How to make something more AWESOME; Customizing bubbles!

Kids love bubbles, adults love bubbles, bubbles make anyone's day a good one and are also a fun way to implement fine-motor work into any lesson plan. I usually forget what a great tool they are for teaching pre-school classes until I take a stroll through the toy isle at the store, which is something I try not to do now that I have a toddler that likes to grab anything with eye-catching colors and textures.

However, I'm on the hunt for some neat ideas to use for the competition I'm putting together. Bubbles caught my eye today, lots and lots of bubbles caught my eye today. As I was seeing them stacked up in nice rows I thought to myself, "hmmm, I these sound like fun for the gymnasts to play with during awards. Hmmmmm, but these labels look too kiddy." 

More iFlip Goodies!

Taking in some event planning & hosting tips from some friends of mine, I find these custom made labels with our iFlip Invitational logo to be such a cute idea I couldn't pass up. 

Everyone has a sweet tooth and these mentos just hit the spot! 

I'm beginning to see competition hosting more like hosting a fun gymnastics party! What types of gymnastics goodies would you like to see at your competitions?

Something a little different

Meet planning is on it's way and the big day is rapidly approaching, but it's a great thing I'm happy to be getting things together and staying up late nights so that the gymnasts can have a really awesome event. In attempts to stay off the beaten path when it comes to athlete souvenirs, I just might have taken it to the extreme.

I'm a huge fan of t-shirt scarves, funky fashions and DIY accessories. Thanks to Pinterst, I've found ways to collect all those ideas and keep them stored online in one place. While sometimes the ideas look great, actually doing them take much time and sometime just end up in the trash with me feeling like I really am going crazy as my husband's looks assume I am.  However, tonight was a complete success!

I hope the kids dig em'. I'll be making new batches with more bright colors soon!

Less than 2 months to go for iFlip Invitational

Quinoa Energy Bar Recipe

This Quinoa Energy Bar recipe is perfect for before or during practice. It has the perfect combination of simple & complex carbs that are need to ENERGIZE and SUSTAIN a practice. 

What makes these better than the store bought energy bar/granola bar/protein bar? *minimizing processed food, dyes, food additives, sugar and fat...to name few. 

Remember athletes, every choice you make to more natural whole based foods, you are making a step for a more successful practices!!

Final Product

Here is the final product of the commercial where I helped Diana learn how to jump on the trampoline. She looks quite beautiful and very graceful. 

I hope I'll get to work with the team again. 

Activo asks Coach Casie for a Game

Check out the game I picked for their newsletter

Beam Inversion Game

Sharing; Not just caring but a responsibility

Tomorrow I'm holding a sharing session for all coaches, gymnastics professionals and just about anyone else who is interested at Prime Gymnastics. As I've come across quite a bit of knowledge through the years, I feel it doesn't do me any good if I'm not using it, sharing it and teaching these things to other people. This way I don't have to clone myself!

Here's a sneak preview of the presentation including a poor little child who was pushed to go on the bars by a crazy gym mom! (ME!)

Move to live, live to Move

This past week I was invited to the Singapore's Ministry of Education Physical Education and Sports Teacher Academy (PESTA for short) to conduct a workshop on behalf of Singapore Gymnastics. The workshop included ways to use music in warm-up activities and how to teach kids to move to rhythm, a cadence and essentially move to the music. 

Given that these P.E. teachers are fairly new in their professions and have very little gymnastics experience, I was expecting little input and a tough crowd to please. However, they blew me away with their enthusiasm and creativity. I hope this only trickles down to their instruction and motivates their students to do as the PESTA motto: Move to live, live to move!

Just like "Top Model"

Recently, I was contacted to help teach a model how to jump on a trampoline for a TV commercial. As you would expect, I jumped at the opportunity. 

The model, Diana, was an experienced in pilates but she had never been on a trampoline before. We started out with some routine familiarization exercises like walking, moon-walking, doing the "type-writer"and long jumps. Then we moved on to starting and stopping with safe-landing techniques. As she found herself more confident, I introduced star jumps (her favorite), tuck jumps and modified stretch jumps with different arm positions. Soon, it was off to hair and make-up for her and set-up for the rest of the crew.

