Author: Rick Mc

Career gymnastics coach who loves the outdoors, and the internet.

training backward handspring

French Gymnastics Federation:

… video tutorials made by expert trainers in artistic gymnastics high level. Topics are directly related to learning gymnastic figures with different apparatus (vault table, uneven bars, beam and floor) and training. …

Click PLAY or watch a sample on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=206903376121084

I assume that clip was produced by Gymneo.tv.

Men’s Floor passes

Some of the craziest floor passes I have seen on YouTube.

Here is a list of the athletes in this video in the order that they appear.
0:00 – Kohei Uchimura (JPN)
0:16 – Diego Hypolito (BRA)
0:27 – Makoto Okiguchi (JPN)
0:40 – Flavius Koczi (ROM)
0:52 – Steven Legendre (USA)
0:59 – Kohei Uchimura (JPN)
1:17 – Ioannis Melissanidis (GRE)
1:30 – Dimitri Karbanenko (FRA)
1:39 – Shirai Kenzo (JPN)
1:47 – Florent Maree (FRA)
2:00 – Kohei Uchimura (JPN)
2:11 – Sean Doolan (USA)
2:22 – Huang Yuguo (CHN)
2:33 – Kyle Shewfelt (CAN)
2:48 – Stacie Ervin (USA)
2:58 – Gervasio Deferr (SPA)
3:10 – Diego Hypolito (BRA)
3:24 – Anton Golotsutskov (RUS)
3:37 – Denis Ablyazin (RUS)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Some dangerous stuff there.

Eurotramp Ultimate

After two years of extensive development, we are proud to release the new Ultimate. It is the best competition trampoline we have ever made and a huge step and enrichment for the trampoline family. The Ultimate is the recommended competition trampoline for the World Championships 2013 in Sofia and Odense 2015.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’m convinced.

(via Trampoline Pundit)

Idaho Gymnastics 1915

Coach Donny Gardiner (brother of Todd Gardiner) purchased a pommel horse and buck horse from the school district of historic Wallace, Idaho.

He’s using them in the IEGA gym in Coeur d’Alene.

gymnastics 1916
1915

IEGA is hosting the Great West Gym Fest February 22-24, 2013. Donny’s got the boys competing Sunday morning at the Resort.

Alexandrov – Brazil still uncertain

Gym Blog Brazil was hoping that the Olympic host would hire Alexander Alexandrov as WAG Head Coach.

They had discussions. But could not sign a contract. (Portuguese)

Some chance remains. Negotiations are not closed. Keep your fingers crossed for Brazil.

Emma Willis – Iowa

Emma Willis is yet another NCAA gymnast competing 3 double somersaults on Floor.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Canadian National team member coached by Dave and Liz Brubaker at Bluewater, is thriving in Collegiate gymnastics, as so many Canadians seem to do.

Head Coach Larissa Libby, another former Canadian elite, is thrilled with progress.

FIG Age Group update

… Panama hosted the first Spanish language age group training camp between January 29 and February 2. It was the eighth of the 5-day training camps that started in December 2012 and served as the first location of a Spanish language three-country tour of such camps that will go next to El Salvador and Dominican Republic.

FIG – Panama hosts first Spanish language FIG Age Group Camp

Panama

more photos

2008 Olympic coach for Colombia, Andres Llanos Gerardino, a frequent WAG expert for the FIG Academy Programme is expert at all 3 Spanish language camps. Andres translated the FIG Powerpoint presentations to Spanish.

related – FIG Artistic Gymnastics Age Group Programme – Kuala Lumpur (MAS) and Amman (JOR), January 26 – 31, 2013:

Forty-seven more coaches from eight countries attended the two FIG Age Group Camps …

The FIG expert and course leader for this camp was Jeff Thomson who has now completed a three-country tour of such camps – Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. He is the former Men’s Programme Director of Canada and Education Director of New Zealand. He was joined by Tim Lees a former Australian Olympian, one of the Academy Programme’s first experts form 2002 and a high performance men’s and women’s coach. …

Why Can’t Susie Control Her Handstand?

I subscribe to the free Tumbl Trak email newsletter. Good content.

Here I’m reprinting part of an entry from founder Doug Davis:

Why Can’t Susie Control Her Handstand?

Coaches: How often have you observed your young athletes attempt a handstand on Bars, Beam, or Floor, to start a series…and fall over? In a flash, any chance for a connection score is gone. That one simple error can cost the gymnast her chance to advance to Regionals.

Or, how often does an athlete go short of the handstand and fail to gain the credit for the skill or series? How often on bars, can a gymnast be just short on a Giant or clear hip, and fall? I’m afraid these scenarios happen far too often.

I have a semi-educated theory–especially on Bars, where the difference between hitting that handstand and being either ten degrees short, or falling over, can be a huge game changer. My theory is this: I believe most of these athletes have not been taught to save a handstand. Click this link to watch Leonard Isaacs teach a gymnast to save a handstand on bars. (3:45 min.).

For Bars in particular, if the gymnast is a bit long (falling past the handstand), she goes over and falls—a .5 deduction. Knowing in her bones, that if she aims for right on top (where the coaches and judges want a handstand to be), she risks falling over and off! Hedging that risk, she plays it safe and goes a little short of a handstand, and may fail to get credit for the handstand. …

… if gymnasts are not taught to use their shoulders to save that handstand, it may all be for naught. If they are taught to control, and save handstands with shoulder control [flexion], their confidence to go for “right on top” would increase. In addition, any deduction for the shoulder flexion would be less than a fall. …

On a recent Tumbl Trak club visit we tried to videotape an example of a save.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.


NASA Gymnastics, Washington.

Doug’s correct. Too few gymnasts are trained to be able to SAVE a handstand.

Leave a comment if you’ve a good drill for teaching that “skill”.

_____ Update:

wordsmith:

I like having handstand contests using floor bars, starting from knees and straddle up to it. Making sure gymnasts understand that by gripping the bar, they have a lot of control through their wrists (subtle movement) as well as resorting to shoulder planching/reverse planching (gross movement). Encourage them to use their thumbs around the bar when casting into handstands for better grip control (most naturally have their thumbs around on pirouettes).

TippingCows:

My favorite drill for handstands is doing them with support starting at different spots on the body. Support on only the shoulders (with a low beam or two trapezoid blocks) teaches them how to hold the handstand and save it from going back and forward from the shoulders. Usually you start with support against the lower back/hips, then work your way mid-back, then to shoulders, then to forearms. If they can negotiate their handstands from all four of those points chances are they are gonna rock at saving them (and of course you can do these all with or without a floor bar).

related – the title of this post is an homage to JAO’s fantastic When Will My Susie Start Kipping? (VIDEO)