Hurdles

A Tale of Two Erins: Excerpts from Academy Meet

Just a couple of things: This is Erin, who just moved into level 4 advanced/pre-team. She hasn't done the routine for very long; and had a private the previous week on it. Last Thursday we combined with Ita's group and spent almost the whole time cranking out repetition.

What's funny is, I think Erin knows the routine a lot better than Gael (the girl she went up with) and yet Erin can't help herself but look over at what Gael is doing. A number of kids do this, and it really throws off their self-reliance. Unless they really are stuck, all it does is throw them off- especially if the other person is stepping with the opposite leg.

What I did notice about Erin's routine are the areas of improvement where she's been having difficulties. I could tell she'd been practicing (apparently, since the Meet, she's been still practicing the routine). She made mistakes other than in the areas where she had been having problems before. So she really did her homework! When we had our private, things she kept messing up on from habit were:

1. Stepping with the wrong leg for the lock, turn, chasse
2. Adding the step kick prior to her handstand to bridge kickover.
3. Turning on the correct leg in the right direction after the quick switch prep for the turn.
4. Doing a rebound right away after landing her backhandspring.

Her dismount was good, even though she didn't hold the pose at the end and was ready to walk off the floor.

~~~

Erin (...er...the other Erin) did part of her level 9 bar routine. She's still working on her shoot-over, but I think this is the first time she did it without a coach standing there (actually, I think she did it the day before, as well), and showed some signs of improvement.

Revving up for Another Academy Meet

Last Friday, Erin did a private to gear up for the Academy Meet on the 29th. She's done well on it, considering she comes only once a week and began the advanced/pre-team class this session. She also didn't start acquiring the level 4 floor routine until a few weeks ago.

A few of the team girls decided to check her out (you can tell she's distracted by that):

She does a right-leg round-off, but when it comes to preparing for the chasse, her inclination is to always step with the left leg. Just needs more drilling. (I often incorporate bits and pieces of the level routines into the floor warmups, across the floor as cyclic patterns, including elements of the beam routine).

Academy Meet After Action Report

I didn't get to really do much filming (too busy working). But I'll spend these next two days posting up some of the things that I did capture. Sunday morning started out with a last minute private. Alyssa has only been in my Saturday intermediate class for a few weeks, and only decided to do the Academy Meet midway through her class the day before the Academy Meet (and was also late to class). She pretty much learned the floor routine this weekend. Running late to her private, she explained her mom had to run to Starbucks. That she always has to stop there, no matter what. I didn't realize before what a funny kid she is. She bombarded me with conversation that seemed random and irrelevant to the task at hand. On vault, after landing her handstand to her back, she tells me, "My arm pits smell." Over at bars, we had a conversation that went something like,

Alyssa: "Can I go tell my crazy mom something?"

Me: "Yes."

Alyssa: "You think my mom is crazy?!?"

Don't you love how she set me up?

Participants were supposed to arrive at 12pm. When Alyssa showed up sometime after 1pm when we were about to march out, I asked her, "Why were you late". She nodded her head matter-of-factly, "Starbucks."

She and Sydney can be somewhat of a pair of misfits when they are together in class. They just bonded from day one; had each other at, "Hello." So it's appropriate that they did their floor routine together:



Here is Janie, doing her floor routine:



I don't teach her, but knew her and her older sister Gracie from when they came to SMGC over summer camp.

Alejandra's come a long way, since the last Academy Meet. Grace and Sophie shown here are "graduates" of my advanced group. It is amazing, to see Grace doing this because she is not the kind of person that gets up in front of a crowd. Learning routines did not come easy to her, either. She was invited to team earlier in the year, but wasn't ready then. Same happened with Emma Shapland who is also now on team.



More to be added later....

Sydney Preps for the Academy Meet

Sydney's an SMGC kid who just started back up this session at LASG. She was very focused today during her private in preparation for the Academy Meet.


After being behind in the music all day, her last two times, she rushed and ended up finishing ahead of it.

This is level 2 music; but not the actual level 2 routine.

Level 4 Floor Example

For my advanced girls, here's random video of Veronica during a private with Hamest, today.



*Update* October 12, 2008 Sunday

Here is Alejandra during a private with Ita. Alejandra was moved up to level 4 team over the summer and worked hard to bring her skill level up to speed. She wins the "most improved award", in my book:



She struggled for soooo long to get her backhandspring. and here she is doing her round-off backhandspring on floor.
Use these as a rough template of the floor routine.

Meet Preparations

A number of kids have been doing private lessons in preparations for the Academy Meet.




Filmed on Monday. This cute little girl can't be older than 5. She was very engaging. I think I saw Yefim talking Russian to her. When Hamest was trying to help her with learning a modified level 2 (or is it 3?) routine, it was difficult not to laugh. Hamest was holding her head in horror, yelling (not like she yells at the older girls), laughing, correcting, laughing, shaking her head, slapping her forehead, scolding, throwing her arms up in the air...

Before I filmed, the kid looked like silly putty as Hamest pulled at one part of her body, then another part to fix positions and then put her into a new position. And the kid didn't move- just allowed to be moved. You had to have seen it to understand how funny it looked.

After I filmed, there was another funny instance where Hamest is yelling at the kid to "leg swing, leg swing" toward the end of the routine...and the girl just kept leg swinging until she was completely off the floor.

She's obviously too young to know what the whole point of all of this is. Should be very interesting at the Academy Meet.

Extra!, Extra!, Read All About It!

LASG's Academy Meet & Expo
fundraising event
Sunday, October 19, 2008 from 1pm to 3pm.
Registration cost: $45
Spectator Admission: $6
