A cool place for friends and family members of Santa Monica Gymnastics Center to come hang out. So nuke the popcorn in the microwave; Snoopy dance...dance..dance around the room...then pull up a chair, and be prepared to laugh and cry; to feel embarrassed and inspired; and to just sit back, relax and enjoy these music videos.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Go Broadway!
Great moment at North SoCal State Championships last weekend:
I'm glad the judges here have not been afraid to award 10.00s if they feel it is deserved (I believe it was at 3rd prelim that another level 3 from Waller's Gym Jam scored a 10.00 on vault). Congratulations to Alexis and her coaches at Broadway Gymnastics School!
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:
Stepping with the wrong leg for the lock, turn, chasse
Adding the step kick prior to her handstand to bridge kickover.
Turning on the correct leg in the right direction after the quick switch prep for the turn.
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.
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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.
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).
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.
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.
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 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.
