Gymnastics Coaching.com

Brittany Rogers of Coquitlam, B.C. leads a strong field in the women’s senior competition at this year’s Elite Canada gymnastics meet December 11-13 in Oakville, Ont.

Rogers, 16, who clearly established herself as the country’s top female gymnast with a stellar showing at the world championships in October, won’t be able to rest on her laurels, however, with both old and new challengers for medals in both the all around and individual event competitions.

“It’s going to be very exciting with the calibre of competition this year, and not just in the senior competition,” says Canadian women’s program director Lise Simard of Gatineau, Que.

“We also have a very strong junior field that we expect will include several competitors who will go on to compete at the 2012 Olympics in London.”

The senior competition will be highlighted by the return to competition of 2008 Olympic veteran Nansy Damianova of Montreal, and Kristina Vaculik of Oshawa, who was selected as the reserve gymnast for the Beijing Games, but was forced to withdraw with an injury. …

Competition begins Friday with novice and senior all around and concludes Sunday with junior and senior event finals.

Gymnastics Canada

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

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

Hey, Brittany’s got that foot crossed “cheat” locked in. I like it. Pressing one foot against the other helps stop them crossing more conspicuously.

In related news Canuck:

Mariah Madigan and Keagan Soehn, Trampoline, Jayd Lukenchuk, Men’s Artistic, Laurie-Ève Pepin-Gagné, Women’s Artistic, Mariam Chamilova, Rhythmic, and their respective coaches, Dave Ross, Ken Soehn, Markos Baikas, Michel Charron and Svetlana Joukova were selected to receive a grant from the Petro-Canada FACE program. …

details

Check out Carly Patterson‘s commercial for the season premiere of “Make It or Break It” on ABC Family …

For an up-and-coming pop singer, getting one of your songs on a HIT TV series can open doors. I hope the tune is featured on the TV show soundtrack, not only on the ad.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The second season of the OMG gymnastics TV show starts in early January.

Update:

… On September 10, 2008, a remixed version of Carly’s “Temporary Life (Ordinary Girl)” was played on the Bobby Bones Show. …

… I’ve never seen it before.

For Aerial Cartwheel and Aerial Walkover.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

George notes that those are furniture sliders or furniture movers, available in the hardware department at major home furnishing stores.

Gillian from Mismo Gymnastics.

Not as bad as it looks. She laughed it off.

Thanks Lizzie.

A good article from coaching legend Mas Watanabe on his GymSmarts Community blog:

The other day I was watching the workout of our level 5 and 7 teams during my break.

The level 5’s were working on vault and they were doing the front handspring drill. The drill was to develop good blocking action by using the under arm swing when they punch the board. I was impressed because the entire group was doing the same under arm swing and all the girls were reaching their hands to the table very quickly. Most of the girls were getting a quick turn over of the body from the board and getting a fairly good blocking action.

Of course their handspring vaults weren’t even close to perfect, but the consistent emphasis of good technique was very evident.

Then I looked over to the bars, there were level 7 girls doing back giants, but some of them were still working on their three-quarter giant.

Here too, I was very pleased to see that all the girls were trying to use a proper tap swing to make the giant. Some of their body positions were not good yet, but the tapping action was there. Also, the girls who were struggling with the three-quarter giant were also using the tapping action to kick stronger and lift the swing higher.

I could tell that they will eventually learn a good back giant if they continuously try that way.

Educating all the staff so they teach the specific technique on key skills is not so easy. Many of the younger coaches do not have much coaching experience. …

read the rest – In-house Staff Education

Mas coaches at the excellent Byers Gymnastics Clubs in California.

How is the Staff training at your gym?

Level 4 Canadian beam clinic 2007

Do you recall the name Tim Dalrymple?

Stanford gymnast in the 1990s? Olympic prospect?

Today Timothy Dalrymple is …

… the manager of the Evangelical Portal at Patheos. Educated at Stanford, Oxford, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Harvard, he writes on religion, politics, culture, and faith.

