Author: Rick Mc

Gymkata is a 1985 film filmed in Yugoslavia and starring Kurt Thomas as Jonathan Cabot, an Olympic gymnast who combines his gymnastic ability with ninjutsu to enter a deadly competition in a fictional country, Parmistan. It is based on the novel The Terrible Game (1957) by Dan Tyler Moore.

The film has developed a minor cult following as an unintentional comedy for its dubious premise, poor production quality and low budget. Maxim lists the film as the 17th “Worst Movie of All Time”.

Gymkata – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The scene always bemoaned loudest by every coach is the pommel horse battle:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube:

Gymkata – Amazon

These days Kurt is a successful coach and club owner in Texas.

Thanks Helen.

The young, new champion Senior gymnast in Canada, Dominique Pegg, shows good potential on Floor.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Grace Chiu’s photos from the event are available on GraceClick.com.

Results (and more) will be posted on Gym Score Depot.

UPDATE: Barcelona1992 is posting routines from this competition on Gymnastike.

ALABI BORTEY emailed some photos of their Acrobatic team from Ghana.

Impressive.

Scores are low. Full Results (PDF).

More results, photos and news links will be posted on Gym Score Depot.

Just saw the news on Twitter. Congratulations.

She’s from Bluewater Gymnastics coached by Dave and Elizabeth Brubaker.

Waiting on results to be posted online.

Brittany Rogers of Coquitlam, B.C. leads a strong field in the women’s senior competition at this year’s Elite Canada gymnastics meet December 11-13 in Oakville, Ont.

Rogers, 16, who clearly established herself as the country’s top female gymnast with a stellar showing at the world championships in October, won’t be able to rest on her laurels, however, with both old and new challengers for medals in both the all around and individual event competitions.

“It’s going to be very exciting with the calibre of competition this year, and not just in the senior competition,” says Canadian women’s program director Lise Simard of Gatineau, Que.

“We also have a very strong junior field that we expect will include several competitors who will go on to compete at the 2012 Olympics in London.”

The senior competition will be highlighted by the return to competition of 2008 Olympic veteran Nansy Damianova of Montreal, and Kristina Vaculik of Oshawa, who was selected as the reserve gymnast for the Beijing Games, but was forced to withdraw with an injury. …

Competition begins Friday with novice and senior all around and concludes Sunday with junior and senior event finals.

Gymnastics Canada

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

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

Hey, Brittany’s got that foot crossed “cheat” locked in. I like it. Pressing one foot against the other helps stop them crossing more conspicuously.

In related news Canuck:

Mariah Madigan and Keagan Soehn, Trampoline, Jayd Lukenchuk, Men’s Artistic, Laurie-Ève Pepin-Gagné, Women’s Artistic, Mariam Chamilova, Rhythmic, and their respective coaches, Dave Ross, Ken Soehn, Markos Baikas, Michel Charron and Svetlana Joukova were selected to receive a grant from the Petro-Canada FACE program. …

details

Check out Carly Patterson‘s commercial for the season premiere of “Make It or Break It” on ABC Family …

For an up-and-coming pop singer, getting one of your songs on a HIT TV series can open doors. I hope the tune is featured on the TV show soundtrack, not only on the ad.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The second season of the OMG gymnastics TV show starts in early January.

Update:

… On September 10, 2008, a remixed version of Carly’s “Temporary Life (Ordinary Girl)” was played on the Bobby Bones Show. …

… I’ve never seen it before.

For Aerial Cartwheel and Aerial Walkover.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

George notes that those are furniture sliders or furniture movers, available in the hardware department at major home furnishing stores.

Gillian from Mismo Gymnastics.

Not as bad as it looks. She laughed it off.

Thanks Lizzie.

A good article from coaching legend Mas Watanabe on his GymSmarts Community blog:

The other day I was watching the workout of our level 5 and 7 teams during my break.

The level 5’s were working on vault and they were doing the front handspring drill. The drill was to develop good blocking action by using the under arm swing when they punch the board. I was impressed because the entire group was doing the same under arm swing and all the girls were reaching their hands to the table very quickly. Most of the girls were getting a quick turn over of the body from the board and getting a fairly good blocking action.

Of course their handspring vaults weren’t even close to perfect, but the consistent emphasis of good technique was very evident.

Then I looked over to the bars, there were level 7 girls doing back giants, but some of them were still working on their three-quarter giant.

Here too, I was very pleased to see that all the girls were trying to use a proper tap swing to make the giant. Some of their body positions were not good yet, but the tapping action was there. Also, the girls who were struggling with the three-quarter giant were also using the tapping action to kick stronger and lift the swing higher.

I could tell that they will eventually learn a good back giant if they continuously try that way.

Educating all the staff so they teach the specific technique on key skills is not so easy. Many of the younger coaches do not have much coaching experience. …

read the rest – In-house Staff Education

Mas coaches at the excellent Byers Gymnastics Clubs in California.

How is the Staff training at your gym?

Level 4 Canadian beam clinic 2007