Jumping on the trampoline may come easy for many of us but when you get a handful of people around, super bright lights and, oh yeah, cameras rolling, it brings in another level of professionalism. I gave a little show to the crew bouncing around, yes it was fun but I give the upmost respect for this model who did an amazing job! She had safety in mind, kept her cool and showed how beautiful one can look from one bounce to the next. 

iFlip Invitational - Dec. 2, 2012

The iFlip Invitational with Special Guest Denise Keller at Bishan Sports Hall on Sun., Dec. 2, 2012 is another great competition for our gymnasts in Singapore and throughout SE Asia to be involved in. Not only is this exciting event the first of it's kind to be hosted by a celebrity in Singapore but it is also put on by a sporting events company, not a gym. Take a look at the iFlip Invitational Website!

Singapore is just starting to have a series of competitions in a row, perhaps this is the start of a regular competitive season instead of multiple one-off's throughout the year. 

Benefits of a gymnastics competitive season:

• coaches are able to work periodized training
• build confidence in performing routines
• feedback from one competition would carry to the next
• develop consistency 
• better results at the end of a season
• parents, gymnasts & coaches easily adapt towards working with a competitive schedule vs. one competition in Dec. and one in May.
• if a gymnast has a bad day at a competition, it's not so much of a worry as there will be one just around the corner!
• an off-season would include new skills and advancing levels!

There must be many other benefits I'm forgetting, post a comment and let me know!

I'm the first type

What about you?

Taken from For The Win! on Facebook. 

20 reasons why we should PLAY everyday

Play is not only for the kids, but for all of us. 

Free E-book! Pause for Play: 0-3 months

This FREE e-book is filled with great bonding activities to stimulate sensory neurons, vision development and muscle development for babies aged 0-3 months. These age-appropriate activities are tried and true by Coach Casie, in fact, my funky little one still loves to do Tongue Fun and she's approaching 1 year already!


Pause for Play:0-3 months is here for you and totally free with a tweet or post to facebook!

Gym Organization

In our gym we have those awesome shelving units from IKEA, not to mention there's one to my left as I type this blog post. Attempting to keep our gym clean has been a struggle to say the least. Things have gone lost, glasses stepped on, phones misplaced... Many times if stuff is just put on a shelf, they somehow disappear into thin air! 


Now if things were put into a box on a shelf, perhaps we could keep our belongings safe while having a sharp clean image. With the high expectation of the gymnasts to have perfect form and clean routines we also want our training environment to reflect our performances. If we can keep our gym clean and organized, we can focus on our training without tripping over each others belongings or worry about where things are in the gym.


I've recommended to my team(s) to bring in their own boxes. They can have their own space & fill it with their hearts desires. To be fully prepared for anything that might happen in gym here is a sample list of what a gymnast might need in her cubby:

-grips

-wristbands

-gloves

-athletic tape, pre-wrap

-wrist, ankle or knee braces

-extra leotard

-extra gym shorts

-extra hair bands/clips

-hairspray

-tampons/sanitary pads

-ankle weights (ALL team members MUST have their own)

-water bottle

-deodorant

-Chapstick 

-a picture of their favorite gymnast!

Here's Mine:

The original "Flying Squirrel"

What other things would you keep in your cubby or gym bag?

Virtual Gymnastics Curriculum

Hands down, this has got to be the most exciting thing I've found at Congress this year! Smart Moves and Fun & Fit Gymnastics have teamed up to be the first in the world to provide something I've been waiting for...the ability to access gymnastics coaching curriculum and lesson plans from a phone, tablet, laptop or print outs instantly!

The Recreational Curriculum includes

• Proven Online Year-Round Progressive Gymnastics Curriculum
• Pre-school to Pre-Team Gymnastics classes
• Stored in an Easy to use Lesson Plan Management Platform
• Fully Customizable lesson plans <--- this one I LOVE! I've seen the works and it's great I would be able to upload my own held true plans.
• Consistent Instructor Support and Training <------ the way it's set up I would learn from each days planning.

