Happy Scary Halloween Time!

This is one creepy kid:





And she could use your votes here in a scholarship contest.

The coach is rather horrific himself:



You can thank the heavens that Gangnam style hadn't been invented yet the day this video was being filmed.

What do you call a bat that can tumble?

ʇɐqoɹɔɐ uɐ

Happy Halloween!

Taking a Step Back to Move Two Steps Forward

Thea's competed her shootover to handstand last season; but she's never done it extremely well; and since recovering from her wrist stress fracture, has been sloppy on her high to low bar transition.

She has been turning early through the bottom with a form break and releasing with her chest out.  So I thought we'd spend the time to walk it back through, from the beginning.

 Thea's gotten bigger in the last 2 years and i can no longer simply hold her suspended and paused in the air by using the typically seen spotting method (hand support on hips/waist/thigh).  So I thought I'd try using a technique I'd normally do on the low bar from tap swings as part of the introduction to bails.  I had never tried doing this all the way through from cast handstand, swing down, one-arm drop with pause, carry to low bar.

The great thing about this spotting technique is that It works with larger, older gymnasts (Thea's about as tall as I am now, and densely packed full of muscle) if all you want to do is a drill.

Basically, as she swings down, starting at her wrist, I slide my grip down her forearm, upperarm, over her shoulder to finally catch her under her trapezius when she's semi-inverted.  My arm is buttressed like a shelf so that her body weight is stacked on top (with some of it supported by my other hand on her thigh) and I really don't have to exhaust very much of my bicep strength. 

It's a little tricky at first, and I practiced a few times with her on the low bar before I took it to the high bar and from a cast handstand (and only after I made sure I understood how to get a secure hold on her did I allow her to release with the 2nd hand so that I could complete a full, simulated bail- although I'd say that carrying her to the low bar like that is not necessary).

Eventually, I'll probably hand-spot her with the more conventional method when she's comfortable and ready to release right away again (without the technical flaws and form break). She still needs to improve her consistency on a smooth swing down.

Ouch!

Gym private early Saturday morning:

Thea: "It's cold in here!

Me: "That's 'cause you're wearing a leotard and haven't warmed up yet."

Thea: "At least you have clothes on!"

Me: "Yeah, thank God I don't have to wear a leotard."

Thea: "Yeah well, we can ALL thank God for that one!"

Thea Grit

Happy Birthday, Thea!

Raptured!

Thrill of Victory and the Fun of Defeat

Thea won floor at State Championships for her age division. If not for her two falls on beam, she'd probably also be the All-Around champion and her high marks would have counted toward the team score (Not being mean...I just like giving her a hard time).

Her beam series has plagued her all season. She hit about 4 or 5 for 5 in warm-ups. In every meet this season, she's missed. I wonder what the professional commentators would have to say about it....

Thea's First Yurchenkos

She did 3 by herself for the first time.

Demonstrating Use of the Octagon Bar

Demonstrating a backward roll to hollow push-up (3/4 giant) and a back extension roll handstand to fall flat stomach with the octagonal floor bar.

Backward Roll Ending in Hollow Push Up as Flyaway Drill

I just watched the following backflip ("leaf drop") introduction for little kids, uploaded by Al Fong:

I once did a similar drill setup for a guy who came into LASG for a private lesson on learning a standing back tuck. I believe I started him out with backward rolls on the cheese wedge since he had zero tumbling experience- not even rolls (rather uncoordinated person). Eventually, one of the stations I set up was to put a big octagon barrel in front of the pit and had him jump onto it, landing on his back and rolling off backward into the pit to get used to the sensation of jumping and spinning over backward.

It was my lazy man's way of spotting a "big kid" like him who had quite a ways to go, yet.

When I visited Aerials Gymnastics, Tom Forster showed me from his laptop a similar drill like this for flyaways.

Strangely enough, Thea and I got around to filming the drill just this afternoon:

She isn't executing it perfectly, but we were on our way out the gym when I remembered I wanted footage of this drill. So she dressed back down in her leo and we did a quick take with no rehearsal and only a brief, generalized description of what I wanted; but you get the idea.

Not sure how much I'd actually incorporate this drill into teaching a flyaway. I just found it interesting and might make for a nice additional station. I suppose its value is in emphasizing body shape on the release and open shoulders.

