Gymnastics Coaching.com

Less than 10% of British coaches at the 2004 Olympics were women (despite 40% of athletes at the Games being women) The target for the 2012 London Games is for a minimum of 15% of British coaches to be female.

Source: British Olympic Committee

The Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) has had a direct influence in bringing over £230K of funding into women’s sports coaching with its initial groundbreaking initiative, Women into Coaching-London.

… The funding will be used to give 210 women from across London the opportunity to gain coaching qualifications up to NVQ level 3 in eight sports, including badminton, basketball, cricket, football, gymnastics, rowing, rugby league and swimming.

more funding opportunities for London’s coaches

Women’s Sports Foundation – funding details

Show this to your gymnasts so they can see how far things have come in 40yrs.

gymnastics on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

The overwhelming favourite to win Rhythmics in Rio is out.

Too bad.

… devastating day for Alexandra Orlando who will miss the All Around Final because of an unfortunate accident – broken apparatus (ribbon). At the beginning of her ribbon routine, the ribbon detached completely from the stick. Alexandra had to perform her routine with a broken apparatus, which per the rules is not allowed, despite finishing to a standing ovation from the Brazilian crowd.

The 2006 Commonwealth Champion received a 0 score for her ribbon routine, which removed her from the top 10 despite finishing first in the other 3 apparatus – hope, rope and clubs.

Alexandra will have an opportunity to regroup and perform for 3 Gold medals in the 3 Apparatus Finals on Saturday.

Gymnastics Canada – Gymnastique Canada

Check GymMedia.com for detailed coverage of the event: Pan American Games: Rhythmic Gymnastics Competitions

Two updates on the recovery of injured Chinese gymnast Wang Yan:

… She regained strength in her legs and hands after rehabilitation and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

“She can use chopsticks and the computer now,” said a relative of Wang.

Shanghai Daily | 上海日报

All the best to Wang Yan and her family. We are thinking of you.

Wang Yan, the 16-year-old Chinese gymnast who broke her neck after falling from the bars at last month’s national championships, is making a miraculous recovery.

She’s already said to be lifting her legs and raising her right arm and has been moved out of intensive care. “She has managed to conquer the most dangerous period,” one of her doctors said.

Boston Globe

In the confusing new FIG scoring system, 62+ points is very high.

In a tournament of six countries in the central Italian harbour town of Civitavecchia – ROMANIA won the meet in front of ITALY and FRANCE, followed by CZECH REPUBLIC, SWITZERLAND and EGYPT.

All-around world champion Vanessa FERRARI won with a super score of 62,100 points. On second came NISTOR (ROU), followed by PETIT (FRA).

A big surprise was the fourth placed Swiss Ariella KAESLIN, who achieved the best result of her career …

Comeback of Catalina Ponor

The Romanian three-times Olympic champion, Catalina PONOR made a successsful comeback; the nearly 20 year old gymnast started at three apparatuses only and got top results at vault (14.40) and beam (16.300) and made a very good athletic impression some weeks before the world championships in Stuttgart, Germany …

GYMmedia.com

(via Gym Chat)

But it’s a classic.

Jayd Lukenchuk (Canada) – Taiso Gymnastics Club

Image from Jayd’s Facebook page.

Who is this guy?

It’s Junior, a breakdancer from France. (Thanks Scott and RedRoth.)

His website — http://www.b-boyjunior.com — is not working as I write.

Click PLAY or watch this most astonishing video on YouTube.

Over 1.5 million views, so far.

There are many more videos of Junior on YouTube.

(via Geoffrey Taucer, Coach, Moderator of Chalk Bucket)

There are many things I like about the Canadian Gymnastics System.

But our socialist model stifles entrepreneurs from offering products like this:

Under the direction of Cheryl Jarrett, GEW, Gymnastics Educational Workshops provides a one-day workshop for class instructors.

Our mission is to offer an affordable workshop that provides tools and ideas to improve, educate and motivate gymnastics class instructors to teach recreational and preschool gymnasts.

Gymnastics Educational Workshop has a team of knowledgeable, inspirational and motivating course instructors. It is a great training opportunity for class instructors and birthday party staff!

The lead instructors are top class: Tim Rand, Lynn Moskovitz, Tom Forster, etc.

The clinics are available all over the USA. It costs as little as US$35 / instructor. That’s an amazing value.

Gymnastics Educational Workshops

When are you coming to Canada?

Most of our instructors and clubs will say they “don’t need” to attend your workshop because they are already “certified”.

But I expect we could register enough coaches in any of the major cities to make it worth your while travelling North.

I’m hearing a lot of buzz about the latest Woodward initiative. A camp where athletes can learn snow sports using trampolines, foam pits, safety mats and air bags.

After YEARS of watching snowboards try to learn gainers by flinging themselves off a trampoline into a pit at Adult Recreational Gymnastics class, I am very excited about this venture!

… Woodward will bring its expertise in action-sports training to the snow arena for the first time with several new facilities at Intrawest resorts, the first of which is slated to open at Copper Mountain, Colorado by Thanksgiving 2007.

Camps at Intrawest’s Whistler/Blackcomb and Stratton Mountain will follow successively, with Whistler’s opening as soon as the winter of 2008/09.

… preliminary plans feature a 20,000-square-foot indoor facility, two on-snow Superpipes, and a private terrain park. …

“People are going to start learning a lot faster and spending more time on the hill instead of getting hurt,” says Matt Lindenmuth, who’s heading up the Camp Woodward’s Copper operations. “We’ve got a six-step program for learning tricks that lets people learn them from the ground up.”

Woodward’s signature program starts on the indoor facility’s trampolines, foam pits, resi-pits, bungee systems, and synthetic snow jumps. The next step will take riders to the on-snow park and integrate features such as air bags and other materials to cushion landings before they learn to stomp tricks on snow and ice. …

“We think this is going to be absolutely huge,” says Ben Friedland, Copper’s marketing director. “Not only will those visiting the resort have the opportunity to learn skills quickly and more safely before taking them into our terrain parks and Superpipes, but chances are they’ll be doing it alongside some of the most recognized athletes in the world.”

Woodward Moves To Snow – Transworld Business Magazine

Woodward at Copper Mountain – official website

The other 3 camps are Lake Owen, Woodward West and, the original, Woodward East.

This looks difficult.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Slacklining 360 – GetOutdoors blog)

I had trouble simply walking the slackwire over our pit.