Work in Progress

Action begins with a single flapping of a wing

Larisa Lordache (source)

(Photo credit: Volker Minkus/UEG)

Anne Josephson:

Five birds are sitting on a wire. Three decide to fly south. How many are left?

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Sunday Funnies

Marc Jacobs

Maybe it's simply because gymnasts love crossing.

Best answer:

"So she could double back."- Kayln Stensrud

Hot Shot Friday Warm-up Game

It took me a while trace back in my memory where I got the germ for this idea:  I believe it was from observing Coach Robyn at SMGC tasking pre-schoolers to run across the floor and bring her the correct shape she asked for.  They'd bring it to her and lay them on her head.

The Illusion of Self-Concept

In order to know your enemy, remember your childhood, when you were free of self-concept.  As a child, you were pure potential and could learn anything within human capacity.  You had within you the seeds of being a physician, an attorney, an engineer, an expert craftsman, a dancer, an artist, or an Olympian.  It never occurred to you that learning was difficult.  You were free from assumed limitation.

Four-year-old Jenny decided that she wanted to learn to fly.  It seemed elementary enough to her- even birds could do it.  She stood on the couch and jumped, her arms flapping.  Her first attempt was not entirely successful.

Jenny reasoned that since birds have feathers, this must be the missing ingredient.  She found a feather in the yard.  Holding it in her little hand, she leaped again into the air.  She told her father that the feather had "definitely helped."

In letting his daughter attempt to fly from the couch, my friend was allowing her to explore safely her natural powers and limitations.  In this way she was able to gain a balanced, realistic view of her abilities; not one imposed upon her by other people's expectations.  When I asked her father why he hadn't just saved her some effort and explained to her that "little girls and boys can't fly," he replied, smiling, "How could I know?  I might have been wrong."

When you were very young, you were free to learn, open to anything, like Jenny.  As you grew, however, you began to get impressions that you were "good" at some things and "bad" at others- because you were praised and blamed, or because you misunderstood the situation.

It was in kindergarten painting class that I made my first picture of a tree.  It looked like a green lollipop, since it was my first try.  Then I looked around at the paintings of the other children, and to my disappointment, their paintings looked like trees.  I didn't understand that they had drawn many more trees than I.  I didn't realize that, if I continued to practice as much as they had, my trees might look even more leafy than theirs.  But I gave up too soon.  Then and there, I decided that I was not a good painter.

Little Sammy formed a self-concept in another way.  He was reaching for a glass of milk.  Being three years old, he misjudged the distance and knocked the milk over.  His mother, momentarily upset, said, "Oh, clumsy child!"  This word "clumsy" was new to Sammy.  He figured it had something to do with milk.

On another occasion, it happened again- but this time, with juice, "Clumsy!"

"Ah," Sammy reasoned, "It doesn't mean milk, it means spilling that makes me clumsy."  Sammy formed the idea that he was clumsy- and soon, he had several dozen glasses of spilled liquid and a few falls down flights of stairs to prove it.

The undesirability of a low self-concept may seem obvious, since it limits our achievement.  Yet, an unrealistically high self-concept has its own unique problems.  A young child who is praised for everything gets used to being praised.  Praise represents positive energy and attention which all children crave.  He will strive to maintain this praise as much as possible.  He may even develop precocious abilities.  This child's sense of self-worth will depend upon achievement and success.  He expects himself to succeed- and projects this onto the world, so that it seems everyone else expects him to succeed too.  There can be tremendous psychic pressure not to let the world down.  This pressure can create brilliant students, star athletes...and suicides.

Unrealistically high or low self-concept is debilitating.  The best self-concept is none at all.  A child raised in a home relatively free from exaggerations of praise or blame will just take a realistic, experimental, and persevering approach to his pursuits, without undue psychic pressure.  He achieves naturally, in good times, with ordinary enjoyment.


                                            -Excerpt from The Warrior Athlete, by Dan Millman, pg 47-50

1/2 Pirouettes

Very nice:

Hot Shot Handstand Contest

I use a 3 pt system- Last "man" standing (disqualified if you fall over), quality of the handstand, no wobbles on the lunge.

Sunday Funnies

Marc Jacobs

Looking for Different Results

5-1-2014  Coach David with a rapt, captive audience

Overheard second-hand last night:

Coach David with the girls on tumbletrak last night:  "Make sure you point and push all the way through your toes and straighten your legs; make them longer."

Anonymous level 3 gymnast:  "So in other words, don't do it like I normally do?"

Happy Mother's Day

"𝙈𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙂𝙤𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙣." 

- 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗺 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲

I grew up listening to The Carpenters. One song that had always stood out in simplicity and efficacy is one by Henry Mancini called "Sometimes". The lyrics were written as a simple poem by his daughter wanting to express her love and gratitude for her parents. Mancini set it to music. Karen Carpenter brought it to life with her voice.

To all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day. This song always makes me reflect upon my relationship with people; upon how much everyone who has ever crossed my path has meant to me, in one form or another. I feel gratitude and love, even for your simple "Hello"'s.

And I reflect upon my own mother today who has given me everything she could possibly give. I hope I have given her as much happiness in return, and then some.

Thank you, Mom.

Sunday Funnies

International Gymnast February 1991

Happy Mother's Day!

Sunday Funnies

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