PLUS

• access to your Lesson Plans in combination with pre-loaded curriculum
• State of the Art Ability to Share and Protect your Teaching Records!

BENEFITS

• Virtual Access to your Teaching Team on the Gym Floor
• Reduce Training Time
• Improve Instructor Performance
• Confidence in Smart Moves proven "Fun & Fit Gymnastics" Drills and Skills

Expected launch date is sometime in October of this year. I can't wait to get my gym started. I love a clever way to use technology to enhance gym time!

Give them an email at:

enquiries@smartmoves.co.nz, tell them Coach Casie sent ya. 

Rips

Picture Show: USA Gymnastics Congress & Olympic Trials

Morning Fitness with USA Gymnastics

 Bright and Early

 Registration

 Yep, Certified & gotta super star!

Local restaurants getting in the Olympic spirit. I loved the Tripple cheese back flip panini. 

The cutest little play mats for Barbie I've ever seen. Barbie was taking a nap.

 Tumbl Trak - I wanted EVERYTHING!

 Good to see America's 1st Amendment still holds strong at the entrance of the Olympic Trials.

 Beautiful!

My view!

Why thank you!

 My new friend Kelly from Canada won the Big Raffle and a voucher from Snowflake Designs. I know her girls will look good next year!

 Entrance to my hotel

The HP Pavillion

 Outside the Trials

P & G let me paint my pinky blue to raise awareness and to stop Bullies 

There's Coach Casie - upside down again.

 Did I mention I love Indian food?

Making signs to cheer on the hopefuls 

Facepainting 

 And the team is......

Goodbye San Jose!

Tip to Motivate More Turns

Tired of yelling, "GO" down the vault runway? Here's a little voice-saving tip to get those lines moving fast.


To help me gauge how many successful vaults we did today, each gymnast was allowed to draw a part of a smiley face on a mat. Thinking we might get someone to complete a full face, I was totally surprised to see how fast these ladies were taking their turns. In 20 mins, we had all girls working on stuck landings because our shapes in the air were corrected and repeated over and over. I think each girl had over 20 turns!!

 

Some days we just have to be a little creative, just like them.

Packing up from USA Congress

I had to buy a new bag to get all these goodies home. Lot's of great stuff from Tumbl Trak, Gibson, USA Gymnastics, Garland Activewear, Floor Music Express, Carolina Gym Supply and Dollamur Gym Supply!

Can't wait to get home and try all of them out!

To all the Single Ladies

Touch down in California

I've arrived in San Jose for the 2012 USA Gymnastics Congress and Olympic Trials and it seems as the whole city is behind Team USA. They have really lit up my Olympic spirit with flags of our past Olympians on the downtown streets and USA Gymnastics banners on busses and in the parks. 

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out to the Morning Fitness at 6:30am. I've got some Wisconsin cheese to burn off. 

Sometimes I look like this

Transition Sports for the Retired Gymnast

Gymnastics is a base for any sport, which means we can transition easily into any sport. As a gymnast, we are super strong, flexible fit, coordinated (well, when it matters) and we have great body awareness. I myself transitioned to diving in which the only obstacle I encountered was learning how to get rid of water deep in the ear. The landing on my head part wasn’t so difficult, I was known to that a few times in the gym.

Here’s a quick list of some excellent transition sports:

•      Judo
•       Pole Vaulting
•       Cheerleading
•       Dance
•       Diving
•       Trampoline
•       Skating
•       Alpine Skiing
•       Track
•       Softball
•       Any martial art
•       Equestrian Vaulting
•       Rock climbing
•       Snowboarding
•       Wrestling
•       Olympic weightlifting

Many ex-gymnasts who move on to these sports end up getting a full-ride scholarship do a Division I or Division II NCAA School.  Are there any sports that you can think of that a gymnast would be great in? Please share.

