Can all of your gymnasts do half twists in sequence up to their maximum number of twists?
Or have any “lost” some of those twists over time due to lack of training?
Click PLAY or watch Denis Vachon on YouTube.
trampoline video game
Dance Dance Trampoline
Slightly Overdone:
For over a year I had been thinking about using a trampoline as a game interface. When I got the opportunity to present an installation at the A.NY Party in the Design Centre De Winkelhaak in Antwerp, the time was ripe to put thoughts into actions. On the 15th of January 2013 I presented the first prototype to 400 creative people, and they jumped to it.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
More info on this project.
paralyzed on double front
This is Aref from Yemen.
He was put in this chair 8yrs prior after a bad fall.
I guessed the skill was double front. Correct. He was doing a skill easy for him, double front from spring board on to a good crash mat. It only takes one over-rotation. Be very, very careful when training multiple fronts. They are by far the most dangerous acrobatic skill.
Aref is doing well in 2013, working with the Yemeni Olympic Committee.
Texas Dreams Bars & Beam
… one of the top elite programs in the U.S., Texas Dreams Gymnastics run by Kim Zmeskal-Burdette and Chris Burdette. This video shows their second training session of the day back in November of 2012 as they worked new skills for the 2013 elite season. …
Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.
MAG – Cal v Stanford
Uncle Tim was there for opening day of the (poorly attended) Battle of California:
Haas Pavilion was packed on Sunday afternoon for the first of five matchups between Stanford and Cal this season.
… Cal lost to Stanford: 425.000 to 411.150. As the scores indicate, it was a rather decisive victory for the Cardinal gymnasts, who basically swept the individual titles as well. (Cal’s Jeffrey Langenstein tied Stanford’s Eddie Penev for the floor title. That was the only first place finish for the Bears.) Generally speaking, if a college team is going to be in the hunt, it needs to score 70 or above on almost every apparatus. Cal, unfortunately, fell short of that mark on five of the six events. …
Even though they lost, Cal has a lot to be proud of. Their team is made up of mostly freshmen–13 of their 20 gymnasts are freshmen–and for their youth, they posted a very respectable team score. …
My biggest concern for both teams is their health. More specifically, I’m worried about the gymnasts’ knees. On floor exercise, the trend is to do a lot of twisting in combination. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of gymnasts twisting right off the ground (a big no-no), as well as many who were still twisting as they’re feet are hitting the ground (an even bigger no-no). Those two things, in and of themselves, are recipes for disaster …
Click PLAY or watch Eddie Penev’s Floor on YouTube.
Team scores from the weekend
Penn State: 446.85 (HOLY MOTHER OF NADIA!)
Illinois: 425.45
Stanford: 425.00
Oklahoma: 423.5
Nebraska: 418.9
Tkachev – Gabby v Nastia
Two Olympic Champions.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Straddle Tkachev is Gabby’s best skill, I reckon.
Canadian Paralympians – Unstoppable
Made for the 2012 Paralympic Games, this ad features a disabled runner making his way past wheelchairs, emergency vehicles and an accident scene, before breaking away into a fast run. It’s an inspiring metaphor for people’s ability to overcome challenges, and one of HuffPost’s most totally favourite ads of the year.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Elizabeth Price on Gymcastic
If you haven’t listened to the new Gymnastics talk show yet, Episode 16 would be a good one to try.
This week we talk to 16-year-old Elizabeth Price of Parkettes. She’s coming off a stellar year, being named alternate to the 2012 Olympic Team, then winning back-to-back all-around titles at the Stuttgart and Glasgow World Cups. Next month, she’ll be joining Kyla Ross, Vanessa Ferrari, Asuka Teramoto, Larissa Iordache and Elisabeth Seitz at the American Cup.
We are joined by special guest-host, World and Olympic medalist and 2011 NCAA beam champion, Samantha Peszek. She gives us her thoughts on the latest news, including Beth Tweddle on Dancing on Ice, Lloimincia Hall’s new floor routine and weighs in on Spanny’s week-one NCAA recap.
related – Sophomore gymnast Lloimincia Hall channels religion in performances:
… Hall’s floor routine against No. 3 Florida, which earned a near-perfect score of 9.95, provided the knockout blow in the final performance of the upset. She finished second overall in the meet with a score of 39.45 and is nationally ranked No. 10 all-around.
Behind her performances is one goal — showing her devotion to Christ. She closed her Florida floor performance by bringing her hands together in a prayer pose before transitioning to Tiger claws. …
“She doesn’t need her music,” LSU coach D-D Breaux laughed. “She improvises all the time. We never see the same routine in practice that we see in competition.” …
elevated bridge
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Ensure that technique is good, hips are stretched, shoulders in front of the hands, before starting to lower the feet.
For the gymnast in the video, I would raise the height of the feet. Her shoulders are not yet over and past her hands.
That was linked by Coaching Gymnastics in the New Millennium.
The comments on that post and the YouTube page are interesting. Tammy Biggs likes to train elevated bridge with feet together AND feet shoulder width (for flyspring).
improving the Code of Points
Couch Gymnast posed this question:
What do you think is the most critical issue in need of addressing with the Code/rules this year and why?
By far the most popular answers were:
• tie-breaker rule at Olympics
• two-per-country rule
Next was the issue of “Artistry”. Rewarding better those WAGs who include interesting and appealing composition and choreography.
My own answer:
Execution scores are “boxed”. The range between average gymnast and best-in-competition too small.
FIG keeps talking about better rewarding “Artistry”. If they simply applied the current Code of Points as written, those gymnasts with good line, technique and form would be rewarded. Problem solved.
The whole point of separating Difficulty judges from Execution judges is so that they would have more time to record the execution deductions. Yet E panels are less discriminating now than under the old Code.
Uncle Tim:
For quite some time, the judges have been rather generous with their execution scores, but it sounds like things are about to change. Steve Butcher, the newly elected head of the Men’s Technical Committee, told International Gymnast that “both [the men’s and women’s] technical committees are working very hard to see their execution deductions applied more stringently in the upcoming cycle.”
read the rest on Couch Gymnast – TCG 2013 Retrospective: Code Concerns
related – Of Feet and Gymnastics….
