“from little things, big things grow”
Darlene “The Bean”. 🙂
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Rick Mc
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Rick Mc
gymnast with a ‘dancing blade’
… As a six-year-old she developed cancer and had to have her leg amputated just two years after her mum died of the same disease.
Iona … was diagnosed with osteosarcoma – a type of bone cancer – in 2008.
Her right leg was amputated below the knee as a result.
The youngster, from Jordanhill, Glasgow, loves showing off her moves to other children and their parents who are in a similar situation and contemplating what life will be like after an amputation. …
… “Everyone trains at the same time and kids with disabilities are treated like everyone else.
“Iona does floor, vault, beam and bars and this new blade is ideal for her. …
“My prosthetic leg can feel quite heavy when I’m doing sport and this blade is brilliant,” she said.
“It’s been specially designed for me to have extra support at the heel, which helps me balance when I’m on the beam. It definitely helps me be better at gymnastics.”
🙂
(via GymCastic)
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Rick Mc
back somersault in 3 weeks
Nick English, a non-gymnast adult, for some reason decided to learn a “back flip”:
… As I entered the sprawling gymnastics playground that is New York’s Chelsea Piers, I tried to forget that the piers were the Titanic’s intended final destination. …
3 Exercises to Prepare Your Body to Backflip
1. Hanging tuck-up: While keeping the chin tucked ever so slightly downward, bend the knees up toward the head, crunching the core and rotating the body as far backward as possible. Perform the move very fast, as the goal is to improve flipping speed.
2. Box jump: Focusing on height, rather than depth, leap onto as high a platform as possible. Repeat as much as is comfortable.
3. Lying bent-knee leg raise : With the knees bent and the lower torso rising off the ground, lift your legs towards your head. This is like a horizontal version of the hanging tuck-up. Perform the movement with arms stretched above the head, and it will train the body to not swing them too far backward during a flip. …
Did it work?
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
(Okay, I acknowledge that Jon gave me a teeny tiny spot in this video—we didn’t film the two flips I did on my own. You’ll have to take my word for it.)
read more – Greatest – Don’t Try This at Home: How I Learned to Do a Backflip in Just 4 Weeks
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Rick Mc
forward roll progressions
by Darlene “the Bean”.
GymtasticsGymTools.com – Progressive Exercise Programs Keep Building on the Basics
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Rick Mc
Beginner Backward Roll Safety Concerns
Gymnastics Zone posted the best summary of this issue I’ve seen:
Beginner Backward Roll Safety Concerns
Bottom line, … do backward roll activities very, very cautiously. The younger the children, the bigger their heads relative to the rest of the body.
If they need spot, they are not ready for backward roll.
I’ve even seen Adult Recreation gymnasts sore after doing backward roll on a hard, flat surface. 😦
It’s a tricky skill.
Downhill is far safer.
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Rick Mc
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Rick Mc
Team Saskatchewan Gymnaestrada
Team Sask is ready.
Check the promo video they put together in advance of the National Gymnaestrada.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Thanks Kara.
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Rick Mc
Rick Mc
more drills build confidence
You could SPOT a beginner on backward handspring. 😦
Far better is to set-up dozens of progressions without spot. Let the child move step-by-step at their own speed. Have success at each. Dozens of successes.
Let them take ownership of the skill. 🙂
Carrie Lennox:
In last month’s Tumbl Trak newsletter Doug Davis wrote about how progressions build confidence and reduce fear. Just thinking about an athlete “balking” in a round off-back handspring, or other tumbling series is enough to make me shudder.
“Connecting the Dots” is a way to describe all the steps involved in the physical preparation of an athlete and offering an athlete frequent opportunities to feel confident in every step in the process. In a recent video session filming skill progressions, we worked with a young athlete who has good basic training combined with good genes from her parents. The video session focused on cartwheel, handstand, and back handspring progressions from jumping to limbers to fly-backs to work in the pit, (which she had done in many workouts previously).
After filming more than 30 different progressions that lead to a back handspring, our session ended in the pit where we saw in her a confidence and will to move on to her very first back handsprings!! Wooo Hoooo!! We cheered and celebrated with hip-hip-hurray’s and it dawned on me…..we had spent the last two hours “connecting the dots” for this athlete. All the preparation she had done in her classes, put together in a sequence, helped to give her to confidence and success.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Rick Mc
Tramp “catcher”
A safety issue in many gyms are the mats used at the END of your tumbling trampoline. Here’s a new alternative that costs less than $2000. What would the equivalent mats cost?
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Recreational Gymnastics 
GymtasticsGymTools.com 11:16 pm on July 1, 2014 Permalink |
Hey Rick, thanks for the shout out!!!! Much appreciated.
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