What's at the bottom of your chalk tray?

I've seen various things end up inside chalk trays- staples, bandaids, paper wrapper, rips....

But unless it was planted there, how do you end up with a piece of junk food out on the gym floor let alone inside the chalk box?

Of course, let's not get started on "What have you found at the bottom of your foam pit?"

Excuse me, but where's the disability again?

You know, I'm watching this and asking myself, "Where's the disability?"

I love the corner move after the first pass where he egg rolls.  It reminded me of some of the stuff you used to see in men's collegiate back in the 70s and 80s when routines didn't look like carbon copies of each other, choreographed solely to fulfill starting values and bonus points.

So nice to see clean basics and the fingerprint of good technique stamped upon a gymnast's every move.

There are a lot more on the British Gymnastics channel.


From 2012:

Sunday Funnies

How Hard Can Gymnastics Be?

WSJ reporter Stu Woo just before the 2012 London Games tested out a few Olympic sports....including gymnastics:

I went to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs last month to get a crash course from John Orozco, the reigning national all-around champion who will be competing for Team USA in London. He performed each event while I stood just a few feet away, trying to stave off blinking because I thought I might never stand so close to something this amazing again.

Then he let me take a shot. I’ll put the results this way: When I got a rough draft of the video, I would watch for about 20 seconds, and then take a break from my desk. I repeated until I got through the four minutes. That’s how embarrassed I was.

I’d like to thank Orozco for walking me through most of the all-around – and, perhaps more importantly, for not letting me do the high bar, which could have damaged my body even more than my self-esteem.

Get a Grip!

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah gymnast Georgia Dabritz doesn't wear grips, resulting in large callouses on her hands. Thursday February 6, 2014 in Salt Lake City.

 Dabritz:

Gymnasts typically use grips on the bars to protect their hands and improve their hold. But Dabritz, who is just 5-foot-1, couldn’t fit her hands into the grips when she was first learning her gymnastics skills.

She tried them again a few years ago and it was a disaster.

"I peeled right off the bar," she said. "After that, I wasn’t dying to try and use them again. I didn’t want to have to relearn all my skills."

Instead, she took the unconventional route and built up callouses on her hands through hours of practicing. There have been plenty of rips and tears through skin, but neither she nor her coaches would have it any other way.

"I don’t know of anyone else who does it," Utah coach Greg Marsden said. "It works for her, so we aren’t going to mess with a good thing."

 Of course, "traditionally", Romanian, Russian, and Chinese gymnasts at varying points have been reputed to not wear grips.  The explanation that seems to be commonly told is that when they are young, they cannot afford the grips; and as they get older and make it onto the international scene by which time you'd think their federation could get them grips, the gymnasts simply aren't used to them and decide to do without.

Video description, posted February 2009:

Read more »

The Sweet Taste of Gripping the Bars

Gymnasts' hands sweat as they swing. A mixture of chalk and a drop of honey, syrup or molasses helps some maintain their grip. Geoffrey A. Fowler/The Wall Street Journal

Everyone seems to have their own favorite recipe/mixture/ingredients:

There's a recipe to winning an Olympic medal on the parallel bars, and the key ingredient is sticky fingers.

Gymnasts' hands sweat as they swing, putting them in danger of losing grip of the bar. They dust their hands with gym chalk to abate moisture. But as gymnasts attempt ever-larger swings, they are on the constant hunt for a little extra help holding on to those slippery wooden bars.

