I was at the 2012 Canadian Gymnastics Championship in Regina, SK. It was an awesome week, catching up with old friends as well as meeting new ones. Seeing how the scoring program being used in action give me ideas on how to improve on it. It was tiring but very inspiring.
This is probably one of the very few times all disciplines of gymnastics are competed and warmup under the same roof – rhythmic gymnastics, men and women artistic gymnastics, tumbling and trampoline. A lot of people think of gymnastics as just one gymnastics but there are actually quite a few different disciplines.
Before this event, I know that the disciplines are different but I do not fully appreciate the difference between each of the disciplines aside from the competition rules. As examples:
- T & T crowd has to be the best as party animals, a few of them even dress up as clowns to cheer and entertain.
- Rhythmic Gymnastics is known as one of the most beautiful sport but in Canada, it is also known for delays because of issues with judges scores. This year, I don’t know if it is the food they serve or we simply sync ourselves to the bigger picture, everything is either early or right on time. Anyways, below is Canada’s senior group getting ready for the Olympics.
- Gymnastics is not just for girls, the whole gym is full of competitors of BOTH genders. Rhythmic Gymnastics is the only discipline without any male competitors. Hopefully, MartialGym will spread to more provinces and we will be able to compete at such high calibre.
- Consistent across any high performance sport is the possibility of injuries. For rhythmic gymnastics, sprains or other overuse injuries . For those doing multiple spins-and-twists tumbling or high bars with releases, even with the protection of the mats as well as qualified coaches, nasty injuries can happen.
- Artistic gymnastics folks are quite happy that we (rhythmic gymnastics) are kinda left on our own – they have a tough enough time accommodating the needs of all the other disciplines.
- Disciplines like women’s artistic gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics favours younger gymnast but trampoline athletes as well as men’s AG seems to reach the peak of their performance level much later. (Watch Karen Cockburn’s routine on trampoline and according to Wiki, Karen is 32 by October).
With so much activities around, this simulates a lot closer to what multi-sport games. As a competitor, you have to block off all the distractions from warmup to your actual performance. While I can go on about how important the event is from an experience point of view, having all disciplines compete together is a huge undertaking – the organizers and the volunteers all did a fantastic job!
Exercise:
– Plan some choreographed partner skills to demonstrate at the yearly showcase. Like all presentations, it has to be relatively short must also flow efficiently. You have need to be able to explain as well. You will be practicing for that presentation in the next two classes. Try to describe your idea by email first before class. (If you are already performing in gymnastics, you will NOT be REQUIRED to perform KF. However, please still go through this drill as if you are going to be performing).
– Some of you did not complete last week’s exercise! Do it now!