Quaranteamed

Transformation mechanisms & teaching through entertainment

 I picked up a couple of quick props from the Magic Apple store in Studio City Saturday, after work, for a gymnastics clinic last Sunday.

 I didn't really have time to think through a clever story on how to relate the props (classic breakaway wand and stiff rope) to gymnastics; but knew I wanted to make it a theme about being loose or tight.

 I also used a partially inflated ball and a fully inflated physioball to compare the difference between the two (one being tight and bouncy and the other one not).

 What are some of your favorite props to use, to illustrate a point? Analogies, metaphors, transformation mechanisms....

Sometimes being able to draw the relationship provides for a fun "Aaah! I get it!" moment. Sam Marsh's stick vault:


 


 George Hery tossing a hammer:


 


 Tom Forster with a Judy Kline demonstration of physics:

 


 Wade Petersen demonstrating the restitution and elasticity of the bar:

 


 I heard my kids describe (I wasn't there that day) the same coach stacking a pyramid of parallettes to illustrate the importance of building a strong foundation of basics and what happens if you don't (the pyramid collapsed). Another favorite is bouncing two different balls- one filled to the max with air (tight and bouncy) and one partially deflated (not tight and not bouncy).

Visual aids and the power of imagination:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/653391321411900/permalink/2020707588013593/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/653391321411900/permalink/2321915034559512/

9-20-2019 Gymnastics World, Chatsworth, CA

9-23-2019 Gymnastics World, Chatsworth, CA

I picked up some dog poo prop at the magic store. I've been using the hand placement mat on vault for a hurdle line and tell the kids the mat is dog poo- don't step on it.

 Please share some of your favorites and how you might capture the attention of an audience through entertainment tricks, gimmicks, and physical props.

Why We Stand Between the Rails on Tap Swings

Nine years ago I read this blogpost (I think written by either Jason Mortimer or Troy Wright):

https://thegymcoach.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/girls-peeling-off-the-bar-on-a-tap-swing/

And started standing between the bars for compulsory tap swings. I thought it was a good article. Some interesting comments as well.

Looks like the code was updated several years ago as well for the current cycle so that on bars, coaches can stand in there, "just in case", without incurring a deduction:

http://gymnasticscoaching.com/new/2012/11/safety-spotting-on-bars/

Bar peels happen infrequently enough that’s it’s easy to grow complacent, thinking it won’t happen on your watch. And then when they do occur, it sometimes doesn’t result in injury. However, they happen often enough and with severe enough injuries that coaches should consider the wisdom of standing between the bars as often as possible, “just in case”.

Our girls rarely peel. And yet at a recent meet last month, Coach Arielle caught one of her level 4 kids during warm-ups (keeping her from landing on her head) who peeled coming off a massive backhip circle underswing; and the same day, caught an excel silver kid who peeled off during warm-ups on her counterswing. If Coach Arielle hadn’t taken the issue seriously and elected to be there, those two athletes of ours could have injured themselves anywhere from slight to severe.

Obviously cover safety falls and rolls with your gymnasts; and periodically revisit and review and practice how to fall. Tap swings are tough because of the unpredictability in forces at work upon the moment of peel. Teach them to protect the neck/head; protect the limbs. Obviously, teach them how to tap swing with amplitude and also how to avoid the likelihood of peeling off the bar in the back of the swing.

Where children’s lives are at stake, don’t give into complacency, thinking it will not happen on your watch.

A save by Jason Mortimer:

https://youtu.be/19EH5HQsR14

https://www.facebook.com/TroyWright120/posts/10156572828094988

Another save by Jason Ross:

https://youtu.be/76w7opD02Tk

Apologies for freebooting videos off the 'net without proper credit and source attributions.

Please share your experiences and perspective with us and the community.

-Coach Michael

Lost in Translation

Ever have one of those coaching moments where something just gets lost in the translation between coach and athlete?

Rescue Spotting

Jason Mortimer posted this video:




Not standing between the bars for your basic tap swing/counter swing during level 4/5 bars can result in the predictably unpredictable peel:





The following is a reprint of a post I wrote up on my other blog, from 7/12/2013:

Will she catch her Gienger release?  Or will her coach catch slow her fall?

Sometimes a gymnast will say, "Spot me." And when I do just that, get slightly perturbed when I didn't physically touch her.  "You didn't spot me!"  Ah, but I did.

 Great spotting is an art that takes practice.

