Category: floor (women)

TaiShan equipment at Worlds

Most of the athletes have never used TaiShan apparatus before. It’s a test of who can adjust quickly.

For the most part the apparatus and the TaiShan crew looks to be good. A pommel broke today when European Champ Rhys McClenaghan was training. That’s odd.

Some of the guys told me the vault is hard. Landing mats hard.

Most of the discussion has been about Floor.  Kenzo seemed to have trouble during podium training. Max and Dom seemed to be OK with it. Both Russians made triple back look easy.

Sam Oldham notes that the  Senoh floor in Japan is soft. It has a bigger margin for error on take-off. Timing has to be more precise on the TaiShan. 

I’m more worried for WAG — starting tomorrow — than MAG.

Anastasia Bachynska leads FX at YOGs

Here are the 8 finalists.

WAG does one apparatus a day for the first 4 days. YES this is a crazy idea.

Jia Fangfang will compete WAG

A world Power Tumbling champ makes it look easy. She plans to compete at the upcoming Chinese Individual Nationals in Artistic.

Click PLAY or watch it on Instagram.

introducing sprint and hurdle

I love teaching sprint to very young kids. It’s one of my favourite “skills” to coach, especially age 3-4.

Parents are shocked at the rapid progress their children make.

Al Fong posted an excellent drill for very young kids:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… with the use of warm and fuzzy objects to fit their comfort level, in addition to creating an environment where the young kids can safely learn to overcome fears of running into something hard.

Mr. Wally does a great job of keeping his preschool boys active and busy by getting them to run and jump over mats. They have to figure out how fast to run and how far to jump—from one foam block to another. It’s safe, it’s fun, and it’s challenging. Sometimes they crash and burn, but it’s soft enough they don’t get hurt. Which means they’re more likely to try it again and again. To me, this is where vaulting starts for beginners.The depth and distance perception exercise trained in this fun manner is invaluable later as the gymnasts learn to gauge their run toward the vaulting table.

Ask Al Fong – Dragon Gymnastics – Vaulting starts with the run. Learning to run starts early.

Kids love that activity. They love elephant vaulting even better.