Go Broadway!

AmericanTowns:

The men’s and women’s gymnastics teams at Broadway Gymnastics School (BGS) in Los Angeles, CA just completed their 2012-2013 competitive seasons with amazing leaps of improvements. Several gymnasts were able to obtain scores high enough to skip levels due to all the new skills they learned since the last competitive season, still winning numerous individual medals and team trophies!

BGS Girls Team
Level 9 (L9) Western Championships were held in Roseville, CA May 2-5, 2013. Caroline Spertus won 2nd on Balance Beam (BB) and Thea Obrist won 3rd on Vault. At L9 Region 1 Championships in Pheonix, AZ, Obrist won 1st on Uneven Bars (UB) and 3rd on Vault; Spertus took 1st on Floor Exercise (FX) and Cydney Kone won 3rd on BB. At Level 7 (L7) Region 1 Championships April 26-27 in Nevada, Remi Godinez placed 2nd on BB, FX and All-Around (AA) and qualified to compete for SoCal’s Regional Team, which won 1st! At SoCal’s State Championships held in Long Beach, CA, Spertus also won the Silver State L9 Vault Title and Rowan Wong won the Level 8 (L8) State Bronze BB Title.

California Classic Lvl9 Highlights

Caroline's floor:


Cassie's yurchenko:


2nd vault:


Thea yurchenko (9.375, 2nd place):


2nd vault:


Caroline yurchenko piked:


2nd vault:


Thea bars:


Cassie bars:


Caroline bars:



Good job, gentlewomen!

 Good luck to the 8s today!

In regards to their Saturday workout, 'E' texted me that she's feeling really confident.  She wrote,

Michel said we all did really well.  He said, "I'm not usually even almost impressed; but today....I was really impressed!"

When the Reality is Not an Exaggeration

Over at McCharles' blog:

The cartoon is by Marc Jacobs.

It may be an exaggeration; but not by much:

This is from Aerials in Colorado, June 24, 2010.

Vaulting to Brestyan

I missed out on filming an amazing bar rally- all the 9s and 10s hit their routines and were cheering so loudly, Manzanet couldn't coach his girls on the other set of bars.

Final rotation was vault.  I thought I'd post this up in the event that any of these girls get a chance of studying their execution for the sake of improvement this weekend.

Pre-Meet Bars Highlights

 From Thursday:


From yesterday:




Today:







Couldn't get their dismounts because I had to stand in there.

Last Practice Before First Meet

Thea finally did her new dismount (growth spurt threw her confidence off on giants into double back so Kort gave her a back up dismount to work on- apparently just in the nick of time, too) and complete level 9 season bar set at yesterday's inter-squad. Here's her last practice routine before she leaves for the San Diego Classic this weekend:

Who will be ready for the optional season?

Taking a Step Back to Move It 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). 

Shared Workshop on Fun Friday

Earned smelly stickers for a job well-done!

Abigail made one front giant for the first time.  Not bad for someone who has not put in a lot of flight hours, working on acquiring them.

Thea has been working on getting her toe-shoots to handstand stronger and more consistent for the purposes of doing her bar release (a Ray).  I think once she knows exactly where handstand is everytime on a regular toe-hand, she'll be better prepared to tweak the release point for her Ray.

She's done 3-in-a-row before from single leg toe-on; but Friday was the first time she made 3 from double-leg toe-on.  Her first set was good (she should have kept going and not stopped at the target goal of 3-in-a-row), getting a good arch-snap drop and power on the handstand, getting some bounce on the bar.  She did 2 more sets of 3 after this, and I think she can phase away from doing the single-leg toe-on, anymore (more potential to generate a stronger, late drop by using the double toe-on method).

For Claire, I got to finally play with building an improvised trench pit.  Hard to do during regular practice, as we need to hog up quite a lot of spotting blocks and mats.

Now that Claire's got more of a sense of going over the bar, I think she should be okay using our regular set-up.  I don't think I'll have to reach out and yank her onto/over the bar, but can now do more guidance-spotting into helping her catch the bar. 

I guess we'll see, come Tuesday...

First Attempt

Sunday workshop...

And they got better after that!

 Also stepping it up another notch on her overshoot from the last time we worked it:  Getting it done from a cast handstand!

Nice example of one-arm drop technique

This was done shortly after the Level 7 season (April 6th, to be exact), allowing her to play around with it:





This is really, really well done. The following turn she fixed her shape on the cast swing down. What I like so much about it is that the release isn't rushed and you can distinctly see the one-arm drop technique. I don't want her to do too many beyond this, unspotted, however (best clarified by Mark Folger in this fine post).  Also, his comment here:

I love the one arm drop drill, although what I do would more appropriately be called a one hand release drill (the arm doesn’t drop, but stays by the ear). I use a progressive series of 4 one hand release drills to teach underswing 1/2 to handstand. None take long to master. My girls believe that a bail to handstand is the easiest skill of its value in the code of points. For a gymnast with a tight body, it takes very little effort to “fall” from the high bar to the low bar and end up in a handstand. If you teach the one hand release style, don’t have your girls try to turn from the toes or with the torso. Releasing one hand at a time will cause the body to turn, and with very little effort, increasing the chances of keeping feet together, etc.

Yesterday, Abigail did a workshop in which we worked on her basics along with laying the foundational groundwork for some future skills, including the shootover:

Once she develops a consistent swing-down, especially from handstand, I don't think she'll have any problems with this skill (*knock on wood*).

Considering how very little time she's spent on actually toying around with the overshoot, it's quite impressive where she's at on it. (prior to the April 6th clip above, I remember spotting her maybe twice in late 2011 just carrying her slowly from the bar to arrive in handstand....and subsequent to the one day in April, I think there have only been one or two other days I allowed a similar setup, with little more than a handful of turns on their own; she won't need this advance skill until level 9).

Spotting Thea October 4, 2011

Further reading:
Overshoot to Handstand
Overshoot Drill:  One-Arm Drop