There are several different kinds of spots.  Some involve actual physical manipulation on the part of the coach, essentially carrying the athlete through the correct pathway of the skill; others involve some physical guidance or assist on the part of the coach, but with the athlete doing most of the skill, herself; then there's a "shadow" spot, where the coach is there primarily as "moral support".  And should anything go tragically off course, there is "rescue" spotting.  This involves the spotter jumping in there to prevent a potential catastrophic injury from an unplanned fall.

This post focuses on the latter.

So how effective is actual rescue spotting?  What are the chances of a coach actually doing it?  Dr. Sands did a study on rescue spotting.  Here, he also defines different spotting purposes:

Read more »

What do you ask your team at the end of the day?

Typically, at the end of practice, we line the girls up.  And typically, aside from other discussions and comments, the stock one we ask is, "What did you accomplish today?"  Or, "What were you most proud of?"


I think I'm going to adopt these 3 questions and try it out for a while.  May last a week.  A month.  May have permanence.

Gymnastics Center of Hershey: Where Character Counts

There are two stories at play in this post:  One is in regards to level 7 hopeful Renata- a gymnast who moved out here, briefly trained at another gym; and who eventually settled with us a few months ago.  The other story I'd like to relay is a shoutout to the Gymnastics Center of Hershey in Pennsylvania.

Our gym was at Lady Luck over the weekend.  Given we only had one level 7 entrant, I was not needed to work the session; so conveniently showed up at leisure to lend morale support.  I missed first rotation- vault (apparently it went well, as she scored a 9.325 and earned herself a 2nd place finish).

Renata had been struggling with bar giants.  For months.  She could do them well enough on strap bar.  But on the regular rail?  Fergetaboutit.

 Months wore down to weeks away from her first level 7 competition in Vegas.  Weeks wittled into days, and still no giants- perhaps 4-6 makes up until the last week before showtime.

She hit a couple of giants 7 days before the Lady Luck meet.  A couple more over the weekend.  Then the week of the meet, beginning last Monday and her final practice on Wednesday, she finally began making around 30% of her giants.

When I walked into the competition site Friday morning, she was on her 2nd rotation- bars, and did not miss a single giant attempt during warm-ups, as far as I noticed.

As she prepared for her competition routine, I was handed her cameraphone to film.  Since I also wanted to film her routine with my phone, I held both phones in both hands.  Renata being our only level 7, we shared the rotation with another team from the Gymnastics Center of Hershey.  One of their gymnasts noticed me holding both cameras and kindly offered to hold one of them and film.  I felt much obliged to her.

As Renata went through her bar routine, the girls from Hershey Pennsylvania were all cheering for her.  Such sportsmanship certainly isn't a rarity- but I was still impressed as they cheered pretty vigorously- as vigorously as many teams cheer for their own teammates.

Renata hit the best level 7 routine she's done thus far (even her low bar clear hip had some life) and nailed her one giant in the routine.  4th place with a 9.250 which isn't too shabby for someone who didn't have giants 8 days ago, let alone any consistency before the big day.

Success on vault and bars was followed by disaster on beam.  I'm glad I filmed it, because as emotionally embarrassing and painful as it may have seemed to Renata at the time with 3 falls, it really deserves a place of honor in her video scrapbook as a blooper hallmark when she fell on her mount.  Life should always be taken with humor; and Renata was able to laugh about it, later on in the day.

During the beam routine, the Hershey gymnasts invested themselves in Renata's performance, cheering very loudly their support.  It wasn't just a token gesture- they watched with interest from beginning to end.  They cheered for her by name.  They displayed the exact kind of sportsmanship and conduct that I wish to cultivate within my own gym.  It is not easy for many gymnasts to compete as a lone member of their team; and these gymnasts gave Renata the support she needed in the absence of her own teammates.  For that my coworkers, Renata, and myself are entirely grateful to the coaches and gymnasts of the Gymnastics Center of Hershey.  They are not only building strong athletes but building strong people of moral fiber and character.  My deepest admiration for their program.

Region 3 Congress Yurchenko Lecture- Steve Arkell

Region 1 Congress 2015, San Jose August 21-23

Justin Howell's lecture on Round-offs, last session on Saturday- filled up to standing room only capacity.

