Category: Uncategorized

USA Diving posted a terrific video called Diving From the Athletes Viewpoint.

Very inspirational. (High speed internet needed.)

Mohamed Meziane is a former African Gymnastics Champion and competed in many high level competition is the world, including the World Championship in Bercy.

He has taught Gymnastics in France, America and England.

Living in England for the last 13 years, Mohamed, 37 is married with one son and looking for a full time employment in Gymnastics in the South East, nearer Kent or London. With more than 30 years involvement in Gymnastics, Mohamed is very keen to take Gymnastics in England many steps higher.

Contact Mohamed at maziane69 @ msn.com

It’s official. The FIG changed the denomination “General Gymnastics” to “Gymnastics for all”.

Good move. Many were confused in the past by the term “General Gymnastics”.

From the buggy, outdated FIG website:

The change clearly signals to both the gymnastics community and to the wider public the important role that General Gymnastics plays as the basis for all FIG activities. In addition, the new name instantly gives an understanding that the discipline offers a wide range of activities and is truly for all ages, abilities, genders and cultures.

Gymnastic activities can be traced back to the earliest of times and these are the activities known today as General Gymnastics – specifically designed to enhance a person’s health and physical fitness or participated in purely for enjoyment and simple relaxation. In so doing, Gymnastics offers enormous humanitarian health, social and educational benefits and the name change signals to the world this important role, and the commitment, that the FIG has in contributing to global health, fitness and friendship. …

With over 50 million active participants and the majority enjoying Gymnastics for All activities, this discipline is of fundamental significance within the FIG and provides National Federations with endless opportunities.

Gymnastics for All” incorporates dances, aerobic movements, mass displays, cheer leading, calisthenics and movements of all sorts. People of all ages can participate and consequently bring about wellness, fitness and health.

The biggest “event” on the FIG Gymnastics for All calendar is the World Gymnaestrada, Dornbirn, Austria from 8th – 15th July, 2007. Over 23,000 athletes from more than 50 countries will be there.

Gymbrooke (GymWatch.com) has more Gymnaestrada information including videos.

Presumably wanting some buzz like that generated on YouTube by fictional LonelyGirl15, Inside Gymnastics magazine is publishing a blog by Level 9 gymnast … Kelly Clarkson.

(When you go over the top, you might as well go WAAAYYYYYY over the top.)

Here’s a sample of the fiction:

You see, I started out the competition season real strong and got great scores and was ‘the one to watch’ and lately I’ve been, well,…sorta sucking. Like, I’ve choked lately in a few of my routines at my last couple meets. Ugh. I hate even saying that out loud!! I’ve just been second-guessing myself in competition, and then I mess up.

So right now, it’s routine after routine after routine because my next strategy for my next meet (next weekend!!!) is what I’ve been calling my Segment Strategy. Instead of only practicing either full routines and then tons of repetitions of specific skills, I’ve broken up each of my routines into segments and then I do them over and over.

Okay, that doesn’t exactly sound revolutionary, because of course you do passes (like I’ll do my switch-leap pass through to my 1 ½ pirouette) but I’m saying I do the entire segments *no matter what*. So if my beam coach tells me to stick 10 leap passes and 20 1 ½ pirouettes, I actually end up doing 20 leap passes through to my 1 ½ pirouettes. Make sense?

There are tons of different ways to train, but I like trying new things. Whatever helps, right? I’m really just trying to perfect my consistency and my form, so I can be more like some of my favorite gymnasts, like Shayla Worley and Nastia Liukin. So it’s worth a shot. And in the meantime, I’m just trying to be really positive in the next week and not even second-guess myself.

I gotta go now, but I’ll write again soon. Oh and next time, remind me to tell you about Brandon… (hint: that’s the other thing I obsess over beside gymnastics! Ha!)

Check out the “blog” for yourself: Chalk Blog

This might be the only way I qualify for the Olympics.

(Oh, NO. Conversational Manderin is required.)

The Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympaid (BOCOG) will be recruiting some 70,000 and 30,000 volunteers for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games respectively. BOCOG will be extending the volunteer recruitment exercise to overseas Chinese and foreigners.

