Sendback Saturday!

One year ago to the day:

Regular Fall session starts up again on Monday.

Here Comes the Sun Again

Summertime brings back nostalgic memories of SMGC:

Into Something Good

It was so easy then...

SMGC summer camp 2006:

Pass It On

Summer is Here!

Ever since the Toyota Prius "Harmony" commercial, I've been waiting for Petra Haden to release her cover version of the Bellamy Brothers song, "Let Your Love Flow." I decided to use the song for a nostalgia video of SMGC summer camp:





For a free download of the song, go here.

Haunted Halloween Labyrinth (2008 Special Edited Version)

Surfin' Safari SMGC

Kids are back in school, and summer's essentially over. But today was another hot day in LA.

This video is the last of the summer camp SMGC slip 'n slide videos. It was filmed over two days in August of 2007. Easy video to do, but took me over a year to get to work on it. Just string the footage together, add music, and there you go. Instant music video.

Guess I was feeling nostalgic.

LASG Summer Camp Kids Support the Troops

Camp is winding down; but camp director Robyn managed to get some of the remaining kids to write cards to be sent to soldiers serving overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

LASG Gymnastics Summer Camp Promotion

The FOX11 morning show came to LASG last Friday, July 11th, to help promote gymnastics summer camp.




I can't help but laugh at the beginning where the news reporter says, "they're perfectionist pros, here", and all Juuuuuuulia is doing, is walking backwards in a serious manner. Lol. Lol. Lol. Oh, and the fake audience applause that they had with it! Priceless! Rofl!!!

Good timing with the backflips, Grace!

LASG Summer Camp Open House

Last Sunday, LASG had an open house to drum up interest in summer camp. World Wide Acts was there, with their Circus Art; and Donna was there to promote her Fame Performing Arts program, which includes dance and acting.

Her daughter Nika is training level 7 at Gymnastics Olympica. I taught Nika her first backhandspring when she was around 5 or 6 years old. I've stayed friends with her and her mom over the succeeding years.

I've always felt she and Thea, who is also training level 7, would be perfect teammates for one another. Sure enough, they hit it off and were inseparable. A really good match.

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!

Happy Halloween!

Acro Batman and Coach Robyn

Gymnastics Halloween riddle:

What kind of bat likes to tumble?

Answer: is found in the video



This video was dreamt up by Shachar. So I attributed half credit to her for it (I know I only got half her last name right in the credits). I wasn't sure there'd really be much of anything worth filming, because it's so dark inside the labyrinth.

I wasn't sure how I'd edit this together, but I think it came out well, albeit very long at over 15 minutes. Trimming it down would mean more work. I'm not THAT devoted.

I began working on this Sunday night, and finished it 4am. Probably about 10 hours of my life. But my deadline was Halloween. So I feel good about that.

If you saw the "sneak" preview for this video....this video isn't much like what you got in the trailer.

The first half is a bit light, to the music of Ghostbusters. Second half is "creepy-lovely". It's to Jerry Goldsmith's theme to Poltergeist. Melodically beautiful and hauntingly chilling. It's amazing how much music enhances and fabricates a mood.

I'm worried that the video might be too scary, at the end. Madison has a big speaking role in the video; but I don't know if she'd be able to view the final clip of Alex. I saved it at the very end, when the Poltergeist music cuts into the eerie children-ghost laughing. Growing up, that part always wracked my nerves (I had a casette soundtrack).

If I had anything to add to the video, it would be filming a graveyard scene of an empty gym from unique angles....perhaps the rings swaying back and forth with no one present....an abandoned SMGC cartwheel-a-thon doll smiling into the camera....



....but that would mean re-editing the video, huh?


I do have "cutting room floor" clips of the kids tearing down the labyrinth and putting the mats away; so maybe I'll do that and add it on as a separate "closing credits" video, to this blogpost.

I am having trouble uploading it to Google video. I'm going to try my LiveDigital account. In the meantime, you can download the file directly to your computer. It's a pretty large file at around 247 MBs. If clicking the link takes you to the fileden.com website with lots of registration fill-out info, just skip all that, scroll down the page, and click "pass", or whatever it says. You don't have to fill all that gunk out.