Do you ever feel this way?

Retirement Planning; Life After Gymnastics

Mention the word retirement to non-gym people an they wouldn’t instinctively think of a teenager or preteen moving on from their gymnastics career but rather someone in the 60's moving to a subtropical climate to live off their pension.  Retirement is not only a major life-changing event for those leaving the workforce but also for a teenager. Infant, considering their delicate emotional state, this IS the biggest event of their life to dateso far.  

First and foremost, don’t quit tomorrow! Make that commitment to finish the season or year. Finishing something that we start give us much more satisfaction than leaving with loose ends. Perhaps there is a financial obligation to the gym. Considering you are training many hours training, it could be a huge financial loss. Continuing to the end also allows for such ample planning of retirement. If the exit strategy is defined, a much smoother transition will follow which will bring a much more optimistic outlook for the future.

Gymnasts are accustomed to goal setting, working hard towards that goal and eventually manifesting that goal. There is definite certainty of this sport where it would be easy to feel lost without a purpose when leaving the gym. Retirement gives an opportunity for psychological growth when the gymnast’s exclusive identity as the gymnast explores their identity of who they are outside of the gym.

In addition, the planning process is the beginning of asserting personal control and achieving independence. Coaches have always told or showed them what to do and how to do it. This “freedom” can end up being a struggle to adjust to the new independence brought by retirement. Finding new hobbies, extra-curricular activities and other past-times can come into play. Before they have always had to sit on the backburner. Take this time to research all opportunities. Talk to people who do them or better yet sign-up for a trial class.

Furthermore, this time is another opportunity to find connections with friends inside and most importantly, outside of the gym. As a woman comes to identify herself with the relationships she has with others. Find connections to those outside the sport and form new friendships.

As most gymnasts retire during adolescence, it is inevitable physical changes will be associated with the ending of training. Plan to keep the body active, try other sports or dance. While the pressure to be in the best shape for competition may be relieved, a healthy active lifestyle should not be neglected. It’s quite easy to gain 10-15 lbs in a month with no gym, believe me; I’ve been there!


To sum it up:

• Finish the season 
• Find a hobby
• Make new friends 
• Plan a way to stay active.

What to do when they want to quit?

She will be moving up this season and has been training for it for the past few months, it seems out of the blue one night before bed she says, “I want to quit.” Lots of tears and a reassuring hug follow. As she finally drifts off into sleep, you find yourself wondering if there is anyone else going through the same thing. Good news is, YES! At one point, this comes up in a young gymnasts’ career and many have gone through the same thing.

Most parents are not interested in how to help their daughters to stay in gymnastics but would rather know about how they can help their daughter, regardless of what she will choose to do. While there may not be a step-by-step manual for such an occasion, I have a few points for parents (and gymnasts) pondering hanging up their grips.

Are you really surprised? When kids want to quit anything it doesn’t come out of nowhere, they have been stirring that idea up for some time. She has had the time but unfortunately to you it seems quite abrupt. Don’t tell her what to do or assume anything. Take a breathe, reflect. I’m sure there has been a fear of what you would say, which prevented her from saying her thoughts in the first place. The most important thing for her right now is making sure that you are there to help her work through this huge decision. Ask questions so you can help be her guide.

Get to the root of her sadness. Is she at a vulnerable age, going through puberty? A Pre-teen female gymnast might face challenges that include increased vulnerability to repetitive stress injuries during the growth spurt, the social and physical ramifications of practice hours, and the quite reasonable fears associated with the increasing complexity, difficulty, and objective danger of skills as girls advance.

Involve the Coach. Coaches play a very critical role in this process; many may be unaware or unwilling to play the part (Let’s hope he/she is not one unwilling!) Communication with the coach needs to be there. It’s imperative for them to know their athletes needs physically and emotionally.

Encourage Retirement: Throw out that negative word, “quit” in all of your conversations. She should not forget all of her hard work, accomplishments nor should she feel like she is just throwing it away if she does decide to end her career. A retirement helps to take pressure off of the decision and also requires planning which is something positive to look forward to.

