Author: Rick Mc

From the excellent Stick It Media site:

Next year, the 2011 Men’s JO Nationals are going to be held in Long Beach, CA. This is a great thing, since JOs haven’t been held west of Oklahoma City since 2004. California is a hotbed for men’s gymnastics, and the fact that Region 1 won five individual event titles, an AA title, a regional team title, and a club team title last weekend in Knoxville proves it outright.

The 2011 JO Nationals represent a great opportunity to generate some more much-needed interest in the sport of men’s gymnastics. ESPN and Fox Sports regularly broadcast high school sporting events like football, basketball, and baseball. Many of you remember the good old days of ABC’s Wide World of Sports and recall the myriad of relatively obscure sporting events they would cover, many involving young athletes. One of those events was the Little League World Series. Now ESPN is broadcasting the Little League regional championship games. It’s a big hit. Why? Because baseball is America’s national pastime and it’s fun to watch 10, 11 and 12-year-olds play their hearts out for an opportunity to earn a week long trip to Williamsport, PA to compete against the best little league teams in the world.

Why not produce a broadcast of JO Nationals? …

read the entire post – Open Letter to the Men’s Gymnastics Community

Seems video, TV and online, is the key to growing popularity.

photo – Sam Mikulak on Gymnastics Examiner

From the qualification round at Moscow World Cup 2010.

He makes two of the most difficult vaults ever seen look easy.

Watch Vault #1 on YouTube.

Watch Vault #2 on YouTube.

Ri Se Gwan is the North Korean gymnast who won a bronze medal on vault at the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

What a shame.

He does have time to recover for Olympics 2012.

… likely be out of commission for the rest of the season after tearing his ACL in training, British Gymnastics announced in a press release Thursday evening. The British did not specify what he was doing when the injury occured. …

Gymnastics Examiner

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

(via World Gymnastics)

This post for Canadian coaches only.

Reminder. Last chance to register for NCCP Level 3 Technical or Practical, hosted by Calgary Gymnastics Centre, June 6th – 12th. Clinicians include Kyle Shewfelt, Valerie Oudin-Arsenault and Rick McCharles.

Email gpeake AT abgym.ab.ca

Carol must be 50yrs-old.

Seems impossible to me. Just a few years ago we were kids training together at Altadore Gymnastics Club in Calgary.

That’s the cover of the 1982 book, Carol Johnston: The One-Armed Gymnast.

Like many girls from my club, Carol went on to compete for Cal State Fullerton. She spoke to the team in 2009.

… Born without a right arm below the elbow, Johnston competed four seasons with the Titans from 1977-80 under Head Coach Lynn Rogers and was a two-time All-American on beam and floor exercise in 1978. She was also a conference champion on the balance beam in 1977. She was the subject of a 1980 Disney film for television production called “Lefty,” …

Lefty was some sort of College nickname. Back home she is only called Carol.

Here’s her movie. Inspiring, but heartbreaking. Thanks “Gymnastics Meets”.

Click PLAY or watch Lefty (part 1) on YouTube.

• Lefty (part 2)
• Lefty (part 3)
• Lefty (part 4)
• Lefty (part 5)

related – Whatever Happened to … Carol Johnston

I’ve always spent more time conditioning “form” (feet together, feet stretched, knees tight, legs tight) than most other coaches I’ve worked with. (I learned some great drills from Andre Vallerand.)

My thinking is that I can more easily improve execution score than up difficulty. It’s a strategy.

One example is this kind of conditioning is a drill demonstrated by Mizo

Click PLAY or watch it on Tom’s GymSmart Community blog.

More posts tagged “Mizoguchi”.

Don Eckert noted that Cammi Muhr had a new skill named after her in the USA J.O. code.

Click PLAY or watch the “Muhr” on YouTube.

Smart.

What’s the difficulty value?

She’s from KidzPlex in western Colorado.

related article – Muhr’s moment: KidzPlex gymnast hoping to have dismount named the ‘Muhr’

An interesting interview on The Couch Gymnast magazine with Matt Esler, editor of the currently inactive worldgymrank.com.

Matt did a lot of statistical analysis of international gymnastics results concluding:

… To be blunt, I don’t think the FIG can ever improve the current Code of Points without drastic changes, or even admitting that big swaths of it were a huge mistake.

After the judging fiascos at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and instead of resigning as the President of the FIG (which would have been the right thing to do), Bruno Grandi implemented the new scoring system to cover his butt. As a serious observer of the sport, one could almost see the panic and rush to put out a new system written right into the Code of Points. …

MATT ESLER: THE TROUBLE WITH F.I.G.

In general, I’d agree.

Before the catastrophy that was MAG judging in Athens, some of the worst scandals in the history of our sport, I don’t recall Grandi having much interest in the “Fink Code” proposal. (The open ended draft code originally proposed by Hardy Fink.)

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

On the other hand, each year I’m getting less strident in my criticism of losing the “perfect 10”.

MAG gymnasts worldwide seem to be handling the challenge relatively well. And numbers of competitors in international WAG competition seem to be going up.

To their credit, the FIG International Press Review – May 8 – 12, 2010 linked to this interview. Kudos.

Brittani McCullough won Floor at NCAA Championships. … Or did she?

… Gymnasts are required to demonstrate two distinct shapes during their leap pass on floor. While one of McCullough’s shapes is a split leap, things get tricky with her second position. Under the rules, stag leaps are considered a split leap shape. …

Click over to Aunt Joyce for video and the details. Be sure to read the comments.

I don’t know the rules well enough to comment myself. The list of errors taken as deductions in actual College competition is very, very short. Is Brittani’s composition ever deducted? Are other girls deducted?

Shawn Johnson will be there as a celebrity. And skateboard legend Tony Hawk.

China is making a big move towards improving their Action Sports.

Woodward Beijing is a Woodward partner facility located in Beijing, China. Scheduled to open in the spring of 2010, Woodward Beijing is Woodward’s first international facility. This camp will offer Skateboarding, BMX, Inline, dry land Snowboarding and Free Ski, Urban Dance, Digital Arts (Digital Photography / Video Production and Graphic Design), Music, Chinese and English language programs. …

official press release

I’ve seen reports online that Artistic gymnastics would be part of the program. Not true. But there will be Cheer.

official website

Camp costs aren’t posted yet. But they likely will be far lower than rates in the USA. A bargain, perhaps, for athletes who may be traveling to Beijing for other reasons.

This camp is intended to operate full-time, year round, different than the North American Woodward camps which are mostly seasonal.

The Chinese government paid the $4 million or so construction costs.

Watch a VIDEO of facility construction.