It's been quite a while since I've been to a Regional Congress. Long overdue for me. The last time might have been back in the SMGC days, when I was not interested in being a team coach. Speaking of which, I had lunch with a former co-worker; and also ran into these former SMGC students, now coaches:

 Rachel is now at the gym Lilly was at before she moved to Chicago.  Angie had a brief opportunity to work with Eddie Umphrey before Eddie gave up his head coach position to be with his fiancee at Airborne.

Speaking of Umphrey, I brought my cohorts over to Chainey's house for some dinner to meet the new addition.

 Prior to seeing them, I asked Chainey if he'd been working out.  He says he runs about "3 blocks" (direct quote) and does some push-ups.  That's about it.  So this is what he looks like as of yesterday:

 I used to get into arguments with people all the time back in college- people who were adamant in their belief that Chainey was taking steroids; or that he must lift weights.  Nope.  None of that.  The only weight he lifted was his own body.  Nor did he do a lot of extra strength training- mostly routines.   He's just a genetic freak of nature. 


I did a lot of videoing, in part to bring back and share with the staff back at home base.  Not sure how much I will share on YouTube and this blog.

My co-workers did not bring their video cameras; but I shared my digital camera (the Casio that can also film in slo-mo and back to normal speed all in one shot) and my iPhone 4 while I used my iPhone 5 (64 gb).  2 extra battery packs.  After each lecture, I'd have 45 minutes to dump the memory into my laptop and would recharge while filming the next lecture.

What kind of perplexes me is how many coaches- even if fairly new- seem unaware of so many drills and concepts that seem easily acquired through the internet.  I guess some coaches don't waste as much time as I do on YouTube; or run detective searches through blogs and social media for content.

I was disappointed that Neil Resnick was not present yesterday for his lectures. 

Everyone has something to offer, though; and I enjoy listening to anyone express their thoughts and views and share their ideas about anything related to gymnastics. 

Bar Basics with Tom Stevens

Swing Big links to a bars clinic by Tom Stevens:

Daisharin Tetsubo-kun Horizontal Bar Gymnast Game tested

This can get slightly addicting.  You don't want to give up until you get the dismount stick (velcro mat).  I've made it happen a couple of times.

I've pulled this out during bars rotation a couple of times for my 3/4s.  If they make a correction on my set of bars, they get to go have a 60 sec turn with this toy.  I'm thinking maybe I should offer a prize for anyone who makes the gymnast stick a landing.  So additional incentive to get more turns on the toy....which means making more corrections/better performance each time they come back around to my set of bars for testing.

New FB page for Gymnastics Drills

Gymnastics Progressions is run by Euro Stars (with Justin Laury). Facebook page for Euro Stars. 

Wonder Twins Unite

This was pure coaching joy. 

These two mini-shots are sisters- twins, to be precise.  And they are in constant competition with one another...bickering....fighting....rooting for the other's defeat.

So last Saturday, I had it in mind for them to cheer for and not against their significant sisterly other.

I told them they were both on the same team; and the challenge was that between the two of them, they had to make 10 back hip circles, combined, in 2 minutes without form breaks.

Now, as you can see from watching the video, I was not totally honest in regards to skill execution quality.  For me, it didn't matter.  They're 6 years old; and knowing their psychology, it would have served more harm than good to be Spartan-knitpicky.  They need the feeling of success.  Without telling them, I judged them each according to individual standards of ability in performing the skill (one is further along than the other).  Yes, I manipulated the battle space and inconsistently called out points and misses; and brought it all to a dramatic end- a race against the clock.  I was manipulative in the same spirit as we talk up the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus to little kids.

The focus here was more on teamwork and team spirit; on nurturing their bond and cultivating a sense of self and other accomplishment.

Sadly, I shut off the camera too soon and missed capturing their sisterly hug at the end.

One size never fits all

Good piece at the Hybrid Perspective:

If we give 20 girls the same assignment for strength, we are assuming that they are all at the same level of strength/capability/technical level, etc. The reality of the situation is that that this is rarely the case across all your strength and conditioning exercises. You create a situation where the more developed or stronger athlete’s won’t get any benefit, and at the same time we may be promoting compensation/lack of benefit for under developed athletes. I feel we need to use regressions or progressions in order to get people in their “Goldilocks” window for strength and conditioning.  If we are just blanketing an general strength program of 3 sets of 10 handstand push ups or 40 leg lifts on a huge group with differences between them, I think it’s a recipe for disaster both in terms of safety and missing out on athletic performance development.

~~~

I’m not sure why so many gymnastics programs still demand uniformity with their strength where everyone does the same exercise despite the large gaps in ability. The one argument I can see for this uniform type is to monitor the gymnasts and keep an eye on quality.

Read the whole article.

Geddert on form and execution/quality over quantity:

Happy Thanksgiving

Source

I posted the following last Thanksgiving.

Here is another telling of the "turkey person" story:

Bill Courtney has a book out, "Against the Grain".

Leave the Coaching to the Coaches

Former Olympian, Wendy Bruce Martin:

I made sure that she wasn’t fooling around during practice and that she listened to her coach. So when I saw her fooling around I would yell across the pool “stop fooling around and listen to your coach”. (Yelling at my daughter from across the pool did NOT make her listen to her coach, it made her turn her attention to me and wonder what the heck I was trying to tell her). She of course couldn’t hear me, so I moved my chair close to the diving boards. One month later my daughter was improving at an accelerated rate. She moved her dives up to a higher diving board. My daughter walked right up to the 10 ft. diving board and got in position. She did an amazing front dive. I could feel myself fill up with pride. That was MY daughter. Every dive she did seemed perfect to me and she kept proving to me that she had a chance of making an Olympic team. I was in a cloud. She made me feel like I was a better mom. I wasn’t just a mom; I was a mom of a child prodigy. I created that, I was a supermom. I checked into more diving classes, I talked to her coach about future plans, and I bought her new swimsuits without ruffles. It was time to get serious.

Read the post.

*UPDATE* 12/1/2014

Comment #65 at ChalkBucket Forum:

Since we stopped talking about gymnastics her enjoyment of the sport has multiplied 10 fold! I previously wanted to know everything and actually thought I was helping. The breaking point for me was at the end of a practice when I caught myself "coaching" my daughter on beam insisting that she do several more reps. I would take the 30 minutes of practice I saw twice a week and decide I knew what she needed. Her "real" coach was much nicer than she should have been to me. I backed off 100 %. And when I did she started loving the sport again.

Stop thinking of smartphones as just a phone with the traditional stigma attached

Technology has really changed how we communicate and interact today.  From social media (Facebook, instagram, YouTube, etc.) to Ipads & smartphones.  It's a different world today than it was even 10 years ago.

Remember a time when you could sit in a restaurant and not be bothered by cell phone ringtones and cell phone conversations?  That there was a designated area, right by the restrooms, where you could make a call you deemed important enough to get up from the dinner table and go pay for?

 I Posted before on cell phone use in the gym.  That was a lighthearted look at how NOT to use cell phones in the gym. 

What I'd like to do in this post is to advocate the reasons why cell phones are a useful tool in the gym.

I don't know what the cellphone policy is like in other gyms.  However, the one I'm at and the one I was at before do not approve of cell phones.  More specifically, they do not allow for taking calls, answering text messages, sending calls, or checking emails.  That is reasonable.  Not only is it a safety issue for a distracted coach, but it also looks very unprofessional and can turn away clients.

Speaking for myself, and possibly other coaches, my smartphone is used for so many things other than as a phone.   I believe that, depending on how the technology is being implemented, that the perception of smartphones as primarily phones is an archaic concept.

As a team coach, I do "get away" with having my smartphone out on the floor.  I've never taken a phone call; nor do I have the ringtone on to alert me to calls.  There are only rare instances where I've texted:

1. Acknowledging a text  message from a team parent letting me know that her athlete was running late to the gym.
2. Acknowledge a text message from a fellow coach that he was running late
3. Answering a message sent from the front office staff, that required a timely response.
4. Sending a message to the front office staff.

  At my previous gym, they used to have walkie talkies for birthday parties so that the staffers could communicate from across the gym.  Today's smartphones are superior to achieving the same purpose.  There are times when something needs to be addressed right away; and rather than sending an athlete or another coach to fetch the front office worker, it's easier just to send a text. 

In the event of an emergency, it's quicker to reach into your pocket and dial 911 yourself than it is to run across the gym and pick up the landline; or shout to the front office.

 Better communication makes for greater efficiency.

 When I have my cellphone in my hand, I understand that some parents may think I am checking personal mail.  I am not.  I know that from a business standpoint, it may look bad; however, I think it's a matter of educating the client base; and people adapting their perception to how technology is actually being used today.