Sho Nakamura recommended one of his recent articles titled The Olympic Promised Land.

… I knew that my gymnastics career was over — and my own Olympic Promised Land forever out of reach — when a team of men was screwing a “halo” into my skull and a neurosurgeon standing at the foot of my bed informed me that my neck was severely broken. An hour earlier I had walked into the hospital, every footfall sending long needles of pain up and down my spine, and asked for an x-ray. The radiologist gaped at what he saw: a part of a vertebra had slid forward to rest against the spinal cord, and fragments and chips were scattered inside my cervical spine like thorns in the grass. …

After a fusion surgery, I attempted briefly to return to the sport, urged on by a coach who told me that “We all break bones now and then.” Yet the pain grew excruciating, and it became clear that I would live the rest of my life with chronic pain. My career was over, my Olympic dreams finished. And my body was broken and could not be put back together. …

read the rest of this article

Sounds horrific. Yet the article is uplifting. (Sho found the article inspired him to continue his own physical rehabilitation from injury and return to competition.)

… In fact Tim is grateful for what the injury taught him. And how his life was redirected after retirement.

The Olympics, it turns out, was never the Promised Land. I found the Promised Land in that hospital room, and God used gymnastics to bring me there.

This is getting a bit rediculous.

Is this a “new skill” … (double Arabian with 1 1/2 out) … or a truly sloppy double twisting double back.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I wouldn’t give this performance credit for any kind of new skill.

… The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) has been pursuing gymnastics clubs across the country to pay for the music they use …

SOCAN initially tried to get Gymnastics Canada to pay for a national licence. When Gymnastics Canada said no, SOCAN began a telephone and fax campaign at the provincial level. …

read the entire article – Music industry pressuring gymnastics clubs to pay up

I have no sympathies at all for SOCAN’s case. They must find a new model for paying musical artists. This is one tiny piece of a much bigger problem.

Mr. Topp said he doesn’t dispute SOCAN’s legal right to collect the fees, “but to me, that’s similar to asking the parent of a kid at a birthday party for a royalty when playing music for musical chairs.”

In Bangladesh the coaches cannot justify bringing in costly grips from Europe, Japan or the States.

And they currently have no good supplier of less expensive grips.

Though Bangladesh produces a great deal of leather, it is too “stiff” for home made grips. (Like the ones we used when I was a boy.)

larger version – flickr – alexjamessss

Any suggestions for them?

Is there a less expensive supplier in China?

Or … should we simply ship them all the “old”, left-behind grips from our clubs in developed countries? They could mix and match from single grips.

Leave a comment if you have advice.

by site editor Rick McCharles

I’m currently teaching a 9 day gymnastics coaching course in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Do you know it?

Very close to Calcutta, India.

Though Dhaka is a frantic city of millions, we’re housed in the green, tranquil BKSP Multisport Training Centre. That’s 104 acres of lush sporting paradise.

Many foreign coaches have been brought in to Bangladesh. We live in this building.

Right now we have a British Archery coach here for 7 months, two new Judo coaches from Iran, a Canadian gymnastics coach. Coaches from China, Korea, India. All over.

We are treated royally, let me tell you.

Bangladesh is a fast growing economy, devoutly Muslim … but with no security problems. Inside BKSP the religion is SPORT. More than any other place it reminds me of the American Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs.

The gymnastics facility is spacious though the equipment is 22yrs-old from Senoh, Japan. A pit has been “roughed in” but is not yet finished.

I learned of a terrific opportunity this week. If a foreign coach pays their own transportation, BKSP might be able to “host” them. Free meals and board. An Artistic Gymnastics coaches is needed to assist the current coaches. There are boys and girls in this gym.

Kids train 22hrs/wk. Two trainings / day. The school is on site. Most of the gymnasts board at BKSP, as well. It’s an ideal set-up.

If you want to travel … and build your coaching resume at the same time … email me at Rick_McCharles AT hotmail.com for more information.

They are looking for a minimum 3 month commitment.