It's reminiscent of the back extension roll on a panel mat, only higher up. I believe Tom's instructor Zach might have come up with the exercise. The emphasis is on getting the gymnast to hit the candlestick shape and pop the shoulders open to simulate the release of the bar. The gymnast lands in a hollow pushup position. I think Tom told me that one drill Zach does for layout flyaway release is when he spots them from the bar, he'll have them land in a hollow push up there as well. There is no concern on the drill for landing on the feet. Just body shape on the release and through the air.

I think another compliment to this would be George Hery's suggestion of using gainers on trampoline as flyaway drill.

Put the two concepts together, and you have your flyaway mountain wall...and also something else that your coach probably shouldn't recommend you try, since we have this thing called "litigation" in this country.

Finding Life's Thrills in Simple Skills

Thursday Shooting Stars, I'm spotting 6 year old Olivia on her cast to back hip circles. After 3 casts, I usually hold her up to check her hollow shape then lower her to the bar to touch her thighs, then push her around in a back hip, placing emphasis on her maintaining the same body shape, throughout.

So this past Thursday, I start only catching her very briefly at the top of her cast for shape-check, then letting go rather than lowering her to the bar, just making sure she keeps shape and lets her thighs come in to the bar. After a few of these- and while still in the middle of one- she tells me, "Wow! I'm getting pretty good at this!"

Then Friday Perfect 10's, I have 4 year old Kaya who's strong enough to do a pull over with her feet off the ground. I decide to push her around the bar in a back hip circle without pause since she's showing me that she can maintain a pretty decent shape. After about the third one, she tells me, "Whoa....it's like a roller-coaster ride." So then I think, maybe I'm pushing her around the bar too fast and go back to carrying her through the skill at half the speed. So then she says to me, "That's too slow."

Reminds me of how Erin Akamine, after I let her do round-off backhandsprings by herself for the first time one Saturday, described the sensation to her mom as "a rollercoaster ride".

