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My experience is that any club that makes a commitment, can register 1 boy for every 3 girls. That is a “natural ratio”, I feel, in North America.

Yet TNT has only 30 boys for 240 girls in Rec.

Why is this imbalance persisting?

… Both TNT and the larger American Gold Gymnastics offer boys-only classes.

… “The boys, it’s just amazing how strong they are…”

They practiced exercises on the bars and pommel horses. Aune helped each with the rings.

Finally, during free time, they leapt. Using a spring board, the boys jumped into a pit filled with foam blocks. They swung from a rope and threw the blocks at each other and at Aune.

The triplets’ mother, Terrijan MullerDahlberg, said gymnastics is a good foundation for other sports.

“It gets them flexibility, it gives strength, it gets them agility,” she said. The boys’ older sisters, ages 18 and 16, also learned gymnastics.

Right now, TNT offers only recreational programs for boys. The academy is working to increase the boys’ numbers, Bakker said.

“We’re trying to eventually get a boys team to compete.”

At American Gold Gymnastics on 17th Avenue South in Fargo, about one-third of the youngest gymnasts are boys. The number of boys drops off as the classes grow older, said Marci Schuster, recreational director at American Gold.

Like TNT, American Gold has no competitive boys team. Its performance team, the FM Acro Team, has two boys.

“I think sometimes it comes from dad, thinking he wants his son in football and hockey,” she said.

She tells fathers that gymnastics can make their sons better at other sports.

“The boys that come love it. They think it’s great,” Schuster said.

· IN-FORUM ·

It’s a complex question. A multi-faceted answer.

Leave a comment below if you have an opinion.

Contortion Home Page posts photos of Rhythmic gymnasts warming up.

They also sell contortion videos.

ContortionHomePage.com – photos and videos

Another great post on the Perfect 10 blog. Click through to get a description of each.

Top Ten Things That Should Have Happened in 2007 But Didn’t…
…

In no particular order…

1. Hollie Dykes should have made more of a world impact. …

2. Oksana Chusovitina should have won a medal on the Vault in the Event Finals at the World Championships in Stuttgart. …

3. Speaking of people that I hoped would win a medal at Worlds… how about Elena Zamolodchikova? …

4. Florida Women’s Team should have won the NCAA title. …

5. Ivana Hong should have made the Floor Finals at Worlds. …

6. A non-US gymnast should have won the Tyson American Cup. …

7. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs should have been healthy and in the Event Finals on Beam in Stuttgart.

8. Courtney McCool should have announced her intention to make a run for the 2008 Olympics. …

9. Vanessa Ferrari should have caught her Comaneci in the All Around at the World Championships.

10. I should have been elected as the FIG president… obviously.

So that’s my list. What would be on your list of things you think should have happened in the world of women’s artistic gymnastics in 2007?

perfect 10 » Top Ten Things That Should Have Happened in 2007 But Didn’t…

Click through the link above to add your own comment.

It’s always hard to argue with Perfect 10.

But Courtney McCool for 2008?

I agree she was quite possibly the best all-around gymnast of all-time prior to the 2004 Olympics in Athens. I was certain she’d win.

Sadly, she missed.

Sites by Morgan – Courtney McCool

it would have been a huge comeback for McCool to qualify for this Olympic team. Over-all, I feel her Georgia teammate Courtney Kupets would have had a better chance.

I like this.

TBGN WEBDESIGN offers personalized sites for prominent British female Artistic gymnasts on British-Gym.com.

On the roster right now is World Bars Champion Beth Tweddle.

Since designing our first web site in 2002, TBGN WebDesign service has grown in popularity and currently has 7 running web sites!

When TBGN first opened in November 2002 our main aim was to promote British gymnastics to a wider audience through the world wide web. We are still striving for this today and are committed to promoting British gymnasts.

Many gymnasts feel that they would like an official web site so that gymnastic fans all around the world can find out about them, keep up to date with their results and learn how to contact them. Gymnastics in Great Britain has never been better, and with the growing interest in British gymnasts, many are choosing to have an official web site designed by TBGN.

We also provide a web design service for gym clubs, please check out our sites and the pricing information and place your order today!