Interested individuals, who are living outside of China, can submit their applications through the online system from March 2007 …

BE A VOLUNTEER AT THE BEIJING 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES! at Singapore Gymnastics

J. Star, a geek photo nut, put together a set on flickr titled “levitation”.

Acrobats love to fly too.

I recall when Michael Jordan was asked, “Can you fly?”

His reply …

“For a while.”

See the complete levitation set – flickr

Gymbrooke (GymWatch.com) is reporting something incredible to this blogger.

To placate TV, athletes and coaches will not be allowed to blog from the Games. No MySpace. No Facebook. No YouTube. No Flickr.

This is ridiculous and unenforceable. The ruling will never hold.

When thousands of athletes from 42 countries meet at the Pan American Games in Brazil in July this year, athletes will be forbidden to update their blogs or websites during the competition. There will also be restrictions on broadcast of live images on the Internet.

According to the Brazilian newspaper O Dia, all sports federations in Brazil have received an official letter signed by Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the president of the organising committee for Rio 2007. In the letter the federations are told that “no athlete and/or officer of the Brazilian delegation of the XV Pan American Games can act as a reporter, produce text or research for publishing purposes, or report periodically or daily for online-sites on the web during the games.”

The above rules apply to all athletes attending the Pan American Games.

Gymbrooke Sports News » No Blogging from Pan Am Games Rio

What’s next?

The Olympics?

In Australia, the Australian Olympic Committee has already forbidden its athletes to maintain blogs during the Olympic Games in Beijing. …

IOC discusses whether to allow blogs

For the IOC the blogging by athletes is also an issue of concern – particularly in connection with the Olympic Games in Beijing where freedom of speech is already a major topic.

But the IOC has not made any decision yet on what policy to adopt and is waiting for recommendations from national Olympic committees.

source – Play The Game

GymnasticsCoaching.com will be happy to post content from the Pan Am Games.

Rio 2007 Pan American Games – official website

Here’s a sample post from the new Sports Girls Play blog:

Basic drills and overall body conditioning are part of any athletes’ training – it doesn’t matter which sport. But training basics and doing conditioning can get tiresome for the young athlete – afterall, they are there because they want to have fun! Here are a few of my tried and true techniques for making conditioning fun.

1. Make it a game! This is an easy one – we all know it is more fun to play than work. From relay races, to obstacle courses, if the kids perceive this as fun, you’ll get more out of them.

2. Put the kids in control. One of my favorites is to have the girls start off jogging in a large circle. When I say freeze, I pick a child and she chooses the exercise that she and her team mates will do right then. It may be 25 pushups or tuck jumps, what ever she likes. Then she picks the next girl to choose and they all start running again.

3. Reward effort. My team loves this one. If I see an athlete working especially hard on an exercise during group conditioning I will send them to the “lemonade lounge” to rest, jump on the trampoline or play in the minute until the next exercise is over.

Sports Girls Play – Making Conditioning Fun

Justin Slife recommends you get bar safety straps from 10-0.

This is good deal. (You might spend $50 making them yourself.)

Bar Straps, 8 color coded pairs to denote different lengths. Must be used with PVC tube on T32SB Strap Bar. Used to train over grip, under grip and eagle grip giants. Requires wrist bands underneath bar straps.

bar straps, 8 color coded pairs

Don’t be confused by the 10.0 text above. Certainly they can be used with or without PVC tube (shown on left photo). I prefer without, though both methods are useful. And they can be used on any horizontal bar.

Working eagle grip (el-grip) in straps is possible — but be very, very cautious.

We’ve endorsed Boot Camp before.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who did not confirm that Boot Camp is a great investment. Cost is US$1400-1500 (all inclusive) including “manuals and tons of additional written material”.

Dates for Jeff’s Camps this year are (tentatively):

May 17-21, 2007

November 15-19, 2007

Boot Camp is ideal for anyone who wants to open their own gym in the future.

Check the sample agenda for the 4-day course.