Year: 2011

Evolution will be held at Lehigh University’s Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on August 27. Tickets start at $14.50 and are available at www.gymnasticsevolution.com

Evolution is a brand new gymnastics competition where over 20 Olympic, World Champion and NCAA gymnasts will compete in two teams made up of both men and women. And what’s more, the*audience*will be judging. The fast-paced battle will combine gymnastics, music, lights, atmosphere, adrenaline and excitement to create a new style of competition. …

See some training videos on the gymnasticsevolution YouTube channel.

The best discussion of this interesting experiment I’ve read is on Sports Talk – Can “Evolution” make the grade?.

Funny cuz it’s true.

Fruit of the loom commercial
(by The Richards Group)

featuring rhythmic gymnast: Stella Angelova & Emilly Levingson
Director: Gerard de Thame
music group : Wojan Brothers

This was a very large casting call that lasted almost 2 months. People flew in from over seas to attend this call. Every performer was hired individually and the choreography was put together over 2 days of shooting in Los Angeles. From the thousands they saw, in the end they hired 6 dancers, 3 trapeze performers, 1 contortionist gymnast & 2 rhythmic gymnast. None of us are Cirque du Soleil performers.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

UPDATE: This is not an official competition, but rather a test event to check readiness. Much like the “competitions” they do with Team USA at the Ranch.

Hosted by Oakville Gymnastics, Aug 25th and 27th. Photos via Grace Chiu on Facebook.

More photos from the Facebook album: Selection Activity by Grace Chiu GraceClick

Only 10 gymnasts (15 on the original list) are trying out for the Canadian teams to Artistic Worlds Tokyo & PanAm Games Guadalajara, both this October. Juniors are not allowed to compete PanAm this time around, making it difficult for nations to field a strong team to both.

Anysia Unick, Bianca Dancose-Giambattisto, Dominique Pegg, Maddie Gardiner, Coralie Leblond-Chartrand, Talia Chiarelli, Kristina Vaculik, Mikaela Gerber, Christine Lee, and Brittany Rogers.

Mikaela Gerber hit 4 for 4 finishing with the 2nd highest AA score. I’ve heard that Peng Peng had the highest AA, but was not happy with her competition. She (and many others) had falls.

Leave a comment if you have more news from this trial.

UPDATE. AA rank from day 1:

1. Lee
2. Gerber
3. Vaculik
4. Pegg
5. Gardiner
6. Chiarelli
7. Leblond-Chartrand
8. Rogers
9. Dancose-Giambattisto
10. Unick

… Right now some are wishing we had MORE gymnasts trying out: especially Silvia Colussi-Pelaez who is competing for Spain. (53.0 last meet) and/or Jessica Dowling who is trying to make the Dutch team. Not to mention Sarah Flett, who is sitting at home healthy. She has finished ahead of girls in this field already this season.

related – Couch Gymnast asks Can the Pan Am Nations Field the Best of Both Worlds?

… Pan-American Games gymnastics competition being held from the 24th to the 28th of October after the Worlds finish on the 17th. …

Who made the decision to disallow Juniors at the PanAm Games?

With scores like this:

Last night Ana Porgras won the all around competition at the Romanian Nationals with a 58.650. Amelia Racea placed second with 58.525, with Raluca Haidu in third with a 57.675. …

Couch Gymnast – Ana Porgras Wins Romanian Nationals

Bars doesn’t seem to be hurting the AA scores too badly.

Click PLAY or watch Anna’s Floor (Double Layout) on YouTube.

Amazing.

… For this moment, the plan is conceptual. Detailed planning will be carried out over the next months by the winning company in conjunction with the parties involved in the park construction. …

rio2016.org

The best product I saw at the World Gymnaestrada trade show was a trampoline DVD recently released by Eurotramp, in German and English.

Five hours of content created by over 80 people, endorsed by everyone up to the FIG President.

What is the Eurotramp Trampoline Education Program?

The Trampoline Education Program contains training videos about Trampoline, Minitrampoline and Psychomotricity. It is an excellent supplementation for any practical training course. …

Why did we develop the Trampoline Education Program?

Imagine a sport hall which is equipped with the usual sports devices. You assemble all the different apparatus including a trampoline and make children choose their favourite device. What will that be? You are right… The Trampoline!

Trampolining is extremely attractive for children and boosts the development of the equilibrium function, the coordination ability and motor adaptability like no other sports device. …

… read more

I reviewed the DVD with Jeremy Mosier, former T&T Worlds competitor. This introduction video shows activities on a trampoline that not even Jeremy had seen.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Quality of trampoline progressions and production values are very high. It must be the best tramp instructional resource in the world right now.

Cost for the DVD is 20 EUR. Or — after free registration .. and then email confirmation — you can watch it online.

The DVD booklet (PDF) has a detailed table of contents.

I spent 10yrs coaching at Taiso Gymnastics, a competitive Mens Artistic Gymnastics National Training Center in Canada. Keith Russell founded the club.

Right now Taiso has 4 National Team members, the Junior Mens National Team Coach and 3 past Olympians. You’d be working with ALL levels of boys, from Rec to competitive, in this job.

Salary – negotiable depending on qualifications.

Mail resumes and copies of certification in confidence to:

Taiso Gymnastics Club
610 47th Street East
Saskatoon, SK S7K 5X3Sask.
S6V 5G3

Or E-mail in confidence to: office@taiso.ca

This is the latest in a series of posts on the new Weller spring. It can be swapped into a standard AAI.

Valeri Liukin, Sean Townsend, Justin Spring, Jonathan Horton, Danell Lleyva, Yin Alvarez and others tried and like the Weller spring invented and patented by Scott Weller. The in-gym feedback has been positive.

Dr. Bills Sands did one series of tests comparing the Weller spring vs the AAI springs, used in most gyms in the States.

Dr. Sands concluded that there was not enough difference between the two to recommend the Weller.

Not surprisingly, Scott Weller disagrees with the findings. Read on Facebook – OPEN LETTER TO USA GYMNASTICS, USA GYMNASTS, PARENTS, COACHES, COUNTRYMEN, ETC.

It will be some time before the research is published. But Bill Sands is the best there is in gymnastics research. I’ve no doubt his findings will be irrefutable.

… Yet that doesn’t mean that the Weller spring is not a big improvement over what we have now. Merely that the first scientific study couldn’t determine why. I’d trust the gut intuition of an elite coach over any number of research papers when it comes to equipment innovation.

If you want to buy and try Weller springs, email scott@kingbarssports.com

If you’ve tried them and have an opinion, leave a comment. Thanks.

The new Google +1 button has been added to the bottom of each post.

The +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” … Your +1’s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.

Google is rolling out new features to the +1 button. Here’s a video explaining how it will work once it gets to you.

The Men’s Code of Points is far less criticized than the Women’s.

It seems that Men can better handle the extreme demands of 6 apparatus, 10 counting skills.

Horizontal Bar will be the first apparatus, I think, where we’ll see an 8.0 difficulty score. (18.0 maximum score)

Here’s one out of 7.8.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’d love to see Rybalko devalued. That will reduce Horizontal Bar start scores and encourage connected releases.