SEA Games Myanmar drops Gymnastics

As concerns of Vietnam and other countries in the region, in a meeting of the Southeast Asian Sports Federation held in Nay Pyi Taw (Myanmar) yesterday, January 29, the host country of the 27th SEA Games officially decided to exclude gymnastics out from the competition program.

Vietnam Net

We have yet to hear anything official from Singapore Gymnastics, however, given this news, I see our gymnasts out of an opportunity to compete. This is one of the (many) reasons Singaporean and SE Asian gymnasts are left behind. 

If you ask a veteran gymnast here how many competitions they've competed in during their lifetime, their answer might be 30 and that's including major international competitions. If you ask a level 8, 10 year old gymnast in America how many she's competed in she will probably give you a number double that. 

Give these gymnasts MORE opportunities please! Not take them away. 

Sharing Session at Prime Gymnastics

Last week, we had a sharing session in our gym. Many of our coaches' had been lucky enough to participate in a various number of courses throughout SE Asia leaving the rest of us to hold down the fort and cover their classes. For the gymnasts, I think they enjoy a new coach once in a while as it means a new change to their routinely work-outs. Our coaching team works quite well together; Sure, I'll cover your class if you share what you've learned.



Two had done a F.I.G. Level 1 course in Singapore, another two had taken part of a Trampoline course in Singapore and another two had taken part of an Asian Gymnastics Union MAG Coaching Course held in Singapore that was presented by coaching expert Mr Takashi Kobayashi who happens to be acoach of World Champion and Olympic Champion Uhei Uchimura and was Coaching Director of the Japanese Olympic National Training Centre. In fact, one of the coaches also headed out to Sri Lanka and attended another course Mr Takashi Kobayashi lead! How fortunate is that?!

All together we had 5 staff in the past 3 months attend some sort of training.
I've learned some great insights from my co-workers sessions and I'll be sharing some of the great information that was passed down to me throughout the month of February. I plan to include theory, drills and other useful tips for all of my readers. Some of the topics include:

• psychology

• beginning trampoline

• spotting beginner trampoline

• developing speed 

• POWER!

Here's to a fantastic February!

Benefit from Injury: A Back Handspring Drill for Hand Placement on Balance Beam

Today's gymnastics coaching tip is the lemonade that came from lemons. Recently, two of my WAG Level 5 gymnasts suffered from foot injuries. My heart always goes out to injured gymnasts knowing that they feel left out; I try to find ways to give them special attention to remind them we are a team and they are important as well. With the limitations on training that include no running, jumping, bounding or hard landings, I found myself (not to mention my gymnasts) bored with basic kicks, swings and turn drills during our 1 hour balance beam training.

These training partners have the support of each other while during their recovery and coincidentally, these two gymnasts have been struggling with correct hand placement while learning how to do back handspring on beam. Taking reference from a YouTube video on hand placement, I found some equipment available at our gym.

Gymnastics equipment I used in this set up:

• 1 large barrel (an octagonal tumbler would work as well.)
• 20cm blocks
• Low balance beam

I really like this drill for a couple of key reasons besides the obvious:

• they can do this drill independently
• going crooked adds to the fun and the difficulty of the drill. After all, not every back handspring a gymnast a performs is perfectly straight.
• it's fun

How have you found ways to work on a gymnast's weakness during times of injuries? I would love to hear your stories.

Silicone Slap Bracelets for Gymnasts

Inspired by this blog and I'm so excited I'm extending a buy 2 packs get one free offer for all my customers. 

Head on over to the HandXStand for more info!

I've gotten more and more into crafting lately & decided this time to make some cool dog tags inspired by the wonderful Marilyn Monroe. 

What I did was take a fabulous pic of her doing some gymnastics exercises and edited them to fit inside the given space for the tag. Then I printed them on high gloss printing paper and cut them out. After that, I made a huge mess in the dinning room in attempts to give the pics an epoxy resin dome. So I threw it all away and started over. ;)

Here is the final product. 

You can see the listing of this one here on etsy!

Take a look at this listing here.

Pop on over to see this listing here. 

I have much more up my sleeve. I hope to make some nice pieces that can be given as gifts to fellow coaches. :)

Not enough MAG memorabilia

As I do a random search for gifts for a male gymnast, I come to realize that my quest for something awesome is limited. Now, if I were to get something for a girl gymnast, that's easy. A new leo, a doll, keychain and even plenty of jewelry options make it easy for any mom to search for something for her little gymmie. Most of my female gymnasts have a wardrobe complete with gymnastics t-shirts, shorts and sweats. On etsy there is even complete gymnastics party favors for girls. The popularity of this sport is growing, let's get the boys something they can show the world they are awesome too!

Great Idea for Fundraising in your gym!

I've made these super awesome silicone slap bracelets that are a huge hit with my gymnasts and I've been selling them lately to friends in N. America.

Check out my Etsy Shop The HandXStand

These are relatively cheap to make here in Asia and I'm happy to do new designs. Any suggestions?