Russia to further her gymnastics knowledge and expertise.

It was during this trip that Sally elected to focus her coaching efforts on the Tumbling discipline – efforts that led to a successful partnership between herself & GB’s top female tumbler Samantha Palmer. Under the guidance of Sally, Samantha has achieved some remarkable results – the most striking achievements being crowned the 2006 European Senior Champion & World Cup Champion. …

Blast from the past …

Click PLAY or watch Sam Palmer on YouTube.

Irish Gymnastics is struggling with how to move forward despite the economic slowdown. Sally would like to improve the Irish coach education scheme, updating their resource materials.

Sally is also involved with “performance” high end competitive teams. Ireland has a number of strong MAG athletes, but all currently train outside the country.

I sure hope so.

Click PLAY or watch her in training on YouTube.

Via Andy Thornton on Universal Sports – New vault for Sacramone?

There are new Jordyn Wieber Training Videos linked from Between The Olympics.

I expect an American to win the world AA championships this Fall in Tokyo. Most likely Wieber or Bross.

My favourite issue of the year is coming soon. And the Cover Goes To… Samantha Shapiro

Inside Gymnastics Magazine on Facebook.

Knees strapped up?

Inside Cheerleading Magazine on Facebook

via Shane Womack

You’ve probably heard of It Gets Better.

It Gets Better is an Internet-based project founded by Dan Savage on September 21, 2010, in response to the suicide of Billy Lucas and a number of other teenagers who were bullied because they were gay or because their peers suspected that they were gay …

Now two College gymnasts have joined the cause.

NCAA gymnasts share their coming out experiences

Ben Strauss – Ann Arbor, MI
Evan Heiter – Seattle, WA

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Thanks guys.

(via @OtotheBeirne)