Category: Uncategorized

Just finished 8 intensive days at Phoenix in Vancouver. Thanks sincerely to Kyna Fletcher and her excellent staff.

It was Gymnastics Canada coach education. Organized by Jeff Thomson of Gymnastics British Columbia.

Phoenix is a great host for events like this. They have an excellent facility. One unique training set-up is a vault horse built into the spotting deck at the end of the tumbling trampoline.

Fantastic. It’s a full-time uphill vault station where no fussing with spring boards is necessary. We used it for Yurchenko and forward approach vaults. It can drop low for the little ones. Or be raised for advanced gymnasts.

That was designed by coach Doug Odin who builds high quality specialized spotting platforms for Phoenix and other clubs.

National JO Champion from Twistars Gymnastics.

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

See a longer edit on the Region 5 Gymnastics Insider YouTube channel.

In training.

Click PLAY or watch it on instagram.

That was linked by a new blog called GymButante.

A gym blog more straight talking than Marta Karolyi.

🙂

Rachelle Simpson is the standout star of women’s high diving and, with the sport now recognized by FINA, she dreams of winning an Olympic gold one day.

Click PLAY or watch a CNN profile on YouTube.

She’s a former gymnast. Daughter of gymnastics coaches. She worked in the circus show “The House of Dancing Water” in Macao.

related – Rachelle ‘Rocco’ Simpson: America’s queen of cliff diving

(via Thomas G Trapp)

… the top 12 gymnasts in our region from their combined AA scores from regionals and nationals. This group of athletes will be traveling to Glascow, Scotland at the end of October. They will taking in two session of the 2015 World Championships as well as touring …

Click PLAY or watch All Star Team highlights on YouTube.

via Region 5 Insider – 2015 Awards Banquet

Some super slow motion training video. 🙂

But a theme that puberty ruins potential to compete at the highest level. 😦

“Milo” … is considered to be one of Romania’s top gymnasts of the 1990s and one of the most prolific female all-around gymnasts of the decade, earning a total 19 World Championships or Olympic medals in a span of six years. She medalled in every single World Championships meet, Olympic Games and European Championships between 1991 and 1996 …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (25min)

🙂

https://twitter.com/Gymnastike/status/636640351512494080/photo/1

via Gymnastike

Dance educator, Circus and Gymnastics choreographer Chris Houston put together a research paper for an undergraduate degree titled The Art of the Sport.

Here’s an excerpt:

… A significant area of research that merits further investigation is the exclusion of the women’s compulsory program. This program demanded that the gymnast perform fundamental skills with the highest form of precision possible. These routines distinguished the technically proficient gymnast from the gymnast with poor form and substandard artistry.

The floor routine required exquisite dance technique, superior flexibility, and exceptional acrobatic execution. Each nation brought their own ‘flavor’ in the presentation of these exercises; they tried to stylize the movements to look different from other countries.

The interpretation of the routine allowed each gymnast to demonstrate their unique personality – it encouraged the individual’s artistry.

In 1996, the compulsory program was cut. Since its removal, there has been a gradual decline in the execution of dance …

Download The Art of the Sport as a PDF.

What is artistry?

Click PLAY or watch some of Chris’ work on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/93105953

… attempt.

Click PLAY or watch it on Facebook.

That’s Zapata from Spain.

(via The Gym Press)

The number of skills required in a Men’s Artistic Gymnastics routine may shrink from 10 to eight after the 2016 Olympic Games, FIG Men’s Technical Committee President Steve Butcher (USA) has confirmed.

Difficulty scores in Men’s Gymnastics are currently calculated based on the 10 most difficult skills shown in an exercise. …

“Regarding safety of the gymnasts, this potential change would reduce every exercise by 20 percent. This could result in fewer overuse injuries,” Butcher said. “Improving the safety of the gymnasts is always my primary concern. Reducing the amount of elements also brings the D-scores of the top gymnasts even closer, requiring even better execution in order to reach the finals and award podium.” …

The MTC is expected to make its decision regarding the number of elements for the next Olympic cycle during its September meeting in Krakow (POL). Any definitive change would also need to be approved by the FIG Executive Committee, however.

FIG

Grandi has always wanted MAG and WAG to require the same number of skills.

My gut feeling is that both Floor and Horizontal Bar would be instantly better with fewer counting skills. But those two could hardly be worse with any Code change.

Pommel Horse and P Bars are amazing now. They might be less amazing counting 8 skills.

Rings might be slightly better with eight. And safer. Gymnasts who cannot do multiple major strength holds would be more competitive on that apparatus.

Vault would not change, I assume. But right now there is far too much reward for difficulty, not enough credit for execution.