Gymnastics Coaching.com

Randy McMullen is hosting a BIG meet in a SMALL town March 27 to 29, 2009.

2009 MEN’S ARTISTIC, WOMEN’S ARTISTIC, TRAMPOLINE & TUMBLING INVITATIONAL

SASKATCHEWAN WESTERN TRIALS

Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

This all in the same venue.

I often see T&T in the same gym with Artistic. The most difficult multi-discipline meet is co-hosting Rhythmic with Women’s Artistic.

In New Zealand, at National Championships they did it by scheduling Rhythmic and Artistic at different times.

At Canadian Championships 2007 we put Rhythmic at one end of a huge Fieldhouse, Women’s Artistic at the other end. Surprisingly, it worked. You could only faintly hear the music of the other discipline.

Leave a comment if you have experience — good or bad — of combining disciplines at the same meet. Randy is looking for advice.

Prince Albert Aerials Gym Club

I’ve always felt that straight arm press on rings is one of the most difficult skills to teach. You need fantastic planche strength.

A press to handstand is a requirement for a competitive optional ring routine. Here Hideo (Mizo) Mizoguchi shows and explains a couple of drills to learn this important element.

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

Watch more gymnastic training videos on The Gymnastic Minute Channel on YouTube.

Follow them on twitter @gymsmarts

Anna Kovalyova – 1998 International 3 on 3 Champs

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

Kovalyova married 1999 World Champion Nikolai Kryukov, incidentally.

Cheng Xuemin did front handspring, front pike on beam in 2007.

==== UPDATE:

Francesca notes that Natalia Sirobaba did handspring front on beam at the 2002 European Championships. Others have done it, as well, including this fan favourite:

Click PLAY or watch Yvonne Tousek on Beam in the 1996 Olympics AA Finals on YouTube.

Thanks to Sarah and others who remembered Yvonne.

(via Gymblog)

Strange acrobatic artworks.

TALENTED kids climbing the Žižkov Television Tower in Prague … art installation by David ÄŒerný:

Here’s another of Cerný’s bizarre sculptures.

related: Dark Roasted Blend – Nightmare Playgrounds

Stu Cram of Gym Score Depot has just released an updated version of GymScoreLite for Women’s Gymnastic Meets.

– One program for both old and new code
– Use Excel for both Windows & Mac
– Improved calculations
– Better sorting
– Easier to use
– etc

The men’s version was similarly updated earlier.

Any feedback, comments, or suggestions are appreciated. And… Both programs are still free. (Donations are welcome.)

Note – These programs work for most club level meets but do not tabulate team scores or 2-day total scores.

Contact Stu for those options if needed.

Download from Gym Score Depot.

Drăgulescu had a disappointing Olympics in Beijing.

larger version – ProSport

… I have chosen to become a coach. This month I’ll start working with the children’s group at Dinamo, alongside Marius Urzică. I’m not at all apprehensive. I’ve worked with children before, in America,” says one of Romania’s most decorated athletes. ..

…Drăgulescu will remain close to the national team, whose new head coach is NicuÅŸor Pascu, the godfather to his daughter Beatrice. “I’ll go and give Nicu a helping hand.” …

Triple Full – It’s Official: Marian Drăgulescu Has Retired

Triple Full posted another translation, this time a cute interview with Ukrainian Olympian Valery Goncharov.

It’s all good. But the most interesting bits document his courting of now wife Irina Yarotska. (also a gymnast)

Click through to read the comic details:
Valery Goncharov: “I’m Not Exactly Looking for Absolute Tranquility”

Gymnast.com is obviously a great domain name. The site had potential. I was a contributor and a booster.

It’s been down for weeks. And we’re not sure if or when Gymnast will be coming back.

Yet, even with the Olympics, perhaps the site did not bring in enough visitors.

The red line is Gymnast.com, the blue line GymnasticsCoaching.com.

This surprises me. Gymnast should have had much more traffic than this speciality blog.

Data comes from Site Analytics.

Coach Jami recommends we check out the Matrix, a club that opened March 2008.

This 40,000+ square foot facility was born out of the necessity for a state-of-the-art tumbling, trampoline and cheerleading facility in the North Alabama region.

Wow. That’s a huge space that uniquely does NOT offer Artistic Gymnastics.

official website – Matrix

They offer a “drop-in” Saturday class to encourage potential new members to come check it out.

Some word on why one of my favourite gymnastics websites is down.

Gymnast.com was launched by the Wasserman Media Group last year as one of their Sportnet Olympic and Action Sports sites.

I visited the Wasserman offices in Los Angeles last Spring and was very impressed.

USA-gymnastics.org was another one of the Sportnet sites.

I’m hearing that USAG and Wasserman could not reach an agreement on their partnership … so decided they will be parting ways.

Wasserman is no longer running Gymnast.com. That address now redirects to USAG.

I assume the status of Gymnast.com is now under review. Lets hope it is relaunched in the near future.