Gymnastics Coaching.com

Shout out to my first assistant coach Greg Kolodziejzyk. In the early 1980s, he and I once taught every Rec class in a club of 300 kids.

Greg is still the best Recreation gymnastics coach I’ve ever known. An imaginative genius … who rarely stuck to the rotation schedule.

A guy this talented did not stay in coaching. He made a fortune in the early days of the internet selling fonts to Adobe. Went on to more successful business ventures.

But these days his passion is extreme adventure. He wants “To conquer the world by human power.”

He has several sites including these two:

Adventures of Greg

Pedal the Ocean

Here’s a Discovery Channel interview describing Greg’s world record attempt to cross the Atlantic by pedal power.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

You’ll see he’s still in the testing phase of the home-made craft. Greg’s trip is scheduled to start in December this year, and is expected to take around 40 days.

UPDATE: Just talked to Greg. He is looking at other itineraries, perhaps even Canada to Hawaii. (Much better weather. I’m just saying …)

Good luck buddy!

about Greg Kolodziejzyk

(via Straight to the Bar)

One more thing about Greg Kolodziejzyk. He had the worst “hands” of any gymnast I’ve ever known. Good on horizontal bar, he could rarely train more than 2 or 3 turns in sequence. For competition he psyched up, hit a good routine invariably, and walked away with both hands streaming blood.

We tried everything to protect them. Or toughen them up. But nothing ever worked.

vrba from Slovenia has been following the controversy over how wild card slots are decided by F.I.G.

The big announcement named Artistic gymnasts from Vietnam and Yemen to the last available places. I thought the issue was resolved, at least for this cycle.

Now it seems there is one additional slot available for a man in gymnastics sports.

…

Confused? (I am confused.)

The full list of Olympic Qualifiers is here.

The announcement of the additional spot is here.

Seems I was wrong about one more spot being available. (Though that is the way the FIG page read to me.) And now both FIG pages are “down” for some reason. Will update this when the muddy waters clear.

gymnastics or family life fun

That’s the name of a thread on Chalk Bucket started by gimchick:

Are there any parents that feel like gymnastics take you and your child away from other family members financially and emotionally sometime? I mean you have to travel sometimes without your spouse or other children if any applies to you. Your time at the gym either watching, dropping off, or picking up the girls does not allow much time for homelife other than quick meals, homework, and bathing. I am at the point of calling it quits sometime because I am so tired, overwhelmed and I need a break, mentally, financially, and just time away from (gym) …

Many other parents replied, most mentioning the expense and waste of time driving.

larger original – flickr – wmliu

Click through to Chalk Bucket to see the replies. And to add your own, if you wish.

I love gymnastics. But it’s not worth driving 3hrs a day for most families.

Every coach knows this scenario:

Linked most recently from Gymnastics Crossing.

Related posts:

closing the gym to spectators?

should parents watch sports training?

Dwight Normile on International Gymnast gives a brief preview of possible changes to the Artistic Gymnastics regulations for 2009-2012:

The proposed changes for the men’s Code focus mainly on the juniors, for which eight skills will count toward the A-score. Also, the A-score will be halved for juniors, thus further de-emphasizing difficulty. Other safety measures for juniors include the prohibition of diving elements that end in a roll-out on floor, and saltos to upper arms or bent arms on parallel bars.

A “G” category, worth 0.7, will be added to the difficulty table, and skills listed there include a Ri Jong Song (triple-twisting double back) and Liukin (triple back) on floor, and a Cassina (layout Kolman) and Shahan (Kovacs with 1.5 twists) on high bar.

On rings, swing-to-strength combinations will count as two separate elements if the swing reverses direction (e.g., front uprise to Maltese).

IG

All good, from the little we have heard so far. I’ve been advocating 8 skills rather than 10 for difficulty myself. I should say that I was later convinced by former Canadian Women’s National Coach Claude Pelletier that 6 skills on Floor for women, would be even better than eight. Artistry would become much more important.

No doubt the addition of Junior FIG Rules would be in anticipation of the Youth Olympic Games – Singapore, 2010. FIG does not normally distribute Junior regs.

