TBT Compulsory Bars

SCEGA Workout Wednesday

In light of the SCEGA California Classic over the weekend, here is SCEGA a year ago on Gymnastike's Workout Wednesday:

Catastrophic Success!

“How does one become a butterfly?" she asked.
"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
― Trina Paulus

Major breakthrough for Remi last night.

After about 4 rotations of bars (with much of the time spent handwringing, navel-gazing, contemplating, worry-worting, and icing down her hands on the cold metal of the bars), Remi finally connected her giants to flyaway at the end of practice.

Erin Unleashed!

Tuesday, Erin made giant flyaways by herself:


Wednesday, she made two routines in a row (then it sorta went downhill from there- but we won't dwell on that!).

This was her first one:


I'm also excited about her potential on vault.

I've been experimenting with having the board in closer for all the girls, to encourage stronger blocking.  Erin has been having trouble hitting the board in the right spot; but when she does, and comes in at angle (I tell the girls to collide into the table and not skim across it), the result is something like this:


 (Good usage of the slo-mo effect, Cam!)

Obviously, her body shape is out of alignment and that kind of segmentation affects the block; also, in my personal, non-professional judge's critique, she scoops into a slight hollow instead of staying open and extended (with eyes spotting the table longer). I want her to make her body stretch as long as possible and not shorten off the table.  Straight body or stretched position- not hollow and not arched off the table.

Some coaches seem to want their gymnasts to hollow off the table.  But I think it short circuits the follow through on the block.

Kort plans to let Erin warm-up bars at this weekend's meet in Vegas and play it close to the vest.  If she's ready she's ready; if she's not, she's not.  Safety is the number one concern and if she looks safe, she'll probably compete all 4 events.

Good luck this weekend, Erin!

Productive Bar Rotation

I was really happy with how productive the 7/8 group (the ones competing this weekend) were on their last rotation, Tuesday.  They were very focused on improving their skills, hitting routines, hitting side stations and drill stations not because they had to, but because they chose to.  I felt they hit the perfect balance between hard work and focus, and having a reasonable level of talk that never distracted from the task at hand.  They looked self-motivated to work.

Kort has a new motivation contest, where we (the coaches) are supposed to choose the hardest worker in each group, on each rotation.  Bars was a very difficult choice for me.  DeShaz was on bars for 2 hours, due to hurting her ankle on vault; she took a lot of turns (including about 12 turns on bars without ever chalking up), getting stronger in her giants and more consistent on her high bar clear hip.  Edie improved her shape in the downswing of her giants, hit a number of routines, worked hard on the virtuosity of her clear hips, and as usual, faithfully worked the side stations (half of them are pretty good at doing this, now).  Double A I think is getting physically stronger; it's showing in her giants.  Her flyaways were looking good and she was also trying to get her clear hips higher.  Action Jackson focused on her high bar clear hips, sometimes doing 2 or 3 in a row.  Remi worked her giants on the regular bars.

Rowan had a short bar rotation, as she was held over on floor; but she did good work.

I decided to settle on Ashley for "hardest bar worker", due to not only productivity, but also in stepping it up on her clear hip:



I offered the entire group something more valuable than sticker rewards: Individually wrapped prunes. For some odd reason, not all the girls like prunes.

The real reward, of course, is the joy of accomplishment and improvement in their skills.

Night and Day

This might be the highlight of my week.

Alaina's now a new level 7, having passed out of 6 two weeks ago.  I've not worked with her a lot; but I've worked with her enough that yesterday when I had her group on vault, I knew that she struggled with it (just as I know she is having difficulties with her RO BH BT).

So on her first handspring vault, with me spotting, she dumped it over the table and to her butt.  What I noticed was that she leaned forward to get her hands onto the table...and had no bounce off the board.  I told her she was leaning forward and that I thought she was thinking ahead of herself to needing to get her hands onto the table- because she skipped the step where she needed to punch the board.  I asked her if she was scared of running into the table.  She nodded yes.  So I told her the way to get over the table was to punch the board hard.  I had her do a step hurdle and told her to punch the board as hard as she could.  I had her do it twice.  Then I told her to do it from a run and (I know this is kind of bad) to pretend that someone's face she didn't like was on that springboard and to stomp a mud hole into it after she hurdled.

The very next turn her vault just flew over effortlessly.  It was night and day. No more body shape issue through the air.  She soared nicely.  If anything, she's probably going to be ready to have the table raised from 110 to 115 (in the video I took today of it, I think she's coming on a tad high- needs to get her feet in front more and then hands in quicker to the table). 

Just to be sure, I asked her if that vault she just did was one of her typical ones (I wanted to be sure she hadn't already made progress on this, since it's been a while since I saw her on vault); or if it was an improvement.  Because her reaction was pretty subdued.  With the barest hint of an understated smile, she told me it was an improvement.  I had her go a couple more times, and once for Coach Sara.

I wanted her dad to see it today (we didn't get to vault at today's practice), so I let Alaina do 3 good ones (her first one was the old version).  Her dad said Alaina had told her about it last night.

This is the kind of progress that makes you feel really good as a coach.  Like you made a difference and helped make something click for an athlete who's been stuck on a specific skill.  It's like recognizing the missing piece and helping to solve a puzzle.

One of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had as a coach was at SMGC, teaching a forward roll to a rec kid.  She was a very sweet, skinny kid who was not allowed to run around the house and lacked physical athletic ability. It took an entire session to teach her how to do a forward roll.  One of the last Saturdays of her classes, I had her just dump herself into a roll, standing at the edge of the resi pit.  That made something click in her head and she was soon doing it on the floor.  Throughout the rest of the class, wherever we went in the gym, she was forward rolling herself all over the place, from event to event.  It was very cute.

I had never felt so good as a coach.  Not teaching a Tkatchev; or a double-full; or a tsuk.  Just a simple forward roll to make me feel like I helped an athlete win an Olympic-size obstacle!

Pre-Meet Bars Highlights

 From Thursday:


From yesterday:




Today:







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