Just Malaika's Imagination

This video is from Malaika's birthday party last September 2nd. It was a lot of fun to work, given the number of kids I knew (former SMGC students) who attended but don't get to see anymore.

Lilly, I think, was shocked to see Teri and I, and disoriented by our presence at LASG (I can't remember, but she said some "funny" and "curious" things about the gym switch, and why we left). I seem to recall her expressing some irk and ire, as though holding me accountable to SMGC's closing.




When we were at SMGC, at the end of her class, Malaika used to always ask me to make her a paper airplane. It was kind of a ritual, like when I used to come in and share my breakfast with Anna.

Madison's comment about the haunted maze in the video's closing credits can be better referenced and contextualized by clicking here. I should revisit that updated video, and prefix it with this clip of Madison, talking about it.

It took me 8 months to get around to doing this video. It just kind of happened accidentally while sitting in front of my computer, Friday morning, perusing my music library files as well as going through video files, looking for pictures to send to those who appear in them. Less than 24 hours later and....whalah! Video made, wrapped, printed!

I miss these kids and am grateful for being able to preserve some of the memories!

Malaika's currently been fencing, and loving it!

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:

Tales of the Weird..."What's that smell?"

Do you smell what ______ is cooking?

Last Thursday, during my advanced class while we were on tumbling, I smelled poo. Not flatulence; but something fierce....like someone baking brownies in their pants. Usually, if it's just gas, I might ignore it; especially if I knew which kid did it by the accompanying trumpet sound. I don't want to embarrass anyone who might be ashamed of it; so sometimes I don't draw more attention to it than is already present. But the smell Thursday night was so suffocatingly gross, I had to throw the question out there: "What in the blue blazes is that smell?!" I then got caught up with the task at hand of spotting and coaching, leaving the girls to figure it out for me as they began mumbling amongst themselves to get to the bottom of it.

I moved down to the other side of the floor to spot anyone who needed it on front handsprings or backhandsprings- whatever it was we were working on. Well, eventually I look down our makeshift runway wondering who's holding up the line as the traffic flow of tumblers stopped; and what do I see: Anna with her nose buried in Malaika's rear-end. I noticed it just in time to hear Anna tell Malaika, "I don't smell anything." Wow. Now that's friendship for ya.

Later on, I smelled the smell again. Not a clue where/who it emanated from. But someone was definitely baking brownies.

The last part of this unsolved mystery is that I also witnessed Anna, later on, holding one of those floppy floor objects (for the pre-schoolers) and fanning Malaika's tushy-bun.

Hmmm.....

Strangely enough, I have this funny clip from Winter Camp 2007 at SMGC I am planning to use in a Malaika video:

Now that I think about it, footage of Thursday's odor problem might have gone nicely with this clip.

Malaika's Birthday Party and Computer Woes

This picture was taken by Neil (father), sent to me by Stacey (mother) from Malaika's birthday party yesterday at the gym. Good to see so many familiar faces.

Lots of fun. I'll write about it in detail, if I get around to making a video. Weird to have a birthday party at the gym on a weekday.

Disappointing for me last night to have lost the greater bulk of videoclips I've taken from 2008, all on one of my external hard drives that somehow became corrupted after trying to reconfigure my windows media player to import music from the hard drive (I recently had my computer "fixed"). Lost some really good stuff, waiting to be made into videos. Entire files were either corrupted or the contents simply vanished. This includes some of my music videos, some of which I do not have copies; so the only existing evidence are the lower resolution videos on the internet.

I recovered a few from the recycle bin, as I was trying to burn some vids for Thea, and disgarded "temporary files" a few times, when they wouldn't all fit on one disc. Thankfully, this includes salvaging copies of Julia's videos and at least one of Erin's.

Modem also broke down last week, so I've not really had a lot of access to the internet. *sigh*

"I'm doing the best I can"

Malaika just kills me. She still lacks a certain maturity, but we moved her and Anna into the advanced class toward the end of last session because their Monday class was filling up with kids below their skill level, and I want to keep them challenged. The first day they tried out the advanced class, I think they both had breakdowns. I know during conditioning, Malaika started building up a straw house of resistance to the class; later on, each had crying moments where they said "I wanna go home!". Can't remember what Malaika's issue was, but Anna got bumped; actually, if I remember that day, we had a number of girls dropping off from getting hurt. It was a weird day.