TBGN WEBDESIGN: a site you’ll love by the people you trust

Clubs will one day offer built-in web pages for their own top gymnasts. The best I’ve seen to date is the excellent Gymnastics Revolution, Connecticut, website. Everyone on the competitive team gets a personal page.

screen shot

I’ve always admired the solid, consistent gymnastics of Canadian Dave Kikuchi.

And I appreciate his consistency even more in a 3-up, 3-count World Championships Team final.

In a newspaper interview David says his style resulted from a lack of physical talent. (I wish I coached athletes with his kind of lack of talent.)

Some athletes have both raw natural talent and the mental drive that will take them to the top of their sport.

David Kikuchi says he’s not one of them.

“I would be the one with less physical talent,” says Kikuchi, 27, a leading member of the strongest Canadian men’s gymnastics team in decades.

“Nothing came that easily to me. I wasn’t able to do the skills right away. It took me a long time to get to be on the national team.”

That sounds a little modest, considering Kikuchi’s career. His team walked away from the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne with gold. Kikuchi himself won national gold in rings and on the horizontal bar last May in Quebec City.

The Daily News: News | Persistence pays off for star gymnast

I advise coaches to spot as little as possible.

Still, spotting clinics are very popular. Coach Wayne is a spotting guru, especially well known in the cheer community.

His clinics are limited to 10 instructors maximum.

Speciality camps are offered for backward handspring, back tuck, connections, twisting and more

CoachWayne.com – Gymnastics, Tumbling, Cheerleading. Get it all here: articles, videos, books, subscriptions and clinics.

We link to Coach Wayne from the right hand navigation.

If you told me Jeff Bridges was chosen to play a gymnastics coach in a movie …

Nah. He couldn’t pull it off.

I like Jeff Bridges as an actor … but, Nah.

Turned out he did a great job. And prepared for the role by video-taping US coaches at competition.

Watch the interview with Jeff on Google Video.

Congratulations Nastia!

This will bring more media exposure to all gymnasts.

2006 U.S. all-around champion Nastia Liukin is one of 20 identified as ones to watch in 2007 in Newsweek’s “Who’s Next?” feature in the Dec. 25-Jan. 1, 2007, issue.

Liukin, who was the 2005 uneven bars and balance beam world champion, is the first gymnast to be included in the annual feature.

“I am really excited to be included as one of the top people to watch,” said Liukin, 17, who is coached by her father, Valeri, a two-time Olympic champion. “It is a great honor to be chosen and recognized as the only female athlete.”

“Nastia is one of the best gymnasts in the world and the recognition is well deserved,” said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. “In competition, Nastia is known for her style and grace, as well as her competitive fire and team spirit. Out of the gym, Nastia is an outstanding high school student and typical teenager. She is an excellent ambassador for our sport, and we are thrilled that more people will get to know Nastia through Newsweek’s feature.”

… At the 2005 World Championships, she won the gold medal for both the uneven bars and balance beam and the silver medal for the all-around and floor exercise. In the all-around, she finished just .001 behind teammate Chellsie Memmel, posting the closest margin of victory in the event’s history except for a tie.

She is a senior at Spring Creek Academy and trains at WOGA, where both of her parents are coaches. Her father won four medals at the 1988 Olympic Games, including two gold, and her mother, Anna, was a 1987 rhythmic gymnastics world champion.

WCSN.com: News

Everyone bemoans the decline of school gymnastics.

In Canada schools that do a good job including “gymnastics” in the curriculum are the minority.

Ruschkin publishes 60 excellent school lesson plans for teachers of grades 1-6.

And Gymnastics British Colombia offers a program for the schools called Kids Can Move that champions the benefits of gymnastics for students.

Schools are offered a guest gymnastics instructor for 7hrs, a resource manual, additional materials, insurance and more. The cost is only C$100 — a very good deal.

For free, under “Resources” on the home page, you can download a number of good articles on school gymnastics. Not surprisingly, they recommend Ruschkin’s Up Down All Around lesson plans.

Kids Can Move – official website

(Disclosure. I edit the Ruschkin website.)