#1 British gymnast age-9

Gymnastics In Europe highlights the flexible Champion of British Compulsory Level 4 Finals.

… The winner of the British Compulsory Level 4 Finals was Catherine Lyons who trains at East London Gymnastics Club. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.


Maximum score is 13.5

If you’ve never seen a Range & Conditioning routine, you’ll want to see this vid. (It’s the bit done on hardwood floor.)

A 5th apparatus for the girls.

#1 British gymnast age-9

Gymnastics In Europe highlights the flexible Champion of British Compulsory Level 4 Finals.

… The winner of the British Compulsory Level 4 Finals was Catherine Lyons who trains at East London Gymnastics Club. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.


Maximum score is 13.5

If you’ve never seen a Range & Conditioning routine, you’ll want to see this vid. (It’s the bit done on hardwood floor.)

A 5th apparatus for the girls.

Couch Gymnast – favourite coaches

A good article highlighting some of the more famous coaches she respects and appreciates.

way, here is a list of coaches i have really admired over the years, in no particular order …

Coach: Galina Marinova

Coach: Mihai Brestyan

Coach: Cassie Rice

Coach: Nicolae Forminte

Coach: Ju Ping Tian

Coach: Yevgeny Marchenko

chris and Kim

Coach: Kim Zmeskal Burdette and Chris Burdette

eluse and carol

Coach: Carol Angela Orchard

Coach: Boris Pilkin

Coach: Valorie Kondos Field

Honorable Mentions

Kelli Hill
Amanda Kirby
Liang Chow
Enrico Casello
Lili Cosma
Nataliya Pavlova
Natalya Marakova
Valeri Liukin
Suzanne Yoculan

click through for specific reasons why she likes each: THE COUCH GYMNAST – The Most Important Relationship in Gymnastics

Add a comment to that post if you have someone to add. … Or delete. I spent a few days in the gym with Aussie National Coach Ju Ping Tian, back in the early 1990s. They called her “The Dragon Lady”.

I thought she was far too harsh. And distracted.

WOGAs Sophia Lee – Bars

Sophia is an international elite gymnast from the world reowned World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA) in Plano, Texas. She spends 34 hours a week in training and is currently coached by Laurent Landi and Cecile Cauqueteau-Landi. …

Sophia Lee – official website

Click PLAY or watch her Bars on YouTube.


(via a piked Tkatchev thread on IG forum)

mobile phones in the gym?

A brilliant commentary on a big issue in the world today. Thanks Michael.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click through for more: Coaches don’t let coaches coach drunk…or something like that

Does your gym have a policy on mobile phones? For kids? For coaches?

Leave a comment.

personal gymnastics mentoring by Dee Dee Foster

Here’s something new.

For between $10 – $730 / month, a gymnast can sign on to be mentored by Dee Theriault, who was known as Dee Dee Foster when she won the Women’s NCAA all-around title in 1990.

Or …, you could buy her first book in a planned series. Read an excerpt.

Dee-Dee-Foster-book

Dee also runs Perfect Ten Consulting.

Leave a comment if you know anything about her consultancy.

DivaChampion on Twitter

Kim Zmeskal Burdette: coaching & judging

KimKim Zmeskal was the first American World Gymnastics Champion.

She’s an international judge. And an elite coach / owner of Texas Dreams, often mentioned as a possible future successor to Marta Karolyi.

I watched a coaching presentation Kim put on for Project 2012.

coaching-w-a-judges-eye

It’s very good.

Kim kept it quite simple, too. (Any coach who is a judge is more realistic as to potential deductions on skills.)

For example, pirouette on bars:

Click PLAY to watch the BAD example. Or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY to watch a much better example. Or watch it on YouTube.

In competition we see many more late, deductible pirouettes (the former) than pirouettes close to handstand.

An even better example she showed is Sheep Jump. Either a D-value on beam … or a NOTHING. It’s not devalued.

Judges have gotten much tougher on Sheep this code. Even if the feet are high enough, the feet close enough to the head, the head far enough back … if the gymnast is not extended in the hips, no value.

no value
no value
gets credit
gets credit

There are many more good examples and reminders Kim showed.

She goes over the controversial new landing deduction on Floor: stepping back with 1-foot into lunge position. The good ladies of the FIG never seem to consider safety when they come up with these new interpretations. This rule will certainly cause more injuries. But since it helps the judges separate the top routines in the world, … they adopt it.

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I’ve not yet heard if Project 2012 will be continuing into the Fall. I hope so.

Certainly you can sign up and go back and watch the old presentations archived online any time you want.

… Project 2012: a Web Event for Coaches highlighting the essential techniques for gymnastics success in the next quadrennium. This 12-week event, brings the best coaches in the United States to your computer screen doing LIVE lectures and demonstrations on the most important cutting-edge information in our sport. …

Sessions include 45 minutes of lecture and 15 minutes of question and answer, using live lecture, video, power point.

USAproject2012

homepage – USAproject2012.com

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This project is associated with GymSmarts. Alison Arnold’s site is Head Games.

good memories of gymnastics coach Al Fong

a young Al Fong, full head of hair
a young Al Fong, full head of hair
I’ve heard a few good things about Al Fong. But not many. Most articles read something like this:

Is gymnastics coach Al Fong a changed man?

An ESPN writer tagged him America’s toughest gymnastics coach.

But on the occassion of the 30th birthday party for Al’s Club, Great American Gymnastic Express (GAGE) in Blue Springs, Missouri, I was interested to ready what one of his very first gymnasts and coaches had to say:

Flash back 32 years to a young girl who was in love with gymnastics.

Her name was Yvonne Johnston and she was part of an up-and-coming gymnastics team that was coached by Diane Stockard.

The team’s assistant coach was a young man who wore a bright yellow T-shirt that read “100% Chinese.”

The adoring young gymnast bought a bright yellow T-shirt that read “100% Gymnast.” …

First gymnast has fond memories of GAGE

It’s a very touching story. Click through if you want read some good memories of Al Fong.

(via Gym Chat)

Dance with Arm Weights – Tammy Biggs

Another great video from Tammy.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Gymnastics Minute is a series of free introductory video tips produced by GymSmarts.

Support that company. They produce more quality gymnastics coaching video than everyone else in the world combined.

The Wrist Glove Weights mentioned are part of the Tammy Biggs Workout Package: $138.95 on DGS.

Tammy Biggs equipment set

1-arm muscle-up on rings?

Is it possible?

I think not.

This may be as close as you can get, though.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

official website – Beast Skills

related post – 1-arm kip to 1-arm handstand