Gymnastics Coaching.com

I just signed up with Team USA News. Like every organization, the American Olympic Committees is trying to get hip with the social media. Cozying up to bloggers, previously scorned. The world is changing.

Actually, anyone can sign up for this offer. If you are an Olympics Junkie, try it.

Sign up now to receive exclusive access information, previously available only to the U.S. Olympic delegation.

You will receive the following insider information during the Games and beyond:

• Daily Report (via e-mail) of the latest sports performances and athletes to look out for in the coming days during the Games

• Mobile text alerts, including updated medal tallies during Vancouver 2010 and invitations to the USOC retail store located at the USA House in Vancouver

• The latest on Team USA hopefuls as they strive for Vancouver, London and beyond.

details – Team USA News

If the last thing you need is more email, or text messages, instead follow the news on Facebook or Twitter.

Meet organizer extraordinaire, Dave Adlard, emailed this year’s list of celebrity Olympians attending the 2010 edition of the Great West Gym Fest in Couer d’Alene, Idaho Feb 19-22nd.

Raj Bhavsar
Courtney Kupets
Mohini Bhardwaj
Misy Marlowe
Stoyan Deltchev
Zdravko Stoianov
Linda Metheny-Mulvihill
Joyce Tanac-Schroeder
Ilian Alexandrov
Rick McCharles

OK, that last guy is a pretender. He only watches the Olympics on TV.

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

If you are not joining us this year, jot down the dates for the 10th anniversary: Feb 25-28, 2011. Dave promises that will be the best ever. The early bird deadline is April 1, 2010. Email funnflip AT msn.com for details.

Great West Gym Fest

… The Olympic torch relay took a daring turn Wednesday evening as two torchbearers tram-surfed with the flame on top of a Grouse Mountain Skyride gondola.

Strapped in a harness and attached to the gondola with bungee cords, Canadian Olympic snowboarder Justin Lamoureux, 33, took the torch up the mountain.

… the flame was passed to former Olympic skier Kennedy Raine, 38, who brought it down, once again riding on top of the gondola. …

Daring torchbearers take ride on top of Grouse Mountain’s gondola

Funny.

Olympic gold medal gymnast Kyle Shewfelt and comedian Rick Mercer “uncover the top secret science behind Canada’s bid to Own the Podium in Vancouver“.

Click PLAY or watch the TV clip on YouTube.

What is Own the Podium?

… or À nous le podium en 2010! in French, is a Canadian sport technical program launched in January 2005 to prepare Canada to become the top winter sporting nation in the world by 2010 …

This achievement will be measured by whether Canada becomes the top medal-winning nation at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, and places in the top three at the 2010 Paralympics Winter Games. To achieve the goals of 2010, the focus of the program is to provide additional resources and high performance programming to Canadian athletes, coaches and support personnel.

This is a follow up to my first glance review from December.

I spent many afternoons looking through hundreds of video clips. This site has a TON of content. Amazing.

One of my favourite clips is this progression for forward whip on Floor. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

One more. A great drill to improve sole circle low to high. The clip shows what happens when the girl misses.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Instead of using elite demonstrators, the performances are realistic to the level of the girls appropriate to each drill. (The clips are not so intimidating when you bring your laptop into the gym and show a drill to your kids.)

Bottom line: GymDrills.com is an excellent new resource for WAG coaches. A good investment for club owners:

• Free per 7 Days (Trial)
• 3.99 USD per 1 Month (Monthly Membership)
• 35.00 USD per 1 Year (Year Membership)

You can now add your own videos to their database.

If members upload 2 approved drills a month or 20 for the year they can get a free membership.

Congratulations to Will Vaughn for putting this together. I’m a fan.

GymDrills.com

Boys are always surprised when the girls in their gym tell them that forward giants are more difficult than backward. After all, most boys learn forward giants first.

Front giants should be less scary for the beginner. And technique is easier than backward giant.

On straps I always teach forward giant first, boys and girls. But on the rail I’ve only managed to get two or three girls to do forward giant first. A proud accomplishment, those times.

Coach Bart won’t have any problems. He introduces the long hang foward swing in under grip to very young kids. It’s like a game to them at this stage.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The girls soon learn that it’s easy to hang on in under grip.

See more on his site – Gymnastics-Skills.com – Front Giant

Tom Beach has added another superb coach to the GymSmarts roster of clinicians.

… Here 2 time USA Men’s Olympic and US Mens National Team Coordinator Coach Kevin Mazeika shows a drill to develop strength for the press and improve your overall core strength.

Click PLAY or watch it on Tom’s GymSmarts blog.

Support GymSmarts.

From photographer Grace Chiu of GraceClick.ca …

Featured on the poster:

Brittany Rogers, Dominique Pegg, Coralie Leblond-Chartrand, Jackson Payne, Sydney Sawa, Kristina Vaculik, Charlotte Mackie, Bianca Dancose-Giambattisto, Nansy Damianova, Nathan Gafuik

March 3-7th, 2010 about Gymnix

Like last year, a (poorly attended on the WAG side) FIG World Cup event will be held concurrently.

CONGRATS to 5 6 Oakville gmnasts chosen to represent Canada at the Jr Team meet: Bianca, Mikeala, Sabrina, Jordyn, Elise and Anni.

Watching the Tkachev montage by MunchTheSilivasFan I was struck by how many different ways gymnasts can pull off a Reverse Hecht.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

You can do a terrible giant, let go, scrape your butt across the bar … and still hang on. The judge will give you credit and possibly not much deduction.

Or you can launch a monster release like Anna Li or Jordan Moore. And likely not get much more credit.

There are two kinds of Tkachevs I admire:

1) Super HIGH … perhaps with not much counter rotation
2) Super counter rotated … with potential to swing a giant or another release in sequence

The best I’ve ever seen at the second kind was Rustam Sharipov. In demos he connected many, many in series.

The highest Jaeger and Tkachev I’ve ever seen were from 1988 Olympian Charles Lakes, coached by Dan Connelly. (Yes, I know release moves are easier on the Men’s bar.)

Click PLAY or watch Charles on YouTube.

In this particular routine he hits the Jaeger perfectly. But his Tkachev I’ve seen much higher. (Unfortunately I cannot find a better one online.)

Leave a comment if you’ve a “best Tkachev” to name.