An excellent piece of equipment if you train Double Mini Tramp in your Gym
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: safety
Gymnastics Spotting Checklist
First ➙ are there alternatives to hand spotting? (eg. Throw mat)
Gymnasts will be more confident in their own ability when learning skills with a minimum of spotting.
Next …
UNDERSTAND THE SKILL
BEFORE YOU TEACH THE SKILL
Are you spotting for orientation? Or to help the gymnast complete the skill?
If you must hand spot, here’s a checklist from an older Canadian National Coaching Certification Course:
- GYMNAST PHYSICALLY, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, AND TECHNICALLY “READY?”
- INDIVIDUAL PHASES OF SKILL BEFORE WHOLE SKILL
- Safe landing is the most important phase for the spotter
- ANTICIPATE “NORMAL” ERRORS (eg. Under-rotation)
- Spot “just enough” and steadily reduce the amount of spot
- CONTACT EARLY AND “FOLLOW THROUGH”
- SUPPORT HAND AND ROTATION HAND
- USE GOOD EQUIPMENT (BLOCKS, BELTS, ETC.)
- USE SAFE SPOTTING PLATFORMS (eg. Uneven Bars, P. Bars, etc)
on ‘sexualizing’ camera angles
The European Broadcasting Union partnered with European Athletics to release new guidance for women’s athletics coverage, with broadcasters urged to focus on performance and technical ability.
The guidelines warn against lingering shots of athletes’ bodies, low camera angles that capture revealing views, and slow-motion replays that offer little technical or storytelling value. …
New women’s athletics guidelines crack down on ‘sexualizing’ camera angles
Tumbl Trak Bar Release Throw Pad
Essential equipment for high level Gymnastics training.
The Tumbl Trak version is the best & safest I’ve seen.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Hugging is Legal
An old article (1988) but still important. Author Ken Chatel was one of the builders of Trampoline sports in my region.
Adapted from the Alberta Teachers’ Association Magazine, Nov/Dec 1988. Original article by Kathy Peterson.
Last month, in the article “Legalities of Unethical Spotting”, I gave you a cold legal side concerning the growing awareness of sexual abuse that is effecting all our lives and jobs. I think it is important to be informed but to keep everything in perspective. I recently found an article in the “Alberta Teachers Association Magazine”,
Nov/Dec 1988 issue, which I feel expresses the warmer side of the issue very well. Here are some of the key points:
“In fact, our entire society appears to have gone overboard on the “touching as sexual abuse” bandwagon, to the point where the simple expression of affection or caring is seriously frowned upon. Certainly it is true that children must be protected from inappropriate sexual advances, but I’m wondering if, in our zeal to “protect,” we have not taken away a very valuable and necessary ingredient of life and the growing-up process — that of physical closeness. Children, particularly preadolescents and adolescents, are notoriously insecure and thus are fraught with feelings of uncertainty. Are we really helping them by denying them the wonderful virtues of a hug, which can instantly, if temporarily, remove or alleviate these feelings?
Yet teachers sometimes are strictly forbidden to hug their students, kids with whom they spend as much time or more time during the school term than do any other adults. Granted a hug can be misused; hence the current overcautiousness with sexual abuse. But why not think positively by having faith in human nature, replace pessimism and suspicion with optimism, and lear again to demonstrate genuine affection with a hug when it is warranted?
How magnificent that so simple a gesture can mean so much! How unfortunate that adults today are cautioned to withhold this demonstration of affection, or to give it with a disquieting sense of trepidation.
However, as we all know, individuals are just that – individuals – and what works for one, or even the majority, does not work for all. This also is true of hugging. Some kids simply do not like or want to be touched, so the compassionate adult must quickly discern and respect this message. I found such kids to be the minority.
But just as students differ, so do teachers, and I realize that not all educators are comfortable with physical expression of appreciation or affection. So be it! Certainly “hugging” cannot be forced; for kids are quick to recognize and reject superficiality. These teachers have their own unique ways of communicating their feelings to the students.
World Athletics continues Russian ban
This means World Gymnastics could have done the same.
safe landings
One of the best things we do at Gymnastics class is teaching how to land and fall safely.
NOT like this.
via RecGymnastics.com
STICK like Uchimura
Dvora Meyers put together a deep dive into the history of competition Gymnastics landings. She digs into the evolution of landing mats, as well.
The most dangerous part of most routines.
If gymnasts are allowed a controlled lunge on Floor, use that technique. It’s much safer — absorbing force over more time and distance.
Personally, my strategy as a coach is to train competition landings with the goal of a 0.1 deduction small hop. If the gymnasts happens to STICK for no deduction once-in-a-while, I consider it a 0.1 bonus over the plan.
Read the article on Defector:
The Case Against Sticking The Landing
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
teaching kids about UNSAFE touching
Parents of recreation gymnast needed to be educated about “spotting“, of course.
introducing Rope climb
Inexperienced coaches ask young kids to climb too high, too soon.
Instead, challenge them with these drills. And others close to the ground.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. No audio.
Those are precomp kids from Taiso, Saskatoon and Altadore, Calgary. But the drills are the same for everyone. Even non-gymnasts.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 