Category: safety

new USA Gymnastics Safe Sport Policy

The Board approved the new USA Gymnastics Safe Sport Policy – replacing the previous Participant Welfare Policy – which includes key updates to USA Gymnastics safe sport policies and procedures. Effective immediately, the policy outlines the scope of the organization’s commitment to promoting a safe environment, requirements and expectations placed on members, and incorporates the authority and jurisdiction of the U.S. Center for SafeSport. …

Additionally, USA Gymnastics is in the final stages of hiring a Director of Safe Sport. …

The Daniels report provided 70 recommendations in 10 key areas …

USAG

USA Gymnastics has been very slow getting to this point. Hopefully they’ve been slow but thorough.

related – Tony Retrosi – Moving Forward- Chaos or Community

Yvonne Tousek – thumbs around the Bar

Double Olympian and 2001 NCAA women’s Bar champion Yvonne Tousek has just retired as a performer with Cirque du Soleil.

Now Yvonne Tousek Renne, she’s joined Cirque du Soleil’s Casting Team as an Acrobatic Talent Scout.

Around 1999 Yvonne began swinging Bars with — as much as possible — her thumbs around the Bar. You have more control.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

protecting children from sexual abuse

Pediatrician Dr. Tobi Adeyeye Amosun:

1. The location of an incident [of sexual abuse] is likely to be at a place where you are familiar.

2. Slumber parties: I wanted to address this separately because of it being a sensitive subject.

3. Please use appropriate anatomical terms for body parts.

4. “Safe touch” vs. “bad touch”: make sure kids know which is which.

Safe touches I usually teach are the ones that are in areas not covered by your bathing suit, like shoulders, head and feet. Safe touches are also those that make you feel calm and safe, like a hug from your mom.

5. “Stranger danger” is a fallacy.

6. Be aware of what kids are looking at on smartphones and tablets.

7. Most importantly, trust your gut.

A Pediatrician Just Laid Out How to Protect Your Child From Sexual Abuse—And She’s Begging You to Listen

single spotting flyaways

LOTs of work for the spotter.

Click PLAY or watch it on Facebook.

Spot too many and some kids get dependent.

The real coaching challenge is removing the spot. Having kids get through the first several hundred alone without hitting the Bar.

Valeri responds to the Vanessa Atler interview

“I am sorry Vanessa’s experience wasn’t positive during her time at WOGA. When asked to help during a difficult time for her, my intention as a coach was to help Vanessa achieve her dreams, not make her training situation more difficult,” says Liukin.

“My recollection of working with Vanessa is different and includes many positive experiences. Coaching techniques and perspectives have evolved since then, and I have grown as a coach through experience and expanding my knowledge.  Today, I firmly believe an athlete’s focus should be on training smart, with increased education in the areas of balanced nutrition, fitness, healthy lifestyle and communication.  This is the basis for our approach in women’s gymnastics.”

Former USA Gymnast Vanessa Atler Says She Developed an Eating Disorder Under Valeri Liukin: ‘I’m Still Messed Up’

If you haven’t listened to Vanessa’s interview on GymCastic #254, you should.

Her remembrances of her short time with Valeri at WOGA are nuanced and well balanced. This headline does not accurately sum up her memories.

Vanessa Atler interview

Like pretty much everyone I was a big fan of Vanessa Atler in the dark days of late 1990s USA Gymnastics.

GymCastic posted an excellent, candid interview from some months ago. Vanessa volunteered to be interviewed, clearing up many questions we had about her career.

254: Vanessa Atler

She explains how she often did not know what her coaches, parents and manager were discussing.

If you don’t have time to listen, Dvora Meyers posted a summary with commentary — Former National Champion Speaks Out About USA Gymnastics’ Problems With Eating Disorders And Abuse.

Click PLAY or watch Vanessa’s 1999 Floor on YouTube.

USOC SafeSport

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC), SafeSport Course provides important training about the nature of misconduct in sport and gives you actionable information to better protect athletes. …

This is a FREE course offered by the USOC

details

Click over to the USAG SafeSport page for more resources.

downhill Parkour

Even more dangerous than regular Parkour.

Alex Schauer on Tianmen Mountain, Zangjiajie, China.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Valentin-Angelo)

Gymnastics coach using medical marijuana

You probably know coaches who use marijuana medically or recreationally.

Is marijuana worse than alcohol?

Personally, I feel the safety of children is more often endangered by tipsy / hungover parents or coaches. I worry most about parents who have been drinking driving kids home from Gym.

If marijuana is banned, alcohol should be banned as well.

If your club has a “zero tolerance” policy for employees using illegal drugs click through to this article about a Canadian coach suspended 2015 for using medical marijuana. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is hearing the appeal.

It’s a more complicated issue than you might think at first glance. Especially with the laws changing in Canada and other parts of the world.

Child gymnastic coach’s medical marijuana use goes to B.C. Human Rights Tribunal

Employers need to ‘start treating [medical marijuana] as if it is a pharmaceutical,’ expert says

(via Grace Chiu)

FIG pushing forward with Parkour

Next on the roadmap is the appointment of a FIG Parkour Committee which shall work in three areas, education, development and competitions.

This Committee shall be chaired by David Belle and composed of Charles Perrière and other Parkour experts as well as two athletes’ representatives (one male and one female). …

The roadmap also seeks to provide the staging of a series of Parkour World Cups in 2018 and 2019 together with a first FIG World Championships planned in 2020. …

As for education and development, the Parkour Committee shall be in charge of preparing educational tools for youngsters and coaches’ education programs with a view to put in place a framework in which the amateurs will be able to evolve progressively and in a safe environment. …

FIG

I’m confident that FIG Obstacle Course events will be safer than the other alternatives. One upside.