Gymnastics Coaching.com

Presumably wanting some buzz like that generated on YouTube by fictional LonelyGirl15, Inside Gymnastics magazine is publishing a blog by Level 9 gymnast … Kelly Clarkson.

(When you go over the top, you might as well go WAAAYYYYYY over the top.)

Here’s a sample of the fiction:

You see, I started out the competition season real strong and got great scores and was ‘the one to watch’ and lately I’ve been, well,…sorta sucking. Like, I’ve choked lately in a few of my routines at my last couple meets. Ugh. I hate even saying that out loud!! I’ve just been second-guessing myself in competition, and then I mess up.

So right now, it’s routine after routine after routine because my next strategy for my next meet (next weekend!!!) is what I’ve been calling my Segment Strategy. Instead of only practicing either full routines and then tons of repetitions of specific skills, I’ve broken up each of my routines into segments and then I do them over and over.

Okay, that doesn’t exactly sound revolutionary, because of course you do passes (like I’ll do my switch-leap pass through to my 1 ½ pirouette) but I’m saying I do the entire segments *no matter what*. So if my beam coach tells me to stick 10 leap passes and 20 1 ½ pirouettes, I actually end up doing 20 leap passes through to my 1 ½ pirouettes. Make sense?

There are tons of different ways to train, but I like trying new things. Whatever helps, right? I’m really just trying to perfect my consistency and my form, so I can be more like some of my favorite gymnasts, like Shayla Worley and Nastia Liukin. So it’s worth a shot. And in the meantime, I’m just trying to be really positive in the next week and not even second-guess myself.

I gotta go now, but I’ll write again soon. Oh and next time, remind me to tell you about Brandon… (hint: that’s the other thing I obsess over beside gymnastics! Ha!)

Check out the “blog” for yourself: Chalk Blog

This might be the only way I qualify for the Olympics.

(Oh, NO. Conversational Manderin is required.)

The Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympaid (BOCOG) will be recruiting some 70,000 and 30,000 volunteers for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games respectively. BOCOG will be extending the volunteer recruitment exercise to overseas Chinese and foreigners.

Interested individuals, who are living outside of China, can submit their applications through the online system from March 2007 …

BE A VOLUNTEER AT THE BEIJING 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES! at Singapore Gymnastics

J. Star, a geek photo nut, put together a set on flickr titled “levitation”.

Acrobats love to fly too.

I recall when Michael Jordan was asked, “Can you fly?”

His reply …

“For a while.”

See the complete levitation set – flickr

Gymbrooke (GymWatch.com) is reporting something incredible to this blogger.

To placate TV, athletes and coaches will not be allowed to blog from the Games. No MySpace. No Facebook. No YouTube. No Flickr.

This is ridiculous and unenforceable. The ruling will never hold.

When thousands of athletes from 42 countries meet at the Pan American Games in Brazil in July this year, athletes will be forbidden to update their blogs or websites during the competition. There will also be restrictions on broadcast of live images on the Internet.

According to the Brazilian newspaper O Dia, all sports federations in Brazil have received an official letter signed by Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the president of the organising committee for Rio 2007. In the letter the federations are told that “no athlete and/or officer of the Brazilian delegation of the XV Pan American Games can act as a reporter, produce text or research for publishing purposes, or report periodically or daily for online-sites on the web during the games.”

The above rules apply to all athletes attending the Pan American Games.

Gymbrooke Sports News » No Blogging from Pan Am Games Rio

What’s next?

The Olympics?

In Australia, the Australian Olympic Committee has already forbidden its athletes to maintain blogs during the Olympic Games in Beijing. …

IOC discusses whether to allow blogs

For the IOC the blogging by athletes is also an issue of concern – particularly in connection with the Olympic Games in Beijing where freedom of speech is already a major topic.

But the IOC has not made any decision yet on what policy to adopt and is waiting for recommendations from national Olympic committees.

source – Play The Game

GymnasticsCoaching.com will be happy to post content from the Pan Am Games.

Rio 2007 Pan American Games – official website

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