Gymnastics Coaching.com

How many times have we heard this story?

Former gymnast goes on to greatness in another sport.

I just finished telling a friend that Twitter is useless … then I saw this on the Sports Girls Play blog. … Linked from Twitter.

An interview with Damu Cherry-Mitchell (DC)

DC: “First I want to say the God is the reason why I am here and able to do what I do! Without God none of this would be possible! I am a world class 100 meter hurdler for the USA and Nike. I am a 2008 Olympian where I finished 4th. My personal best is 12.44 and my goal is to qualify for the 2012 Olympic team. I have been a professional for 7 years now. Thank you for your interest and I hope that I may be a blessing to others!”

SGP: How old were you when you started competing?
DC: I actually started competing when I was 10 years old as a gymnast! I started competing in track n high school when I was 16 years old.

SGP: Did you play other sports when you were younger?
DC: I was a gymnast for 7 years

read the rest of the Interview with Olympic Hurdler Damu Cherry-Mitchell

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Update. Damu coached, as well, for Brandy Johnson’s.

I’ve been looking at the official 2009 Valeri Liukin Invitational webpage all weekend. (Some great photos.)

But it took Blythe on Gymnastics Examiner to put together a proper write-up of the FIG meet.

Ukraine’s Nikolai (Mykola) Kuksenkov, ninth all-around at the 2009 World Championships, won the Valeri Liukin Invitational last weekend in Frisco, Texas.

Kuksenkov posted the highest scores of the meet on floor (14.8) and high bar (15.4) to finish ahead of runner-up Jonathan Horton of Houston and Takuto Tatikani of Japan. Horton had the highest score of the entire meet on rings (16.1) and tabbed second place finishes on floor (14.7) and parallel bars (15.45) but was as usual outdone on pommel horse (13.0). He finished with an 89.45 all-around total to Kuksenkov’s 90.1. …

click through for more – Mykola Kuksenkov best at Valeri Liukin Invitational

Congratulations to Valeri and WOGA for putting together such an important men’s meet.

The financial plight of Cal State Fullerton Titans Gymnastics is close to my heart. My gym had more girls go to this University, over the years, than any other.

Two teams, one goal, and 2008 U.S. Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin brought Southern Californian gymnastics fans to Titan Gym during the Southern California College Preview.

Click PLAY to hear about the details or watch it on Gymnastike.

Photos and videos of the event are linked from the UCLA website.

(via The Couch Gymnast)

Check out the awesome and unique Hecht vaults starting at 35sec.

I’d never even dreamed of those combinations. GREAT for “block”.

Brandy from GK gymnastics has one of the best attitudes i’ve seen. She seems like she is always having fun and is very coachable. I think she has potential to be one of the best vaulter in the country.

Click PLAY or watch The girl can Vault! on YouTube.

More videos like this on the Gibson Athletics SaltoCafe YouTube channel.

I just got an updated price list from the Canadian distributor of Gaofei equipement from China. Some great deals.

Click through to their website – InspireSportsInc.com – to see prices as well as a line of gymnastics clothing.

Inspire Sports is Liang Cheng and David Sykes, career gymnastics coaches.

I’ve finally had time to look at a wide assortment of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics video clips on new GymDrills.com website put together by Will Vaughn.

I like it.

I wish more coaches would document their favourite drills on video and make them available to the world.

The quality of the drills is high. The quality of the video, average. Some demonstrators show minor form and technical errors.

I was pleased to find some drills I’d never seen before.

The biggest problem with the site, as with (to a lesser extent) the similar American Gymnast Gymnastics on Demand is the navigation. It’s not perfect on either site … but GymDrills has one killer feature. Fill in the SEARCH box with “Pak” and only those videos tagged with that word appear on the resulting list.

The 5 star rating system on each video will be useful when enough users rate them.

I do have a few quibbles with GymDrills.com.

I’m not a fan of the Microsoft .WMV video format. But they do play on a Mac if you get the free Flip4Mac plugin.

The database has great potential for growth too, I think. Seems GymDrills can continue to add new clips into the future. At some point registered users may be able to upload clips.

I like that videos from other sources (even GymnasticsCoaching) have been included. They are free to watch, even if you are not a paid member.

Cost of access to this site is inexpensive:

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

If cost is a big barrier to you, sign up for the free week and watch every video during those 7 days.

I’d love to see GymDrills offer, as another option, a Freemium business model in future.

… offering basic services for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features …

A good sampling of videos could be free. Other videos and services (e.g. chat room) should be available for paid members.

Certainly as of today Gymnastics on Demand is a better service … but it costs $9.95 per month as compared with $3.99 per month for GymDrills.

I think both sites are great!

Both are highly recommended.

Check out GymDrills.com for yourself.

Blythe Lawrence has been posting weekly summaries on Gymnastics Examiner.

I love these.

A few tidbits from the dozens of highlights …

British Gymnastics has hired sports marketing and events agency Fast Track to help it explore how to maximize gymnastics profits and exposure for the 2012 London Olympics and 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Marketing gymnastics? Who’d a thunk it?

The Cal State Fullerton and UCLA gymnastics teams, with special guests Nastia Liukin and Kyla Ross, held a fundraiser over the weekend to support CSUF Gymnastics, which has to raise its entire $280,000 budget this season. The Cal State Fullerton Daily Titan, the student newspaper at CSUF, reports that Liukin denied having a boyfriend during a Q and A with the Olympic champion. The event raised about $15,000 for the team.

Sacramone told Inside Gymnastics Radio hosts John Roethlisberger and Brian Jones that she was working her way back on vault and beam and hopes to add in floor at some point. But the bigger news was the new skills she intends on throwing: A double twisting front layout and an Amanar on vault.

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

Read the rest – The gymnastics week in review

Following last weekend’s Elite Canada competition, here’s the updated list of the top female gymnasts in Canada:

Gardiner
Hurt
Klarenbach
Leblond-Chartrand
Lemieux-Guillementte
Mackie
Meyer
Pegg
Pepin-Gagné
Rogers
Sawa
Unick
Vaculik

Damianova
Dancose-Giambattisto
Willis

Up to 8 more spots are available based on “petition” by the coach.

Can this group qualify for Olympics 2012 as a team? … Or will Canada be relegated to 2 specialists as we were in Beijing?

All of Grace’s photos are posted on GraceClick.com.

Click PLAY or watch her Beam on Gymnastike.

Click through to see Rylie’s Floor routine.

More Elite Canada coverage on Gymnastike.

Senor Nico on the IG forum lets us know that Gimnastika magazine #2 has been published. Of course it’s in Russian.

Viktoria Komova – Talks about her background, rising status, and hopes for the future.

Elena Zamolodchikova – Reflects on her career and how she is enjoying life as a judge.

Alexei Nemov – How he keeps in shape after his career.

Olga Mostepanova – Her role on developing youngsters and how they’re coming along (there’s nothing about her career in the article).

Ksenia Semyonova – Talks about this past year, how’s been dealing with her growth, and what goals she has left to accomplish.

Yury Ryazanov – His last interview before his death.

I can’t seem to open it from the Russian website.

Leave a comment if you find a way to do so.

Related post: new – Russian Gymnastics magazine