Whenever competitive gymnasts begin to lose that sense of why they are in the sport and what they loved about it in the first place, I think it sometimes helps to go back to remembering what it felt like when you got that first "big" skill, like a simple backhandspring. It really isn't quite so simple when you consider how many people on this planet will never experience that sensation and acquire that kind of physical talent.

~~~

Thea told me about a conversation she had with Kort, today:

Thea: "Can I fill my water bottle and go to the bathroom?"

Kort: "That sounds like a really weird combination."

Preview of Thea's Level 8 Floor Routine

This was filmed on January 12, 2010:

UCLA vs. Utah Season Opener

Well, I wasn't planning on going to this. But somehow ended up doing so. I took Thea to it, straight from practice, followed by an hour at the monthly origami meeting. We missed first rotation.

I hadn't been on campus in well over a decade, and to a UCLA meet in probably over 15 years. Things certainly looked different. But I somehow felt at home, seeing familiar faces and the fans.

The energy in Pauley Pavilion, especially on the floor, during Bruin floor routines, was electric!

Besides some other alumni, and seeing Coach (Art Shurlock- whose number Chainey needed, since Chainey wanted to invite him to his induction into the New Mexico Hall of Fame), I also got to see a lot of friends in the local LA gymnastics scene. Thea and I had friends from JAG, friends from LASG, friends from All Olympia, friends from Broadway.

Thea and her Broadway friends were sitting directly behind Nastia and afterward, she was telling me about how excited they all were, how Cydney touched her hair and was never going to wash her hand again. Thea was also thrilled that Waller remembered her name.




























Related:
UCLA – Nastia Liukin Summer Camp
Megan Marsden – Utah co-head coach
college gymnasts more entertaining than elite
Utah Gymnastics – new website
Utah Gymnastics removes provocative photo
gymnastics memoir – Unfavorable Odds
UCLA Gymnastics Over Utah
Miss Val Before the 2010 Season Opener
Choreographing UCLA Floor Routines

Thanks for the plug, Rick!

Kort Gets a Baby for Christmas

Thea got the head coach of Broadway Gym a baby doll for Christmas:

So You Think She Can't Dance?!

Dance and a sense of performance and presentation have never come naturally to Thea. But Tuesday, she received her second floor routine private with Leah Homma. And....wow! Amazing transformation happening.

Thea still doesn't look like she's "dancing" the movements (of course, part of it is that she's still just learning and acquiring the routine); but what Leah is great at is her emphasis on hitting positions and poses, which sort of masks the deficiencies.




Actually, much of what I see in women's gymnastics looks rather technically wooden and robotic to me...fake smiles and bad "acting", rather than performed expressively and effused with passion and personality. But maybe that's just me....

Oksana Omeliantchik, in my opinion, remains one of the most expressive and joyous gymnasts to watch. She sets the bar on what a floor routine could and should be like, as a performance. Especially noticeable during close-ups where you can see her facial expressions, from a raised eyebrow here and an elfin grin there.




Too bad there aren't more closeups during her dance, than what we get at the beginning of this clip.

She has the Strength of 12 Ordinary Mortal Men

Happy 12^th Birthday, Thea! A day late for you; a day early to say it to Robyn.

I didn't really have a video planned at all, but decided today, to scrap one together.

Thea's family made the decision for a change in gym environments, this summer. Overall, she's at peace with the difficult decision of leaving her coach(s) and teammates for the sake of her own growth, opening a new chapter in her gymnastics journey.



I decided to narrow the focus of this video on body-shaping for bars; and also the special role Al has played in training her.

He invested time in "further down the road" skills, planting seeds of L-grip giants, Germans, pirouettes, front giants, and stalders, among others. She's already done inverted giants in the strap bar as far back as 2 years ago, just from starting out with swings, back and forth.

Although I am no longer her coach, I've been sneaking in extra time with her, after practice, to maintain some of the drills she's been doing with Al, including lots of one-arm balances for bar pirouettes, including pirouettes and blind changes and different grip changes.

I'm also trying to help her maintain and improve her strength at doing presses- which seems on the decline (strength for handstand presses aren't stressed over at Broadway).

Knobby knees, bent arms, and posture continue to pose a challenge to her.

Right now, Thea is learning new things and is happy.

Isaac's Dr. Pepper Trampoline "Commercial"

LASG uniforms are a requirement at the School. Since Isaac forgot his t-shirt, he improvised.

It's weird how one finds usage for footage that you had no idea what you'd eventually use them for. In this case, it's Isaac drinking Dr. Pepper. The idea came to me when I was actually filming his makeshift LASG t-shirt and he was sipping his soda; went through my archives, and found a few other clips of him holding a can of Pepper (if I had known I'd be doing this, I could have had the camera linger longer on Thea when she was drinking the same).

When I was growing up, my mom loved Dr. Pepper and I remember the catchy commercial jingles.

Gymnasts + Origami = Gymnagami...or is it "Origamnastics"? "Origymnami"?

Hanging out with a few of my favorite people last Saturday. Click on the photo for more.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Erin, one of Al's jr. advanced girls who moved over into my Thursday advanced/pre-team class made this card for me. Thank you, Erin!

I passed out some origami beating hearts on Thursday, and gave one to Isaac; for some oddball reason, he just couldn't stop laughing and making it beat....

Thea, his sister, knows how to make it now; she's made it to origami library meetings about 3 months in a row, and is getting better and better at folding and flipping.

What do we need to do? Time you two with a calendar?

Of course, many skills often aren't acquired by anything less than on a calendar timeline.

It's funny how some skills come quickly, and others- no matter how seemingly simple- seem to take forever.

Unless you want to sit through 15 minutes of failed attempts, I suggest you don't watch.

Dramatic music for the drama...

A few successes this week...

Erin hasn't done giants since summer, but got them back on Saturday, all on her own.

Alexandra Kroner is a graduate of the old SMGC kinder/intro classes. She did a fronthandspring last week; and this past Monday, I let her do her backhandspring by herself from the trampoline:

Finally...it's about time, Thea:

Thea started hitting full routines right before the Lights Holiday Invitational (she missed a giant on bars, probably nervous about the dismount that would follow). This is from December 2:

Annisa's been borderline on her tramp backhandsprings. Today (yes, the gym was open Christmas Eve!), we took the training wheels off for real and let her do the majority of them, unassisted.

I'll try to add her video clip here, as well.
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