Gymnastics Coaching.com

A new video from GymSmarts. Must see for every beam coach.

Fresh from training the 2008 Olympic Beam team, Tammy Biggs saw a need to develop an effective set of Balance Beam warm-up drills to improve the weaknesses she saw during the last Olympic Cycle. Tammy’s Beginning Tumbling Beam Complexes is the set of warm-up drills to correct these fundamental weaknesses she designed and is in current use by elite athletes throughout the United States. The DVD includes excellent demonstrations by athletes at Cincinnati Gymnastic Academy and is a must have for any program that needs to improve their Balance Beam performances.

Beginning Tumbling Complex for Balance Beam

more posts tagged Tammy Biggs

Longines has a prestigious award for “Elegance” given to a male and female gymnast at the World Gymnastics Championships. (The guys are less pleased to be elegant than the girls.)

Elsa Garcia Rodriguez Blanca (MEX) and Daniel Keatings (GBR) won at the last World Championships.

Blythe on Gymnastics Examiner, tongue in cheek, riffs on OTHER Longine Prizes she would have awarded in London:

The Longines Prize for Difficulty
The Longines Prize for Embarrassing Fall
The Longines Prize for Graceful Acceptance of Things That Cannot Be Changed.
The Longines Prize for Graceful Acceptance of Things That Cannot Be Changed
The Longines Prize for Longevity
The Longines Prize for Promise
The Longines Prize for Improvement
The Longines Prize for Eye-Catching Fashion Statement
The Longines Prize for Themed Sports Attire
The Longines Prize for Specialization
The Longines Prize for Eye-Catching Tumbling Run
The Longines Prize for Breakout Performance
The Longines Prize for Perseverance
The Longines Prize for Calmness
The Longines Prize for National Satisfaction

click through to see the award winners – Longines Prizes for other things

My Facebook feed is full of athletes and well-wishers talking about travel to the most beautiful city in Russia.

Let me add my best wishes to everyone participating.

World Championships in Trampoline, Tumbling and Double Mini-Trampoline will get underway in St Petersburg (RUS) at the Sports and Concert Complex.

A total of 274 gymnasts (162 men and 112 women) from 32 different federations and every continent will participate in these championships, which feature Individual and Team competitions in Individual Trampoline, Tumbling and Double Mini-Trampoline as well as Synchronised Trampoline events. Great Britain and Russia will be sending the largest delegations (23 gymnasts per country), followed by Canada (22 entries) and the USA (19 participants). Kylie Walker (NZL), and Claudia Prat (ESP), both Women’s Individual Trampoline, will be the only representatives from their countries.

Let’s have a closer look at what and whom to expect:

… read it on the FIG website

26th FIG World Championships – November 11 – 14
19th World Age Group Competitions – November 18 – 21

Click PLAY or watch “Insane Tumble” (2003) on YouTube. (This will get you in the mood for World’s.)

Thanks for the link, Mike.

We’re losing one of the good guys.

Adam Wong of the Calgary Gymnastics Centre, Senior National Team Member and two-time Olympian has announced his retirement from gymnastics and the Canadian National Men’s Team.

“After much deliberation, I have decided to realize and put focus towards my professional goals outside of the sport. …

read more – Gymnastics Canada

Thanks for all the good years, Adam. And congratulations to his primary coaches Mark Van Wyk and Bin Fan.

I’m sensing a bit of a backlash to the pink campaigns that hope to bring attention to the terrible disease of breast cancer, the second most common after lung cancer.

Will buying a pink t-shirt actually reduce the incidence of breast cancer?

Which organizations are actually contributing to the fight against breast cancer? And which organizations are turning a profit in these pink campaigns?

I’d like to follow the money.

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

… (the) “Think Before You Pink” campaign urges people to “do something besides shop.” After explaining that some “pink” sponsors are polluting industrial giants or spend more money on breast cancer-themed advertisements than they actually donate towards research or treatment, BCA asks consumers to reflect thoughtfully on questions like, “How much money was spent marketing the product?” or “What is the company doing to assure that its products are not contributing to the breast cancer epidemic?” This group has particularly excoriated major cosmetic companies such as Avon, Revlon, and Estée Lauder, which have claimed to promote women’s health while simultaneously using known and/or suspected cancer-causing chemicals, such as parabens and phthalates in their products. …

Wikipedia

What if we used photos of women who have had mastectomies instead of pretty pink ribbons?

… Perhaps I’m being too cynical.

Leave a comment if you have a strong opinion this topic.

Related links:

ThinkBeforeYouPink.org

book – Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy by Samantha King

Wow.

If only I could read Russian. This looks terrific.

Issue #1 is posted online. But it’s in one of those new magazine formats that cannot be translated. (Leave a comment if you know of some way to do it.)

Production values are high.

This issue has a lot of Liukins.

I truly hope we can find a way to make it available in other languages.

Thanks Jennifer Isbister for sending us the link.

The URL for the mag is SportGymRus.ru. Leave a comment if you know anything about how we can get our hands on it.

UPDATE: more information in the comments.

I assume some Cheerleading coaches are mortified at being skewered by Sue Sylvester, a character on the hit TV show Glee.

She’s the queen of mean. The new cover girl of Cheerleading coaches.

I love Sue. She’s the best character in the show.

Click PLAY or watch Sue on YouTube.

Become a fan of her Facebook page. Or follow her on twitter.

The Cheer team are the bad girls, of course. … But more embarassing is how they wear their uniform all the time at school.

Losers. ….

Leave a comment to let us know how the Cheer world is handling Sue Sylvester.

A great skill named after a man, French gymnast Jacques Def, on Horizontal Bar is named after Snejana Hristakieva, on Assymetric Bars. She’s woman who competed it first, so far as I know.

Yet I’ve never heard a WAG coach who did not refer to this skill as “Def”. It’s so much shorter and easier to pronounce.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Full In Full Out)

related post: Def on Bars (video by Andrew Thornton)

A terrific edit. Some inspiring content.

Montage of the 60’s to early 90’s.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’ve heard informally of quite a few cases. Some are mentioned on this thread:

Flipper missed 2.5 weeks of gym and school with H1N1. She had seemed to recover by the end of the first week, but was very sick again on Monday – and is still not at 100%. …

Chalk Bucket Forum – Back in the gym

Recall last May that some Dallas Gymnastics Clubs shut down completely.

Will that be happening again soon?

Girls wearing masks to prevent the H1N1 influenza virus are seen at the venue of the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Ise, Mie prefecture, central Japan September 11, 2009.

Reuters – Treehugger

Obama declared a National Emergency in the States.

Leave a comment if your gym is doing anything new to prevent the spread of the flu virus.