LANDING on the FEET with control

Teach beginners FIRST and BEST how to land and fall safely.

Motorcycle Landing.

Beginners should exaggerate the STICK. Land with feet shoulder width turned out to about a 90 degree angle.

Absorb impact over a longer time period than necessary. Land soft, like a cat.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Thanks Bermuda Gymnastics Association.

lets talk about mental health

#BellLetsTalk #BellCause

Bell Let’s Talk (French: Bell Cause pour la cause) is an initiative created by the Canadian telecommunications company Bell Canada to raise awareness and combat stigma surrounding mental health in Canada. …

emotional abuse in Gymnastics

In this post a former British national squad gymnast reflects on her former coach.

The under-reported risk for competitive gymnasts is psychological abuse.

Anonymous:

Looking back over my time with Coach is something I find difficult. I know not all my memories are bad but those are the ones that most easily come to mind. …

But, at this point the good days for me far outweighed the not so good days and I enjoyed being there, I enjoyed working with Coach, in fact I would go as far as to say I loved her. …

… after a while no matter what I did it just wasn’t good enough, my name was now added to the blacklist. It became a matter of survival, be the one who least upset Coach during a session, praying Coach would take her wrath out on anyone but me. …

It was only Coach’s talent that would get me to the Olympics, not my own and if I moved to another coach my Olympic dream would be over. In retrospect, I can see how naïve I was to believe this, yet this haunted me throughout my career and I gave up on myself once I left coach, believing my dreams and goals were shattered.

Warriors in Leotards

Click through to read the whole story.

coach Elizabeth Brubaker suspended

I’m surprised to hear that coach Elizabeth Brubaker has been suspended by Gymnastics Canada after receiving “a number of written formal complaints… that outlined alleged violations of Gymnastics Canada’s ethics and code of conduct policies over an extended period of time a number of years ago.

reducing Gymnastics injuries

Brette Warshaw posted an excellent overview on how to reduce injury:

1. Focus On Avoiding Overuse
2. Balance Out Your Gymnasts’ Strength (reduce muscular imbalance)
3. Track Your Gymnasts’ Growth
4. Never Stop Educating Yourself & Your Fellow Coaches
5. Take Fear Out of the Equation Early On
6. Empower Your Gymnasts

Click through for specifics:

6 Ways For Gymnastics Coaches To Better Prevent Injuries

related – 5 Of The Most Common Gymnastics Injuries & How Best To Prevent Them

new documentary – Broken Trust: Ending Athlete Abuse

Filmmaker and journalist Jill Yesko is fund-raising to complete a planned documentary. She represented the United States in the 1983 World University Games in cycling.

Broken Trust gives voice to the courageous women and men who have dared to speak up against abuse on all levels. Told through interviews with Olympic and national-class athletes, coaches and experts, Broken Trust looks at how and why abuse takes place and what needs to be done to stop it.

BrokenTrustFilm.com

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/306552517

Gillette’s #MeToo ad

Good move, Gillette.

On the other hand, it could have been done with a little more subtlety. 😀

Click PLAY or watch it on Twitter.

ankle flexibility and landing

Dave Stewart (Power Tumbler) had most flexible ankles I ever saw. He virtually never experienced any pain no matter how short rotation he landed.

Here’s a quick and easy test.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

If your gymnast is less flexible it’s even more important they not under-rotate backwards salto landings. Experiment, too, landing more toed-out to reduce the risk of landing injury.

Rhonda Faehn hired / fired by Michigan

The move came after several members of the Board of Regents said she should be let go.

“I do not support the hiring of Rhonda Faehn, and believe the university should end its relationship with her,” Regent Mark Bernstein told the Free Press prior to the firing.

Detroit Free Press

I’ll bet she wishes she’d stayed at Florida.

unpaid College football players skip Bowl Games

You started to notice this a couple of years ago, when top prospects, wanting to protect their health before heading into the NFL draft, would announce that they were skipping their team’s bowl games. …

Over the last couple of years, players skipping their bowl games became more and more common, and it is now, save for your occasional back-in-my-day cranky former players, generally accepted by coaches, fans, and media alike that any player who doesn’t skip a bowl game to preserve his draft status is doing himself a disservice. The game doesn’t matter, and hey, he’s not getting paid anyway. …

This is the peril of having a billion-dollar sport that doesn’t pay its players …

College Football Players Are Going to Quit Bowl Games