Category: Uncategorized

Another of Natalie Behring’s fantastic photo set from Beijing, China.

17 Feb 2006

“A boy trains at the Shichahai Sports School in Beijing. The Shichahai school is one of China’s more famous sports academies and one of its most visited. Criticisms of its harsh practices have been leveled by visiting Western media and sports figures periodically for more than a decade. China has a huge network of sports schools known for recruiting promising young athletes in the hopes of turning them into world champions.”

… Yang Wei said Li Ning remains as his idol.

“Li Ning has been my idol since I stepped into gymnastics. I have won eight golds in the Asian Games, but I am far behind him in international events,” Yang said.

As a gymnast for 17 years, Li Ning has collected eight golds and 11 medals at the Asian Games. He retired after the 1988 Olympics.

Li Ning still keeps the Chinese record of 14 world and Olympic gymnastics titles, with the closest challenger Li Xiaopeng short of two.

After his retirement from gymnastics, Li Ning built a sports wear and gear company named after him, which is currently the top brand in the Chinese industry of footwear and sporting apparel.

Yang Wei reaches dizzying height in Asian Games – Xinhuanet

At 26-years-old, Yang Wei may now be the favourite for 2008 Olympics.

photo – CCTV.com

On my way to the mountains this weekend, this video tweaked my interest.

In the rush they forgot to mention that Ross Rebagliati, the first men’s Olympic gold medal winner, got his medal returned after having it stripped for testing positive for marijuana. His was the “second hand smoke” defense. His fame (or infamy) led to a big corporate sponsorship deal with Roots.

Click PLAY or watch the video on YouTube.

Want to know more? Check snowboard history – wikipedia

The legendary women’s Olympic coach from SCATS, who trained dozens of international gymnasts, speaks his mind about the new code (he likes it) and what he does NOT like about FIG and our sport marketing.

This is the second in a strong two part interview.

Download the video from Gymnast TV.

Gymnastics Canada Level 1 Introductory gymnastics (4th edition) and companion planning workbook.

Yup. It’s best English language gymnastics book available, in my opinion, succinctly explaining the movement pattern approach of principle author Keith Russell.

The 3-ring binder format allows you to add your own coaching resources.

The Coaching Level 2 and 3 manuals are also recommended though they have weak chapters and have not been revised in many years.

E-mail Gymnastics Canada for current prices as their website shop is “under development”. (Actually it’s been under development for months. Or years. … Don’t hold your breath.)

Far more than 100,000 copies of the Canadian Level 1 have been published making it, I believe, the biggest selling gymnastics coaching manual of all-time. You may find a copy in your local library.

Ruschkin Publishing is currently working on a major revision. I’ve seen drafts. It looks great.

Dave Skolnik of the Timber Lake Family of Camps is already booking coaches for 2007.

The Timber Lake Family of Camps own and operate 3 of the most respected and top quality sleep away camps in the Northeastern United States and we are currently looking for experienced gymnasts and/or coaches to lead our gymnastics programs this summer.

Each camp is a co-ed, traditional sleep away camp that promotes the skills of making and keeping friends while building self-esteem and self-confidence. We pay the highest salaries in camping!

If you are interested, please e-mail me at dave @ camptlc.com or call me at 1-800-828-CAMP for more details.

Dave Skolnik

I like the part about “highest salaries in camping”.

This site promotes gymnastics camps. We think they are wonderful for kids. But the payscale for coaches is lousy at most. You are far better paid working for a club. (Of course you need to factor money saved on food, transportation, etc.)

The Timber Lake Summer Camp Experience!

We’ve just added a “playlist” of our own videos on YouTube.

We have 26 hosted there — good and bad — so far.

You can get to our clips any time from the hand navigation column on this site under videos YouTube.

Here’s the latest — one of my favourite “landing and falling” activities.

Coaches at a recent upgrading course practice climbing as high up a ladder as they dare, then drop to a flat back landing on a big port-a-pit mat.

Click PLAY or watch the video on YouTube.

I’ve heard good things about the Gold Medal Gymnastics video series with Amanda Borden.

But at US$30 each, they are expensive. (The going rate these days is $20, I feel.) Manufacture and distribution should result in DVDs far less expensive than books.

I can’t find the DVDs in my town. Leave a comment below this post if you have watched any of them. There are four in the series: Vault, Bars, Beam, Floor.

They might make a great Christmas present!

Gold Medal Gymnastics Drills: Vault

One of our favourite sites is American-Gymnast.com

They have a “pommel tips” page with equipment recommendations, notes for coaches and video clips.

Here’s an interesting one:

Elbow circles, on a mushroom with a bucket, are a useful way to facilitate the straight body position. This drill allows the gymnast to build muscle memory in the right position.

screenshot

American Gymnast | Training Tips | Technique | Pommel Horse

(Of course you are going to crash once in a while. We would put the mushroom right on the floor to reduce the height of the drop.

The Altadore Gymnastics pommel bucket, by comparison, is excellent, the bucket held by a twisting spotting belt, suspended by link chain. It is easy and quick to change the length of that chain using a caribiner.)

This guy gets a lot of press. I see articles about him all over the internet.

Congratulations.

Ng Shu Wai had blisters on his hands and opted out of the individual all-around finals. And his move paid off handsomely when he vaulted his way into the history books as the first Malaysian to win an Asian Games medal in gymnastics.

Shu Wai bagged a silver in the vault final at Aspire Hall 2 yesterday with a average of 16.487.

It could have been a gold had Shu Wai executed a better first vault.

Ri Se-gwang gave North Korea their first-ever gymnastics gold medal with a flawless second attempt of 16.675 for a winning average of 16.625.

Kazakhstan’s Yernar Yerimbetov, who was fourth in vault in the World Championships and the first to start yesterday, took bronze on 16.300.

Asian Games: Historic silver from Shu Wai