My favorite part remains the 2nd half of the video. Stay-tuned to updates to this post.

Happy safe Tricks-or-Treating!

Sneak Preview: The SMGC Monster Family Labyrinth Maze Trailer

Kids love to build forts with the mats.

About the last week of summer camp, I got it into my head to make a mighty maze- the likes of which could top anything the children ever dreamt up.

I can trace the germs of my inspiration back to Ruby and Delphine, using the folded up cheese mats as sturdy walls, strong enough for them to build a roof to sit atop of.

I decided to experiment during lunch one day, by using just about every available mat in the gym, encompassing almost half the floor space.

From the outside, you have no idea how cool it is...until you go inside.

You can't tell from the photo, because of the flash, but it was pretty dark throughout the labyrinth, and there were many "secret" passages and tunnels to crawl through. Each time I built it, it was a bit different; and I think the best one I built was for Malaika's birthday party (at her request), right after the camp session ended.

A lot of work, but fun to build (for me anyway- you'll get a different answer from teacher Carol).

Shachar wanted to make a Halloween film. So we took flashlights inside to try and film some of the labyrinth, doing best to avoid any minotaurs and wailing banshees. I don't think we filmed much of anything exciting (it's mostly just all dark!), but will try and put together something.

In the meantime, here's the movie trailer. It was fun to stage the finger-snapping to the tune of "Addam's Family".

Mad About the Madison

Madison is a five year old who had been attending summer camp, but with whom I was largely unfamiliar with, since I work mostly with 6 and up. But on this particular day in late July, she hung around me and 2 older gymnasts I was working with.

At the expense of Zoe and Jennifer, I allowed Madison to hang out with us. She was soooo funny, I couldn't help it. She became an instantaneous favorite, and I wondered why I hadn't discovered her before. For whatever reason, she just latched onto me that day, and followed me everywhere. She was so cute and funny, it was hard to send her away. Zoe probably wanted to kill me.

Jennifer is extremely funny in her own right (don't be fooled by her height- she's only 12!). She's kind of dorky in a good way, always smiling and occasionally getting her words wrong (e.g., one time she asked if she could go get water, adding that she needed to "rehibernate"). Hope some of her humor, intentional and otherwise, comes through.



(For the record: Jennifer has been able to land aerials before- just not in this video; and despite my discreet absence in the video, I did do my share of coaching- it wasn't just all Madison-induced abuse of Zoe and Jennifer...just clever editing).

Be sure to watch the video all the way through- I know the closing credits is long...it's just so hard to edit down so much good stuff.

Summer Magic

Hard to include footage of everyone...especially when trying to choose and pick what best fits with lyrics of a song that...well, probably didn't have SMGC summer camp in mind when it was written.

So just enjoy it for what it is:



I think I'll put together some raw footage, without the "interference" of adding in music, in some of the next few videos.

Al's Magic Carpet Slide

Previous slip 'n slide video

Wake Me When Summer Ends

Just in time to promote this year's summer camp...

I finally finished editing a camp project I started last September (with footage from August of 2006). Since I managed to find my motivation again, I might finish up a 2nd camp video I had started on, at the end of last year.

Cirque du SMGC

Another summercamp video to circus music since the footage is mostly of circus-like antics going on:

Ultraboy Hoop: ~Welcome to Superhero Camp!~

This kid (Thomas) showed up to our summercamp program, dressed as though everyday was Halloween. One day he was Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean; another time he fancied himself a Power Ranger. The bulk of the footage in this video was when he played a superhero, calling himself "Hoop" (because that's what it read on his basketball jersey; his ski mask with the cut-outs cracked me up). He bragged about how he was going to attend superhero camp the following week. I must say, he was quite a humorous fellow. Especially when he tried to impress the girls with his forearm strike to cause earthquakes.

I could have chosen any number of "superhero" music for this one: the Incredible Hulk...WWE's Hurricane...Greatest American Hero...Green Lantern...The Green Hornet...any number of Power Rangers theme...; the one I settled on is from my childhood, way, waaaaaay....back.