Stopping for now, doesn’t always mean forever:  Gymnasts may leave the gym, but gymnastics never leaves their hearts. There will always be a gym door open whether she wants to play around at an Open Gym, a recreational class or an adult gymnastics class later on in life. Who knows, she may just need a break and will be back at the end of the summer.

Happy Mother's Day: A Tribute to Mommy & Me

Once upon a time an overactive 2 year old was taken to a Mommy & Me class at her local club. She instantly fell in love with the sport, dedicated her life to it without realizing she had dedicated her mothers life to it too. From those early movement classes to the very last competition of her career, it was always Mommy & Me. 

• Mommy was the chauffeur to and from gym, even when she could have done something nice for herself.

• Mommy cleaned the gym every week at 4 am in exchange for the many hours of training.

• Mommy was the ambulance when things went wrong on a tumbling pass.

• Mommy was screamed at because, "she just didn't understand."

• Mommy was the cheeleader when there wasn't so much cheer.

• Mommy was the stylist making sure she had sewn the right leotard pattern.

• Mommy was the gym's interior decorator bringing life and color to the meets.

• Mommy said, "it's OK," when it was time to hang up the grips with dignity.

28 years later that little girl becomes a mommy hoping one day to have a class: Grandma, Mommy & Me.

Gymnastics has given me this unequivocal bond with my mother that I've never heard of with any other sport. Happy Mother's Day!


Gymnasts, ex-gymnasts: Please share your stories of how your mother influenced your gymnastics.

Coach Casie's Top 5 Reasons to Enroll Your Child In a Parent & Tot Gymnastics Class

Mother's Day is just around the corner and I've thought what way could I give to the mothers out there? Hmmmm. How about my top 5 reasons for enrolling you and your child in a Parent & Tot gymnastics class?

5.) Fitness: A good class gets both parent and child moving. A family that sweats together, stays together!

4.) To be Social: While your young one may love to look at you all day in the house, chances are you get bored. A parent and tot class provides you and your little one quality time together with your child and out of the house. Meet other parents with children your age while your child meets others their age, it's a great time to make new friends.

3.) Reading Readiness: The components of reading readiness are quite similar to the components of motor skill development. A good Parent & Tot program develops reading readiness, gross motor and fine motor skills.  Below are some of the examples:

• Visual differentiation - seeing and feeling different surfaces, equipment and props; knowing how they are used.
• laterality - moving sideways, log rolls
• Gross motor skills - skipping, running, leaping
• Hand-eye coordination - passing balls back & forth
• Distance, size & shapes -  going through tunnels & specialized mats
• Attention spans - staying at a station to finish a task, doing repetitions of a single skill
• Tracking - following bubbles in the air, 
• Fine-motor skills - popping bubbles with the pointer & thumb
• Sensory discrimination - jumping up high enough to land on top of a mat
• Awareness, perception & memory - listening to the teacher
• Expressive language - explaining to others what they did in class
• Auditory - listening to songs & the instructor
• Imitating - watching instructor to see if they can repeat it
• Directionality - learning left & right w/games, songs and skills

2.) The Bond: There is a special bond that you create with your child when involved in an early movement class. You will be physically helping them maneuver their bodies, you will be their cheerleader encouraging & the hug when they do achieve their goals all in one class!

1.) It's FUN!

As I'm about to celebrate my first Mother's day being a Mommy, I realize how much I love being with my little one. She grows up so fast, just like any other kid. It makes me think that these little ones will have their whole school career to be alone with a teacher, let's soak this time up before it's too late!

Fun With Scarves

One of my favorite pre-school props had found its way to the last 5 minutes of a school aged recreation class.

 Fashionista Erika

Coach Irene's colorful back handsprings

Seat drop war. We don't care who wins!

I've learned that these older kids need more fun in their lessons & I'm going to be using much more props with my older kids from now on. 

What are some of your favorite props to use for the older recreational classes?