Author: Rick Mc

Check out the awesome and unique Hecht vaults starting at 35sec.

I’d never even dreamed of those combinations. GREAT for “block”.

Brandy from GK gymnastics has one of the best attitudes i’ve seen. She seems like she is always having fun and is very coachable. I think she has potential to be one of the best vaulter in the country.

Click PLAY or watch The girl can Vault! on YouTube.

More videos like this on the Gibson Athletics SaltoCafe YouTube channel.

I just got an updated price list from the Canadian distributor of Gaofei equipement from China. Some great deals.

Click through to their website – InspireSportsInc.com – to see prices as well as a line of gymnastics clothing.

Inspire Sports is Liang Cheng and David Sykes, career gymnastics coaches.

I’ve finally had time to look at a wide assortment of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics video clips on new GymDrills.com website put together by Will Vaughn.

I like it.

I wish more coaches would document their favourite drills on video and make them available to the world.

The quality of the drills is high. The quality of the video, average. Some demonstrators show minor form and technical errors.

I was pleased to find some drills I’d never seen before.

The biggest problem with the site, as with (to a lesser extent) the similar American Gymnast Gymnastics on Demand is the navigation. It’s not perfect on either site … but GymDrills has one killer feature. Fill in the SEARCH box with “Pak” and only those videos tagged with that word appear on the resulting list.

The 5 star rating system on each video will be useful when enough users rate them.

I do have a few quibbles with GymDrills.com.

I’m not a fan of the Microsoft .WMV video format. But they do play on a Mac if you get the free Flip4Mac plugin.

The database has great potential for growth too, I think. Seems GymDrills can continue to add new clips into the future. At some point registered users may be able to upload clips.

I like that videos from other sources (even GymnasticsCoaching) have been included. They are free to watch, even if you are not a paid member.

Cost of access to this site is inexpensive:

• Free per 7 Days (Trial)
• 3.99 USD per 1 Month (Monthly Membership)
• 35.00 USD per 1 Year (Year Membership)

If cost is a big barrier to you, sign up for the free week and watch every video during those 7 days.

I’d love to see GymDrills offer, as another option, a Freemium business model in future.

… offering basic services for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features …

A good sampling of videos could be free. Other videos and services (e.g. chat room) should be available for paid members.

Certainly as of today Gymnastics on Demand is a better service … but it costs $9.95 per month as compared with $3.99 per month for GymDrills.

I think both sites are great!

Both are highly recommended.

Check out GymDrills.com for yourself.

Blythe Lawrence has been posting weekly summaries on Gymnastics Examiner.

I love these.

A few tidbits from the dozens of highlights …

British Gymnastics has hired sports marketing and events agency Fast Track to help it explore how to maximize gymnastics profits and exposure for the 2012 London Olympics and 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Marketing gymnastics? Who’d a thunk it?

The Cal State Fullerton and UCLA gymnastics teams, with special guests Nastia Liukin and Kyla Ross, held a fundraiser over the weekend to support CSUF Gymnastics, which has to raise its entire $280,000 budget this season. The Cal State Fullerton Daily Titan, the student newspaper at CSUF, reports that Liukin denied having a boyfriend during a Q and A with the Olympic champion. The event raised about $15,000 for the team.

Sacramone told Inside Gymnastics Radio hosts John Roethlisberger and Brian Jones that she was working her way back on vault and beam and hopes to add in floor at some point. But the bigger news was the new skills she intends on throwing: A double twisting front layout and an Amanar on vault.

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

Read the rest – The gymnastics week in review

Following last weekend’s Elite Canada competition, here’s the updated list of the top female gymnasts in Canada:

Gardiner
Hurt
Klarenbach
Leblond-Chartrand
Lemieux-Guillementte
Mackie
Meyer
Pegg
Pepin-Gagné
Rogers
Sawa
Unick
Vaculik

Damianova
Dancose-Giambattisto
Willis

Up to 8 more spots are available based on “petition” by the coach.

Can this group qualify for Olympics 2012 as a team? … Or will Canada be relegated to 2 specialists as we were in Beijing?

All of Grace’s photos are posted on GraceClick.com.

Click PLAY or watch her Beam on Gymnastike.

Click through to see Rylie’s Floor routine.

More Elite Canada coverage on Gymnastike.

Senor Nico on the IG forum lets us know that Gimnastika magazine #2 has been published. Of course it’s in Russian.

Viktoria Komova – Talks about her background, rising status, and hopes for the future.

Elena Zamolodchikova – Reflects on her career and how she is enjoying life as a judge.

Alexei Nemov – How he keeps in shape after his career.

Olga Mostepanova – Her role on developing youngsters and how they’re coming along (there’s nothing about her career in the article).

Ksenia Semyonova – Talks about this past year, how’s been dealing with her growth, and what goals she has left to accomplish.

Yury Ryazanov – His last interview before his death.

I can’t seem to open it from the Russian website.

Leave a comment if you find a way to do so.

Related post: new – Russian Gymnastics magazine

by site editor Rick McCharles

I posted some photos from my 9 day coaching course in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

As you see, my camera is very bad in low light. Actually the gym has some nice indirect natural light … but my camera still did not work in that facility.

See the rest of my pics from this course.

I’ll be posting a report and details on the excellent course soon.

Bangladesh is looking for international coaches who would like to volunteer at this gym for a minimum of 3 months.

I’ve been considering attending Commonwealth Games 2010, Delhi, India, as a spectator.

But I see on Gymnastics Examiner that the top British gymnasts including Beth Tweddle will not attend.

Gymnastics events at the Commonwealth Games are scheduled for Oct. 4-8. The 2010 World Championships in Rotterdam, Holland begin Oct. 17.

The timing is too tight.

I have to assume the same decision will be made by Australia and Canada. Nations that want to qualify for Olympics 2012 will send B Teams to Commonwealth Games this time around.

A power packed lineup at the competition in Japan required amazing routines to medal.

Gymnastics Examiner has a good wrap-up of what happened.

The Japanese men’s and women’s teams cleaned up at this weekend’s Toyota Cup, capturing six of the 10 gold medals available at the competition in Toyota City, Japan.

2009 World all-around bronze medalist Koko Tsurumi won the women’s title on uneven bars (15.1) and placed second on floor (14.2) behind teammate Kyoko Oshima (14.275). Their countrywoman Yuko Shintake defeated World beam champion Deng Linlin for the beam gold (14.125-13.9), with vault champion Ekaterina Kurbatova of Russia third (13.875). …

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