Contact LASG for more info

LASG Academy Meet

3 hours of organized chaos is how I'd describe it. I guess it wasn't that bad, but it would have been nice to have been given more directive. As it was, I was only one step above the kids in not being totally confused and lost.

I only took a few clips. Leah Totsubo was my one beginning/intermediate Saturday kid who was nervous about the Academy meet, yet was willing to follow through with this. She only comes on Saturdays, and didn't really learn the routines until yesterday! So she was understandably in an emotional rollercoaster ride when I started to teach her the level 3 routine. She had been on-and-off crying, but started to feel better from the security of familiarizing herself with the routine. But then Ita convinced me that the special routine she had prepared for kids at Leah's level (Leah's actually a bit more advanced than the skill level within the routine) would be easier to acquire, as well as the fact that other kids were doing it. So I traumatized Leah all over again into tears as she had to relearn her floor with Ita, a teacher she hadn't worked with before.

Leah's older sister is in the advanced class after, and I held Leah over her class time to allow her a bit more practice while Heather directed the advanced girls.

Leah was still nervous, but I think seeing how so many girls were out there flubbing their routines yet walking away, still alive, put her a bit at ease.

Her parents let Leah know that the backdoor was open to her, to walk out; that she didn't have to do this. Her mom told me after the meet, that Leah said she had to do this for me. That makes me feel a little bad, that Leah might have felt she'd be letting me down, by not participating.



She did fine, and at the end of the day, she was all smiles with her medal- and much richer and stronger for the experience of participation.


I finally pulled my camera out when Alejandra stepped out to do her floor routine. All the other intermediate girls had done the special routine; and gone up, 4 at a time. Alejandra performed the level 3 floor and had the whole stage to herself.



Even though she made a couple of mistakes, I was duly impressed by what she cleaned up and polished on her own, from our last private together on Friday. It was very noticeable to me, that she did her homework.

When Hannah arrived, her mom told me that Hannah wanted to make sure that I was going to be the one out there helping her with her round-off backhandspring. It was very sweet. She really doesn't need help with it anymore.


I will ween her off, this week.


Emma Shapland's bar routine should appear below, when the upload is done:

She actually had better form here, than usual. So at least she is aware of it. I do not know why she asked for a spot on the single-leg shoot-through.

Last Chance....

The last Saturday before the Academy meet, tomorrow.


Mulan Sweeney:
In spite of all the flaws and sloppiness, I'm duly impressed by how much this 6 year old has acquired and retained, in a short span of practice.

And she's absolutely unphased about the notion of performing in front of people.



Emma Totsubo:
I could not talk Emma into doing the Academy meet. She's better prepared than her younger sister, Leah, yet it's her younger sister who is willing to go out on a limb and do the meet (and Leah was in tears part of the time, in practice today; basically, she learned her routines today, and is justifiably, understandably a bit scared....yet she's agreed to do this!).


Lauren Kelly:
Lauren was sick with the flu about a week ago, and it didn't look like she was going to be able to do the meet, anyway. I know she was very excited Tuesday night and really wanted to do the meet. I think she is supposed to have something going on for tomorrow. Yet today, arriving late to practice, she said she would be here tomorrow. She's probably the best prepared out of my intermediates advanced girls, from SMGC. Keli pointed her out today, and asked when she'd be on team.

Hannah's Thursday Private with Ita

Probably the first LASG kid who befriended me from day one when I began helping Ita with her class, Hannah is shown here training in a private with coach Ita.

Ita was horrified by her "yelling" and "shouting" at Hannah, when I played the video back to her. I think it's the "hearing your own voice" kind of effect. Really, this is rather mild, what's in the video. Her kids are desensitized and used to it.

So I hope she'll forgive me for uploading this video. It's for Hannah's family.




I think it looked pretty good; Ita says it's about 50% of what she wants out of Hannah.

Besides her private today, Hannah took class, and it looks likely that she'll be doing her round-off backhandspring in Sunday's fun meet (yay!).

Alejandra in a 4 hour private!

Alejandra really wants to be a gymnast. She goes to UCLA meets and is "into it".

LASG has their annual "fun meet" this Sunday, which gives Academy kids a chance to show off what they've been working on for their family; and also gives them a taste of what it feels like to perform/compete in a gymnastics meet.

This poor kid has missed quite a few classes for the last two weeks, due to the flu. Her mom was worried that she might still be weak, but Alejandra- who missed Monday class and a scheduled private, begged to come today.

Alejandra began her day with Spring Camp- from 9:30am to 12pm. At 12pm, I arrived for an open-ended private. I thought we might go an hour or two. We ended up doing a 4 hour private, with only a five minute break for an energy bar.

Alejandra had never worked on the level 3 floor routine at all. The only skill in the routine she cannot yet perform is the bridge kickover. Other than that, she just needs to keep getting stronger in her handstands, body shapes, body tightness. Her handstand forward rolls need to get stronger, as well as her backward rolls.

For someone who hasn't worked much in the way of dance elements, she did pretty well. She has a certain knack for presentation, and I think that comes from watching and paying attention to good gymnastics on tv. Something that I found lacking in a lot of my SMGC students, including the team girls (many even have trouble identifying and labeling skills, let alone recognizing gymnastics celebrities and holding them up as sports heroes to emulate).

Anyway, after the 4 hour private "cram" session, Alejandra did her regular 4-5:30pm class! Good job Alejandra! Hope you get plenty of rest. Then it's back to practice, practice, practice!

03/28/08- Alejandra did a 2 hour private today. We added in vault, did some beam and did some floor. We decided to have her bridge down instead of candlestick to a bridge.




Good luck Alejandra!