If you have no idea what this post is talking about, check out an overview of the current judging rules:

… The difficulty value is determined by totaling values for the 10 most difficult skills, which includes the dismount. …

Artistic Gymnastics Judging – NBC

(via Gymblog)

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By the way, IG, when are you going to update your website to provide permalinks to stories? It’s a pain to recommend them to readers the way you have the site set up now.

Blythe on the Gymblog posted an excellent overview of the story, just ended due to injury, of Terin Humphrey:

“… one of the quietest and yet most significant careers of the past eight years has come to an end.”

It was a history lesson for me: Terin Humphrey: The moments

Like many others, I find I know less about Terin than anyone else on the silver medal 2004 U.S. Olympic team. She won silver on bars, as well.

That post links to Terin Humphrey # 3 by Aleksas — The Dream Within. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Tributes to Terin are all over the internet. See photos linked from About.com Gymnastics. I think I saw this story first on GymGemz.

Let me add my thanks to Terin for her inspirational career. All the best in future.

Terin Humphrey – bio – Alabama

Is this guy awesome, or what?

original – American Cup 2008 – flickr – Angela Radulescu

He finished 2nd on Pommels.

The old Russian coach’s comment really got me:

“Forty years of coaching,” Boris said, “and Laura is my best student.

Reminded me why so many of us coach when we could be doing better paid, more boring, work. It’s such an honour to get to work with some of our kids.

He’s talking about 18-year-old Laura Lane.

“She’s my angel,” said her Richmond Olympiad gymnastics coach, Boris Choutkin. …

“She has [he clinches his fists and squints his eyes while searching for the right word in English] tenacity, and as a coach, that’s what you love to see.”

The Choutkins are a demanding pair, capable of driving some girls to tears, in their tireless efforts to induce maximum results.

Lane, for one, never flinched.

“Laura never miss a practice . . . never late . . . never an unkind word,” Boris said. …

Boris is as tough a guy as you’ll ever know, but he becomes misty eyed in evaluating his prized pupil.

“Laura Lane,” he said, “is like God’s present to a coach.”

I don’t know Laura. But with this kind of commendation from a tough coach, I know she will go far.

Congratulations.

During high school, Lane has trained 24 hours a week under the Russian husband-wife tandem of Boris and Larissa Choutkin.

Headed to Auburn: Lane finished 22nd at the 2007 nationals, where she caught the eye of Auburn University coach Jeff Thompson.

Lane will enter Auburn’s nationally No. 7 ranked program next school year with a two-thirds scholarship. …

It helps that Lane carries a 4.8 grade-point average. …

The total gymnast. Dedication and natural ability work for Lane – Norfolk Life

by Rick McCharles

I’m booked, as usual, for both High Performance Training Camps in Couer d’Alene, Idaho. It’s the most fun and unforgettable in-gym camp anywhere.

The line-up of coaches is yet to be announced. But there’s no camp anywhere with stronger, more experienced coaches than at Funtastics. It’s a treat to be there. Coach education seminars are scheduled in the evenings.

Details (CAMP BROCHURE 2008 (PDF)) on HPTCamp.com

coach Rachael Tart

More photos from past HPTC camps.

Host Stanford will be the favourites to win at home.

(I said the same thing about hosts Georgia at home in Athens.)

But the Men’s competition — using modified FIG rules — is far more competitive. Any team that hits Pommels will be in the running. Any team that starts counting falls, could lose the meet.

It was thrilling in Penn State last year where I thought any of 8 different teams might have won. And it will be thrilling in San Jose.

I’ll be there reporting live.

The nation’s top ranked collegiate men’s gymnastics teams are set to compete April 17-19 at the 66th Annual National Collegiate Men’s Gymnastics Championships at Stanford University’s Maples Pavilion. The excitement of collegiate men’s gymnastics returns to the Bay Area for the first time in a decade as the nation’s best compete for team and individual championships.

Participating teams will be announced on April 8.

2008 Tournament Central

Very cool “quick edit” commercial for the meet is well worth watching. Click PLAY or ya dee da on YouTube.

Is gymnastics a cool sport, or what!