Gymnastics Coaching.com

Featuring Pro Dan MacFarlane, filmed at Woodward Lake Owen, this would be the ideal primer for any acrobat wanting to start training for 2012 Olympics Vert.

The instructional DVD … is currently available in stores like Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, Target, Blockbuster and more.

~ Lake Owen Camp Action Sports Staff

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Skateboarding Explained – Amazon

Skateboarding Explained – official website

Lake Owen Camp

Before 1980, many IOC (International Olympic Committee) members paid their own expenses to attend annual meetings. The administrative offices in the Chateau de Vidy had fewer than 10 staff.

World cities had to be begged to apply to host the Games after the financial disaster that was Montreal in 1976.

Then the boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow.

Then the boycott of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

Ted Turner started the Goodwill Games as an Olympic alternative. (Unfortunately they were discontinued in 2001.)

Finally the L.A. Games in 1984, out of nothing, made a profit of well over US$200 million.

The money began rolling in. By the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the IOC had a gross income of over US$4 billion for the quadrennial.

How did an organization so undemocratic, so un-businesslike, turn it around?

Much of the credit often goes to Dick Pound from Toronto, the front man in the steady stream of TV contracts and sponsorship deals with the world’s biggest corporations.

The definitive book on the subject is award winning Selling The Five Rings: The IOC and the Rise of the Olympic Commercialism (2002) by Barney, Wenn and Martyn.

But if you really want to get angry about the Olympic Movement, pick up the Lords of the Rings books:

The Lord of the Rings: Power, Money and Drugs In the Modern Olympics.

The New Lords of the Rings: Olympic Corruption and How to Buy Gold Medals

As we reported at the time, Anna from the Ukraine won Worlds, one of the few Gold medals not taken back to Russia.

Kaja Harms posted a montage of training and competition footage. Kaja’s convinced that Anna has been underscored by RG judges in the past.

Finally, FINALLY, Anna Bessonova became the World All-Around Champion. The best moment in Rhythmic Gymnastics in 10 years!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’m always talking to people who would love to coach Men’s Gymnastics — but who tell me they cannot find jobs.

… They end up coaching girls.

Here’s your chance, guys.

Tony Smith is looking for two coaches at University of Calgary in Canada to work with him in their tremendously successful program. (Grant Golding, Kyle Shewfelt, Nathan Gafuik, many more)

Both would likely be working with Tony and the Sr. Men’s Team, as well as coaching a group of their own young gymnast. Good possibility for international travel, as well.

Tony would even be happy to mentor an ex-gymnast who wants to pursue a career in coaching.

This is the best Men’s coaching opportunity I’ve heard of this year.

If you want to know more, email Tony: asmit @ ucalgary.ca

RING STRENGTH featuring Jordan Jovtchev is the best video of its kind. Superb.

But Straight to the Bar alerted us to a Ring Push-ups video. With a woman demonstrator.

I LOVE seeing female athletes using rings. They benefit even more than men.

video linked from CrossFit.com

(via Straight to the Bar, Lean and Hungry Fitness, MarkFu’s Barbarian) … These links really make the rounds.

Syracuse University Archbold Gym (Sept. 9, 2005) – Lauren Gresens, 19, Syracuse University Women’s Gymnastics club member, takes a break to catch her breath during her work out warm up. Photograph by Kitt Amaritnant.

photo source – flickr

more team photos

The 1978 World Champion died Dec. 22nd, 2006, 46-years-old.

I had forgotten what a “big trick” gymnast she was. “A flyer, not a flower”, as Bela would say.

This bittersweet montage may bring a tear to your eye.

A montage for Yelena Mukhina, who recently passed away twenty-six years after being paralyzed in a floor accident. You will be missed, Yelena.

thesparkinside

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Related posts:

Elena Mukhina dead at 46

should roll-out skills be banned on Floor?

Blythe, editor of the terrific new Gymblog, pointed us to this video, a well-edited montage of astonishing release moves and dismounts on Horizontal Bar. Includes triple front and triple back pike.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

This is one of over 80 videos posted by theused1786 on YouTube.

Rick McCharles

Just got the schedule of presentations for Spokane. I expect you won’t want to miss my 4 sessions — though there are a few other choices.

Now scheduled is a screening of the best gymnastics movie of all time, White Palms, staring Kyle Shewfelt and “Uldi” Zoltan Miklos Hajdu, the Academy Award nominee from Hungary.

The 2007 Region 2
Coaches and Judges Congress
Spokane, Washington
“Region 2 Rising!”
October 19—21, 2007

For more Information, contact Dave Adlard funnflip @ msn.com
208-664-0135
www.funtastics.org

Related post – partial list of presenters at Congress 2007

I wish I was there, on the glass ceiling atop the CN Tower in Toronto.

Artists from Cirque du Soleil were promoting their new touring show Kooza.

But a National Post reporter was somewhat underwhelmed:

… 1:37 It’s contortion time. Three young girls dressed in full Cirque du Soleil regalia proceed to go through a four-minute routine of bending over backwards, standing on top of one another, and other eye-popping, freaks-me-out-to-watch wonders.

1:40 As far as astounding world records go, it’s all a bit anticlimactic. If one of the circus performers was to do a handstand on the top of the Tower’s needle, that would be breathtakingly awesome. This though? We’re standing on a totally secure floor inside a building. As one unnamed person would later say to me, “If I juggled in an airplane, would that set the record for highest circus act ever performed?”

1:48 I ask the publicist from Guinness what the previous record for world’s highest circus act is. It turns out there is no previous record. This is a new, first of its kind record. Guinness World Record officials will confirm it on October 3. …

National Post

(via Cirque Tribune forum – KOOZA to attempt new Guiness World Record)

Kooza – Cirque du Soleil