Malaika is physically coordinated and talented, but seems to operate on half a brain, with the other half on auto, along for the ride. She is soooo inconsistent. She is capable of front handsprings, but each one is so different, I don't think she really understands what it is she is doing. Also, there's a depth perception problem, where she (and she's not alone) can't consistently pace her approach, so that her hands go in the same spot each time (whether on round-offs or fronthandsprings, mounters/flysprings). She also doesn't understand how to tighten up her muscles (or, shows a lack of caring as much as comprehending) so when she lands....well, let's say she has some of the oddest landings I've seen from fronthandsprings; I think the strangest being one over the pit, where she had good push off her hands but her feet still landed in front of her, and she sort of did a back gainer out of it, bouncing off her feet, and plummeted to her head into the foam pit, not onto the mat, meaning she went off sideways after landing rather than staying in a straight line).

Anyway, the kid has talent. This was her yesterday, doing a round-off backhandspring from a step (it'd be disastrous from a run):

She squeezed in that second backhandspring, because she wanted to. I told her "no" when she asked to do two in a row; but then, I said the same thing when she asked if she could do her round off backhandspring by herself. That's because of the quality of her round off (there is no quality there). I let her do her standing BH after her round off, and she eventually made the connection of the two skills all by herself. I know she's got self-preservation sense and won't try just anything, though. So I guess it's nice that she is not afraid to try things when she feels mentally attuned to what she's doing. I'm sure it helped to have her other 3 classmates doing skills: Georgia doing RO BH; Nava doing two in a row; Maya doing RO BH to back tuck.

I've been getting on her case a lot, not accepting behavior and brain farts that I let her get away with in the beginning and intermediate classes. Her favorite defense tool these days is to hang her head and say, "I'm doing the best I can". Initially, it worked on me a few times, and I eased off from coming down on her so much. But then, I started catching on, that I think she's using it as an automatic fail-safe, fall-back line. She's probably been told that anything is acceptable so long as you're putting in your best effort; so whether she's truly trying to do her best or not, she says that phrase as an automatic recourse when she just wants you to get off her back. I think she used to tell me "Give me a break, I'm only 6 years old."

Hmmm...Maybe she's using more of her brains than I've been giving her credit for?

Love Triangle (Tale of Two Sisters)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

What am I talking about? Stacey's private on Friday morning as her little one, Nikita, had her class. Anna and Malaika were there as well, competing for Nikita's affections. They may have been on top of the world a few weekends ago, but yesterday, it was the end of the world.

Stacey wouldn't repeat this for my camera, but while she was bouncing on trampoline, she told me that she was worried that Nikita thinks Anna is her mom.

At the end of workout, it became apparent to me that Nikita must have been saying as much. I filmed her as they were about to leave, and it turned out to be very sad, very charming, with some drama. Had I known, and had I known in advance that I'd be using the song, "It's the End of the World" (Carpenters' version, since I used it in the last video), I would have filmed more- Malaika crying earier when Anna bumped her, saying she wanted to go home; and also at the end when Anna was "stealing" Nikita's affections away from her. It could have made this video soooo much better. But at the time when it was happening, I just didn't think I needed any more footage of Malaika crying (she stated to me that she didn't like her "Bad Day" video). It seemed inappropriate to capture any more of her stormy drama and unflattering tears. But now I'm sorry that I didn't for fun and posterity's sake!



I'm hoping the girls don't see this video until they are older, and above any feelings of jealousy and grudge-harboring.

I tried to get Anna to empathize with Malaika's feelings of apparent rejection as an older sister role model, by asking Anna how she would feel if one of her younger sisters were to show greater loyalty and affection for someone other than her sister. The wheels in Anna's brain seemed to turn ever so slightly...but there was no selfless Sydney Carton moment in her heart, as she said, "...but Nikita wants me..."

