Gymnastics Coaching.com

Here’s a sample post from the new Sports Girls Play blog:

Basic drills and overall body conditioning are part of any athletes’ training – it doesn’t matter which sport. But training basics and doing conditioning can get tiresome for the young athlete – afterall, they are there because they want to have fun! Here are a few of my tried and true techniques for making conditioning fun.

1. Make it a game! This is an easy one – we all know it is more fun to play than work. From relay races, to obstacle courses, if the kids perceive this as fun, you’ll get more out of them.

2. Put the kids in control. One of my favorites is to have the girls start off jogging in a large circle. When I say freeze, I pick a child and she chooses the exercise that she and her team mates will do right then. It may be 25 pushups or tuck jumps, what ever she likes. Then she picks the next girl to choose and they all start running again.

3. Reward effort. My team loves this one. If I see an athlete working especially hard on an exercise during group conditioning I will send them to the “lemonade lounge” to rest, jump on the trampoline or play in the minute until the next exercise is over.

Sports Girls Play – Making Conditioning Fun

Justin Slife recommends you get bar safety straps from 10-0.

This is good deal. (You might spend $50 making them yourself.)

Bar Straps, 8 color coded pairs to denote different lengths. Must be used with PVC tube on T32SB Strap Bar. Used to train over grip, under grip and eagle grip giants. Requires wrist bands underneath bar straps.

bar straps, 8 color coded pairs

Don’t be confused by the 10.0 text above. Certainly they can be used with or without PVC tube (shown on left photo). I prefer without, though both methods are useful. And they can be used on any horizontal bar.

Working eagle grip (el-grip) in straps is possible — but be very, very cautious.

We’ve endorsed Boot Camp before.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who did not confirm that Boot Camp is a great investment. Cost is US$1400-1500 (all inclusive) including “manuals and tons of additional written material”.

Dates for Jeff’s Camps this year are (tentatively):

May 17-21, 2007

November 15-19, 2007

Boot Camp is ideal for anyone who wants to open their own gym in the future.

Check the sample agenda for the 4-day course.

Using “safety straps” to teach bars and horizontal bar is essential for efficient training.

But if you’ve never used them before, you need help getting started.

Working the Strap Bar by Mas Watanabe completes a 3-Disk Bars set. Mas is one of the most influential coaches in the world.

From GYMSMARTS.com, click on the GYMSMARTS TV CHANNEL (new for 2007) to see a preview of this DVD and much, much more.

Cirque has announced their acrobatic and circus arts audition cities for 2007:

London, Melbourne, Sydney, Montreal, Lille, Kiev, Minsk, Las Vegas, Mexico, Pretoria, Cape Town, Berlin, and New York

Dates to be finalized.

With the number of shows growing, you can easily imagine how many new artists we need to fill new roles, serve as permanent or temporary replacements, play back-up positions, etc.

The Cirque du Soleil Casting team is specifically seeking artists in the following disciplines:

Artistic, rhythmic and acrobatic gymnastics, circus arts, trampoline, tumbling, diving, synchronized swimming, martial arts, stunts, extreme sports (BMX, rollerblading, etc.), urban acrobatic disciplines (b-boy/hip-hop, urban movement, acrobat-dancers, etc.).

… Email: casting @ cirquedusoleil.com

Auditions based on video demo evaluation.

casting.cirquedusoleil.com

Physical ability testing programs in WAG (women’s Artistic gymnastics) is a polarizing topic.

For every great coach who swears by one of these program, I can name another great coach who thinks they are a waste of valuable time.

There is actually no divide between great coaches. All the best coaches I know assess young gymnasts with their own battery of criteria: body type, strength, quickness, flexibility, agility, courage, enthusiasm, parental support, etc.

Most elite coaches can assess young children within 10 minutes as accurately as any testing scheme.

The real questions are:

• do we want testing programs to replace competitions?

• do we want inter-club testing programs? Or simply keep it in-gym?

Personally I like to make a “big deal” of physical ability testing only for a year or two. Perhaps the second and/or third year of serious training in the career of each gymnast. It’s part of the education process of athlete and parents.

As soon as possible, actual and modified gymnastics competitions should become more important goals in the minds of coach and athlete.

Many physical ability testing schemes are criticized for being too complicated, too time-consuming and inconsistently evaluated. In my experience, those complaints are valid more often than not.

Physical ability testing is one part of programs that often seem to go by acronyms: TOPS, STEP, LEAP, etc.

I’ve seen good kids quit the sport after a poor result in testing. That’s a shame.

PS

Physical ability tests measure “potential”, not “talent”.

The most successful two Artistic gymnasts out of my Province are Jennifer Wood and Kylie Stone.

Both would fare badly on the FLEXIBILITY component of any testing scheme.

Yet those girls obviously had “talent”.

The best strategy for coaches, I think, is to start many kids in physical ability testing programs — but move them OUT quickly if it gets discouraging. This would be a “promotion” to competitions.

Every gym has some kids who do well in testing, who love testing. Those can stay longer in the testing program before starting to compete.

Note: Technical (skills) ability testing programs are much less controversial. Mosts coaches see benefit in having kids challenged by trying to master a list of evaluated skills and drills.

photo – Marina from Canmore Illusions Gym Club

In the early 1980s we flew Debbie Brown in to choreograph routines for our gymnasts. Debbie did great routines!

But little did we know at that time that she would become one of the most successful choreographers in history.

Debbie’s worked on virtually every Cirque du Soleil creation since 1986. She’s worked with Pavarotti, Aerosmith, Björk, Celine Dion, Madonna and Shakira. In 2002 she won an Emmy for choreography.

Debbie choreographed a twenty-three-minute “bungee ballet” (that I have not yet seen).

Congratulations on your tremendous career in the Arts.

Song and dance, with a twist – Montreal Gazette

For competitive power tumbling, you need a rod floor.

We took down and later set it up again after rearranging the gym for a competition.

To get a look at the set-up process click PLAY, or watch the video on YouTube.

Geoff used the Hilti gun to put a restraining bolt into the concrete. This is to prevent the entire floor sliding forward towards the pit, over time.

“Veteran” is the right word for athletes and coaches who spend many decades at sport. They’ve been through the wars.

One of my first coaches was honoured at a competition last weekend — the Ed Vincent Classic.

Physical Ed – 69 years young (still training 3 times / week)

More photos of the meet posted by Altadore – Flickr

We took photos with other “veterans” of Altadore Gymnastics, including Jim McLuskey who founded Altadore 40-years-ago (… joking as to why the Jim McLuskey Classic competition had not yet been scheduled.)

Jim had the last laugh. He now owns his own club — Mountain Shadows — and took away the women’s team trophy, besting the host club.

UPDATE – Altadore posted RESULTS from the meet

Rob Brown is an Aussie coach and trampoline competitor.

He started in the sport as an adult, quickly developing a “careful, sensible, and safe approach“.

(There are some advantages in starting at an older age in acrobatic sports.)

Rob mentioned to me an important point that often takes years to realize:

My main motivation in coaching is teaching students to reach goals they never imagined possible. Often the less talented can be the most rewarding as they receive the biggest change for the positive in their personal perspective. Seeing them succeed and win is something special, and their smiles are priceless.

For the more elite, being able to give them challenges that they can’t easily solve is interesting. Watching as they learn to approach with respect, so they can find their own deeply hidden talents is rewarding.