That is how the gymnast's arsenal has come to include honey, molasses, Lyle's Golden Syrup or pretty much any other substance one might serve over pancakes.

~~~

most male Americans in the gymnastic competition, which begins Saturday in London, say they are honey men. Competitors from other countries favor sticky stuff ranging from Karo syrup to Coca-Cola.

U.S. gymnast Danell Leyva recalls a competition in France in which a gymnast used a beer-and-sugar concoction. "I smelled it and said, 'Dude what is that'?" says Mr. Leyva. "All right, whatever works for you."

Japanese gymnasts mix sweet and savory. Takehiro Kashima, a member of Japan's men's gymnastics teams in the 2004 and 2008 Games, says he experimented with his personal brew by adjusting proportions of sugar and water, then moved on to saltwater. He settled on a smear of honey spritzed with saltwater topped with chalk.

"It's odd, right?" he says. "But as you perform, you get this feeling of 'gu gu gu' like something is tugging on your hands," he says, using a Japanese onomatopoeia that denotes a sticking sensation.

Former U.S. national-team member Trent Wells melted gummy bears for competition in the mid-'90s. He says the idea came to a teammate who noticed the candies would stick to things if moistened and then shot out of a slingshot.

Read more »

Warning: Gymnast Could Flip at Any Time

Less than 19 hours left:

Turning with Little Ones

I wonder how the first human on the planet first learned how to do it....

How does one learn a backhandspring when you do not have access to a coach, gym equipment, spotters...

WAG and MAG coaches may be horrified by this- especially technique-wise- but there's a certain sensibility and logic to his progressions.

Sunday Funnies

Embrace Failure

“Because I will recklessly abandon all insecurities and expose my true self to the world. I will become immune to the impact of your opinion and stand naked in a crowd of ideas; comfortable in knowing that while you married the mundane I explored the exceptional.”

- Raymmar Tirado

1 :: Because You Have Not Failed Enough

Because you are comfortable in your mediocrity; because you choose not to try.
Because it is easier to talk about learning that new (programming?) language as opposed to actually learning it.
Because you think everything is too hard or too complicated so you will just “sit this one out”, or maybe you’ll, “do-it-tomorrow”!
Because you hate your job but won’t get a new one; because it is easy to reject rejection.
Because while you’re sitting around failing to try, I  am out there trying to fail, challenging myself, learning new things and failing as fast as possible.
Because as I fail, I learn, and then adjust my course to make sure my path is always forward. Like the process of annealing steel, I’ve been through the fire and pounded into shape. The shape of a sword with polished edges and a razor sharp blade that will cut you in half if you are not equally hardened.

2 :: Because You Care What Others Think About You

Because you have to fit in.
Because you believe that being different is only cool if you’re different in the same way that other people are different.
Because you are afraid to embrace your true self for fear of how the world will see you. You think that because you judge others, this means that those people must, in-turn, be judging you.
Because you care more about the stuff you have as opposed to the things you’ve done.
Because while you’re out spending your money on new outfits, new cars, overpriced meals or nights at the bar, I’ll be investing in myself. And while you try to fit in with the world I’ll make the world fit in with me.

Read the rest.

Hat tip:  Ted Dimas


Related post.

Do what's hard

Of course it's hard.

It's supposed to be hard.

If it were easy, everybody would do it.

Hard is what makes it great.

-A League of Their Own

And always remember that "a path is formed by laying one stone at a time."

Character Counts

  I will always be as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own.

 -One of the personal code of ethics/principles of life Chuck Norris students are taught to engrave upon their character

Reading Anne Josephson's excellent post this morning reminded me of this story, by Coach Charlie Amerose.

In wake of a very successful meet this past weekend,

Thirty times individual JAG athletes took the gold, standing at the top spot of the podium. 94 other times JAG kiddos were on either the silver or bronze spot.  (That equals 124 medals  for those playing along–quite a haul!)

 Anne writes:

Read more »

Sunday Funnies

Source

Congratulations! You almost won!

A couple of weeks ago, Rick linked to an interesting Slate article on the Silver Medal Face:

Academic studies have found that silver medalists are less happy with their reward than the bronze medalists they’ve outperformed. Third-place finishers are thrilled to be on the podium. Silver medalists—particularly those who’ve just lost championship games—are still in the grip of self-recrimination and gold medal envy.