Tis a far, far better film that I could have made, than I have ever made before...

Happy Belated Birthday, Coach Teri!

Monday was Teri's birthday, and I know she wanted to try and stop by the gym on Monday to see Anna and Malaika, and how they've progressed. Well, she wasn't able to make it. I had meant to film Anna and Malaika give her a birthday greeting, but forgot.

Fortunately I saw them again this week, as Malaika's baby sister, Nikita, has her class Friday morning, as well as their mom, Stacey.

Happy Birthday to a great teacher, excellent professional photographer, and wonderful human being!

Her website and blog.

Anna and Malaika on Top of the World

So today, Anna and Malaika did an hour shared private backhandspring workshop clinic.

Malaika's done backhandsprings a couple of times by herself with the soft sting mat draped over the pit, a couple of weeks ago. Anna's been close to me not spotting her...it has just been a matter of consistency that keeps my hand there.

They both ended up doing their backhandsprings on different surfaces, by themselves, today. Of course we'll go back to drilling and shaping, but for now, they had a blast being able to experience the thrill of doing a "big skill" by themselves. If I remember that far back, it's an exhilerating, liberating feeling.....the freedom of flight.



I was actually looking for the Shonen Knife cover of the song for this video, but settled on the accidental discovery of my copy of the Carpenters. I grew up loving Karen Carpenter's voice.

Malaika's Bad Day(s)

Malaika's a 6 year old princess whom I have known since at least 2004; maybe longer. She's a pretty strong, coordinated kid in the junior advanced program...pretty athletic; but this video isn't about that.

It's about those breakdown moments in the gym, which aren't unique just to her (remember: videos don't tell the whole truth!). But she certainly does have them, in dramatic fashion.

One of the "best", was when teacher Lilly quit suddenly, leaving Al to teach the junior class. Malaika let loose with the waterworks. Even though she knew Al, she was carrying on about how she didn't want "no strange man teaching me!" Al was short on patience for that sort of nail-on-the-chalk-board drama that day, and I thought he was going to tear his hair out or send Malaika packing. I think she eventually did join the class.

She is an extremely funny kid, crammed full of personality and oddball sayings. It may seem odd and cruel to capture a person's worst moments in life; but this video was made with love and affection; and somehow, recording the drama in a little kid's life can be something that hopefully even Malaika can look back upon and laugh at (or perhaps recognize how ridiculous some of her moments were, and...um...cease and desist, and not carry on so in the future? Yeah, right....).



I did receive Stacey's (Malaika's mom) blessings on this project, at least 2 years in the making. I just had to include the closing credit footage in its entirety; it was worthy enough to stand alone as a clip. Somehow, like the clip of Anna smiling with the orange in her mouth while Malaika is in misery next to her, seeing Malaika crying from a collision in the mommy & me class, contrasted to the summer camp girls singing along to "If you're happy", just seemed deliciously funny to me.

But maybe that's just me.

Here's to posterity and "bad" memories made good!

"Friendship Story"

I've had the idea for this video and the song for quite some time, but only just now got around to bringing it to fruition. Unfortunately, I had to leave a few pieces of footage on the cutting room floor...but I'll just sweep those up and salvage them for a future video, somewhere down the line.

This video is my first experiment in utilizing photos with captioning to help tell a story. It's a bit of a tedious process...almost like stop-motion, but of course, far simpler. You can see the results as part of the opening and closing credits of the video.

Stacey and Jolene bring their two daughters to the intro level class. Instead of sitting on the bleachers, around December of 2004, they decided to do gymnastics themselves, during the time that their daughters, Lilly and Malaika took class.

Stacey had actually been dreaming of trying the adult gymnastics program a year or two earlier, when Malaika was enrolled in the mother-and-me, baby class.

Last year she went through a pregnancy, and still worked out, almost to the end (check out her front flip, 7 months carrying). Stacey has been a very enthusiastic student. Both her and Jolene have some athleticism that has served them well in acquiring their gymnastics skills, basically from scratch.

They were also good sports, back in April, when they participated in the annual Cartwheel-a-thon.

Video is uploading right now....stay tuned.