My team parents know what I am doing:  Checking lesson plan notes; a conditioning list; using the stopwatch that's built into the phone.  Why use a traditional stopwatch when I already have one on me?  Why burden myself with a notebook and pen?  Why carry around an expensive camera that gymnasts might get chalk all over when I can just use a cameraphone?  The quality is really good today, with many even taking slow motion videos for technique analysis. 

Sometimes I might run a Google search on something I need to look up, related to the gymnastics practice at hand.  On occasion, there might be a YouTube video clip that I might want to show my gymnasts so they can see an example of something I am trying to verbalize. 

The smartphone is a tool, like any other, that can be used or abused.  Stop thinking of them as a traditional phone.  Rather than banning them from the gym coach's arsenal of training tools, take advantage of the virtues of today's technology.  Provide common sense guidelines for how the privilege can be made appropriate and inappropriate. 

With recreational coaches, I don't think there is a "need" for smartphones to be out on the floor; however, I think it is definitely a useful coaching tool when utilized properly.


*11/10/2014 UPDATE*

Also blogging:
Anne Josephson
Rick McCharles

Cultivating the growth mindset from age 1

Via Gym Gab Blog:

The way I praised her effort took a little effort on my part. If I hadn't known better, I might have just said, "Clever girl!" (Or even "Here, let me help you with that.") What's so bad about that? Read on.
Stanford researcher Carol Dweck has been studying motivation and perseverance since the 1960s. And she found that children fall into one of two categories:

• Those with a fixed mindset, who believe their successes are a result of their innate talent or smarts
• Those with a growth mindset, who believe their successes are a result of their hard work

Fixed mindset: 'If you have to work hard, you don't have ability.'
Kids with a fixed mindset believe that you are stuck with however much intelligence you're born with. They would agree with this statement: "If you have to work hard, you don't have ability. If you have ability, things come naturally to you." When they fail, these kids feel trapped. They start thinking they must not be as talented or smart as everyone's been telling them. They avoid challenges, fearful that they won't look smart.
Growth mindset: 'The more you challenge yourself, the smarter you become'

Kids with a growth mindset believe that intelligence can be cultivated: the more learning you do, the smarter you become. These kids understand that even geniuses must work hard. When they suffer a setback, they believe they can improve by putting in more time and effort. They value learning over looking smart. They persevere through difficult tasks.
What creates these beliefs in our kids? The type of praise we give them -- even starting at age 1.

Read more on the research.

Gym Drills Dot Net

My co-coach and I have toyed with an idea like this- creating a video library of drills for staff ed, along with curriculum for each level.  That way, any coach should be able to sub and know what a particular group should be working on a particular day; and can pick from a list of menu items, a set of options or suggestions on drills and setups for skills.

Easy sign up.

You must fail to succeed. Thinking is not enough. You must apply.

A couple of excerpts from Tony Retrosi's blogpost, 10 painfully obvious truths:

4. Some kind of failure always occurs before success.
Most mistakes are unavoidable. Learn to forgive yourself. It’s not a problem to make them. It’s only a problem if you never learn from them.
If you’re too afraid of failure, you can’t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful. The solution to this problem is making friends with failure. You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner? The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried. Behind every great piece of art is a thousand failed attempts to make it, but these attempts are simply never shown to us. I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast the other day:
LEVITT: I always tell my students — fail quickly. The quicker you fail the more chances you have to fail at something else before you eventually maybe find the thing that you don’t fail at.

A zen parable comes to mind:

This guy was a well-known Taoist painter, and some rather important official commissioned him to draw him a cat. The painter asked him to return sometime later for the work. The official came back the next day but was told it wasn’t done, so he came back the next week, and the next, then the following month, then that next month…

This went on for about a year, the official wanting just the one drawing of just one darn cat he’d asked for way too long ago, and the painter asking him to return another time. Finally, the official came again for his cat, and the painter sat down at his desk, picked up his brush, and with one single stroke drew a truly spectacular swish of a cat.

The official was… not too happy. He was more surprised than upset, spluttering something about the wait and why didn’t the painter just do that the first day?  The painter apologized that he couldn’t have.

He then stood and opened the door to his cupboard. Out spilled hundreds upon hundreds of drawings of practice cats.

Previously posted

5. Thinking and doing are two very different things.
Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it.
You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do. Knowledge is basically useless without action. Good things don’t come to those who wait; they come to those who work on meaningful goals. Ask yourself what’s really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.
And remember, if you wait until you feel 100% ready to begin, you’ll likely be waiting the rest of your life.