San Francisco State University psychology professor David Matsumoto and Bob Willingham of World of Judo magazine conducted a study of Silver Medal Face by examining photos of judo competitors at the 2004 Athens Games. They found that 13 of 14 gold medalists smiled at the end of their matches. So did 18 of 26 bronze medalists.

The silver medalists were either blank-faced or rueful, and the ones “who displayed something displayed discrete, negative emotions.” On the medal stand, they were much more likely than other athletes to display forced smiles.

Now, a tour of some of the sourest second-place finishers in Olympic history.

Guess who's first up?  Check out the article.

Scientific American:

Psychologists Victoria Medvec and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University, and Scott Madey of the University of Toledo think that this phenomenon can be explained by counterfactual thinking. This means that people compare their objective achievements to what “might have been.”

The most obvious counterfactual thought for the silver medalist might be to focus on almost winning gold. She would focus on the difference between coming in first place, and any other outcome. The bronze medalist, however, might focus their counterfactual thoughts downward towards fourth place.
She would focus on almost not winning a medal at all. The categorical difference, between being a medalist and not winning a medal, does not exist for the comparison between first and second place.

It is because of this incongruous comparison that the bronze medalist, who is objectively worse off, would be more pleased with herself, and happier with her achievement, than the silver medalist.

Rick followed up his post with the following Seinfeld clip:

Gymnastics....Outside....in Winter....What could possibly go wrong?

When I first saw the thumbnail and read the title, I thought I was in for something cool...

There's a lesson there.

Somewhere.


And as my friend Wade put it:  "At least he landed on his head."

Paying Attention...and Letting it Go

Do not dwell in the past, 

do not dream of the future, 

concentrate the mind on the present moment. 

-Buddha

Source:  Uncle Tim Talks Men's Gym

Wendy Bruce and Patrick Cohn:

How do you teach yourself to bounce back from mistakes in gymnastics?

• After a competition, cool down. Allow yourself to reflect on the whole competition, not just the mistake.

• Start thinking about the things you did well in your competition. Did you stick your landings the way you practiced? Did you score really well on vault?

• Start talking about the positive things in your performance. If your parents or friends came to watch you compete, tell them how great you felt after you nailed your Arabian double front.

• When you are in the middle of a competition, don’t focus on the mistake you made in the last skill. Focus on your current skill. Don’t let the mistake dominate your thinking, tell yourself that you can work on it later, but right now you need to wow the judges with your next skill.

• Remember that your performance in gymnastics does not define who you are. Gymnastics is just something you do; you are more than your performance or your mistakes.

Hat tip:  Ted Dimas

Some other worthy quotes to chew on:

Read more »

Zoetrope Gymnast

Here is another one (embed disabled).

Zoetrope.org website:

Zoetrope is an an animated vintage toy that was originally developed in 1830s. The Zoetrope has recently been a major feature in the film, “The Woman In Black” starring Daniel Radcliffe.

This is a modern replica of a traditional Zoetrope. A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures.

The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

Just insert an animation strip, spin the drum and look through the slots. The pictures instantly spring to life! Eagles flap, Orcas dive, frogs jump and more! Change the 18 included picture strips at will. Then, try sketching on the six included Draw-Your-Own strips. Anyone can be an animator! Our Zoetrope’s compact elegance and smooth performance remains unmatched in the world of animation toys. Originally designed by Fred DaMert and Bill Hanlon in 1992 and sold by the DaMert Company, this timeless favorite has been off the market for years. Now, with Fred’s blessing, we’ve proudly brought it back. Not only did we use the original tooling to make this durable plastic toy, we’ve faithfully reproduced and included the original twelve picture strips designed by celebrated animator Ruth Hayes. And that’s not all. We’ve added six NEW picture strips and six “Draw-Your-Own strips!” The included instruction booklet provides a history of this classic invention, explains how it works, and tells you how to bring your own drawings to life.

It doesn't appear to be on the market any longer.  If you're a decent illustrator and like craft projects, perhaps you could make your own?

More from Wikipedia:

A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words ζωή zoe, "life" and τρόπος tropos, "turn". It may be taken to mean "live turning" or "animation".

~~~

The earliest known zoetrope was created in China around 180 AD by the inventor Ting Huan (丁緩). Ting Huan's device, driven by convection, hung over a lamp and was called chao hua chich kuan (the pipe which makes fantasies appear).^[1] The rising air turned vanes at the top, from which translucent paper or mica panels hung. When the device was spun at the right speed, pictures painted on the panels would appear to move.^[2][3]
The modern zoetrope was invented in 1833^[4] by British mathematician William George Horner. He called it the "daedalum", most likely as a reference to the Greek myth of Daedalus, though it was popularly referred to as "the wheel of the devil". The daedalum failed to become popular until the 1860s, when it was patented by both English and American makers, including Milton Bradley. The American developer William F. Lincoln named his toy the "zoetrope", meaning "wheel of life".^[5] Almost simultaneously, similar inventions were made independently in Belgium by Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (the phenakistoscope) and in Austria by Simon von Stampfer (the stroboscope).
The zoetrope worked on the same principles as the phenakistoscope, but the pictures were drawn on a strip which could be set around the bottom third of a metal drum, with the slits now cut in the upper section of the drum.^{[clarification needed]} The drum was mounted on a spindle and spun; viewers looking through the slits would see the cartoon strip form a moving image. The faster the drum was spun, the smoother the animation appeared.
The earliest projected moving images were displayed using a magic lantern zoetrope. This crude projection of moving images occurred as early as the 1860s.
The praxinoscope was an improvement on the zoetrope that became popular toward the end of the 19th century,^[6] displacing the zoetrope for practical uses; a magic lantern praxinoscope was demonstrated in the 1880s.
For displaying moving images, zoetropes were displaced by more advanced technology, notably film and later television. However, in the early 1970s, Sega used a mechanism similar to an ancient zoetrope in order to create electro-mechanical arcade games that would resemble later first-person video games.^[7]
Since the late 20th century, zoetropes have seen occasional use for artwork, entertainment, and other media use, notably as linear zoetropes on subway lines, and from the early 21st century some 3D zoetropes.

Circus High Bar Acts

What happens when you aren't confined to the rules and regulations of your sport?  And are only limited by the laws of physics and creativity instead?  Freedom of innovation happens:

High bar circus acts:

The origins of the circus high bar discipline come directly from men's artistic gymnastics, an apparatus still competed today. The jump from sport to the circus world isn't surprising since high barre is often considered one of the most exciting gymnastics apparatus. The height of the barre combined with the powerful 'Giant' swings, spectacular aerial releases and dismounts give it the speed and danger elements which make for a fantastic thrill circus act. The Circus Guide Entertainment Agency offers high quality high barre acts with anything from 1 to 8 performers in the group, and even acts including multiple high barres with varying heights.

*High Bar Circus Acts for hire! If you would like to hire a high barre act or circus show, please use the reference code in the video title when sending us a request email. The video materials presented below are only a small sample of the talent we represent.

The following is taken from a blogpost I wrote elsewhere, a while back.  I'm posting it here, because it is related to the theme of evolution and innovation:

I cited the following in an earlier post:

Read more »

Sunday Funnies

Handstand Obstacle Courses

Are you any closer today than you were yesterday?

"If you really want to do something, you'll find a way.  If you don't, you'll find an excuse."

-Jim Rohn

The Hunter and the Woodman

A HUNTER, who was not very bold, was searching for the tracks of a Lion. He asked a man who was felling oaks in the forest, if he had seen any lion’s footsteps; or if he knew where the lair might be.  Said the WOODSMAN, “I will at once do you one better:  I will show you the Lion himself." The Hunter, turning very pale and chattering with his teeth from fear, replied, "No, thank you. I did not ask that; it is only his tracks that I am in search of; not the Lion himself."

Read more »