Les Jeunes Filles et la Vie

I'm fascinated by the conditioning regimen of the rhythmic gymnasts. I watch some of their exercises and it's just impressive to me how each sport evolves their strength and conditioning routines to train the right muscle groups for what is needed.

I filmed this video one summer camp day in July (30th, to be exact). It's only some of their warm-up and stretching and conditioning routine. Nothing special; not even their best stuff; just a typical workout on a summer day.

I had great difficulty editing this one; so I shelved it; then came back to it tonight (I seem to be on a roll this weekend).

I really need to do more filming, to do it right. There's just so many interesting movements; especially with the ribbon, ball, hoop, and clubs. Lots of originality.

Part of why I wanted to finish this video is that I love the music in it (usually the case with all my videos). It's from a French modern ballet.

Ever since I saw this (probably on HBO) back in the 80's, I was riveted by the opening scene of White Nights. Baryshnikov makes ballet for men look cool. This is probably my favorite ballet piece (given that I'm not familiar with any others).

Below is another interpretation of the modern ballet piece:

Ballet de Roland Petit
musique de Jean Sebastien Bach
Bach Passacaglia in C Minor (for orchestra)
Le jeune homme = Nicolas Le Riche
La mort = Marie-Agnès Gillot

The Happy Athlete

Just love, love, love this kid:

Just love her!

She's always laughing and smiling (except when she's not). Being in a good mood is contagious when in the presence of her infectious personality. Miriam is a perpetual wellspring of cascading laughter and quenching hugs.

She's the happy gymnast!
(Even when she's sad)

Happy Thanksgiving! (Sorta!)

I've known Keli for 5 or 6 years, at least. For some time now, I'd look over at her and notice her doing more sitting than gymnasticking; or looking pensive. I guess it was predictable: Last week she clued me that when this session ends, she was done. She wasn't progressing, and her mind wasn't into it. Tuesday night after Robyn and I were done with our advanced class, she sat down with us and announced it was her last day.

Most of the footage in this film was shot that day:



Keli leaving makes me sad in a way similar to what it felt like to have the gym close down. Same with Gianna (I didn't even know she quit within a session at LASG, until weeks later). I know that it was probably her time to move on; but it's still always sad to have a chapter close; especially when things end on a note like this. She just felt she was wasting her time and her parents' money if she wasn't going to get better and pursue gymnastics in college.

I hope she treasures her memories and the skills she did manage to develop through gymnastics. I remember trying to talk her into moving up to team for a couple of years before she finally left the intermediate level nest. It seemed like her excuse had to do with money; but when I mentioned it to her dad one day, there was no indication of that and she moved up shortly thereafter. It was like he didn't know she had an interest.

I miss the beautiful young woman she almost is ("almost", not because she isn't beautiful, but because she's still breaking out through her teen years) and the scrawny little booger she once was (not that she wasn't always beautiful back then either).

She says she will pursue pole-vaulting. Maybe she can come in and workout once in a while, since p-vaulters do a number of the same conditioning exercises as gymnasts.

I'm thankful for the memories you've given me, Keli- good and bad! Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck and hope you always celebrate life to the fullest. Viva la vida!

Level 4 Team Floor Routines

From last Friday, getting judged on their routines....

What's a Little Competition Amongst Friends?

Anna and Malaika are good friends...and as often as they might root for each other, they just as often are competing fiercely against each other, whether it be for the affections of Malaika's little sister, performance in gymnastics, or national politics (Kimberly described them as having some pretty funny conversations talking about the election and the candidates).

Thursday's advanced class has turned into a mix of senior students, and young newbies who aren't quite up to speed. Robyn handed off the noobs to me the last half of class, and I spent time working on their backhandsprings, mostly from a conditioning standpoint, just to get them to do the numbers.

Anna and Malaika can both do their standing backhandsprings on their own, although it might make some coaches feel like they are witnessing fingernails on a chalkboard. Not a pretty sight. My hope was that the physical conditioning benefits would outweigh any reinforcement of bad technique through doing the repititions. I basically focused my attention on the 3 who didn't have their backhandsprings yet, and just gave Anna and Malaika numbers to do, on their own. When they finished the 20 I assigned them, I wasn't done with helping their classmates yet. So I told them to do 30 more. At first they didn't like that. But once they got into it, and Anna got to 50, Anna wanted to do 30 more. Of course, Malaika wasn't going to let her get away with doing more than her, so Malaika also pursued 30. At 80, Anna decided 80 wasn't that far off from the magic number of 100. I told her she gets bragging rights if she gets to a hundred and would have something to tell her parents about. She was all for that. The girls were alternating off, doing 10 each. But all of a sudden, Malaika wanted to get to a hundred before Anna did. Anna didn't like that at all that Malaika was taking more than 10 turns (at this point they were in the 90's). By the time class was over, I sent Anna to go join the other girls when she finished her 100. It took some effort to get Malaika to leave when she got to 100. She was really afraid that Anna did 110 and I had to do a lot of convincing that Anna only did 100; of course, Malaika still wanted to do 110 so as to top Anna. I forgot what I said now to convince her to go home, but it wasn't easy to get her to stop. Normally, it can be like pulling teeth to get them to "hang in there" and keep working toward the end of class. After 2 hours, these two often get cranky. So I was happy they maintained energy and enthusiasm to the "bitter" end.

The following is a quick video I pieced together. A couple of faces are missing from the vid, for which I apologize. But for the most part, most of the advanced girls are represented (we're working to change the name of the class to distinguish it more as a pre-team group and not the regular LASG advanced classes). I think this is the song Robyn was telling me about. So this is another video for her: