Month: April 2020
5 Tips For a Stellar Handspring Vault
Making Sense of Composition: Level 8 Floor
This Level 8 gymnast did a super clean floor routine! Gymnast and coach are thrilled, but when the score comes up, it’s not as high as they thought it would be. What gives? For Levels 8 and above, there may be a problem with composition deductions. What exactly are composition deductions? Let’s take a closer […]
What’s Your Bar Angle?
What’s my bar routine missing? What are the biggest deductions I’m getting? This is a very common question for Level 6-10 bars. What’s the answer? Often, it has to do with bar angle deductions. Angle deductions are deductions that are taken during almost every bar routine. At Level 6 and 7, the deductions taken are […]
The Secret Formula to Success in Sports
Why is it that some athletes are able to generate huge success even if they aren’t the most talented? What is their secret? I’ve often wondered this, both about top-level athletes, as well as about successful people in pretty much any area of life. What are they doing differently than the rest of us? Here’s […]
Preview of 2021-2029 Compulsory Skills
It’s officially time for the new compulsory routines! As of August 1, 2021, the routines will change. The old routines from 2013-2021 will no longer be allowed in competition. With these changes, the level system will still stay the same. There will continue to be five levels of compulsories and five levels of optionals. Level […]
2020 Olympic Postponement and FIG Clarifications
The Olympics have officially been postponed, and the new date of the Opening Ceremony is July 23, 2021. Clearly, it’s the right thing to do. I was really hoping it wouldn’t happen, but once training facilities began to shut down all over the world, it was inevitable. It wouldn’t be safe to hold the Olympics […]
Is This Beam Series Connected?
The acro series on beam – it’s a requirement that can make or break the routine! If the series is not connected, it’s an automatic 0.5 off the start value for the routine, in addition to any execution deductions, balance errors, or falls. But what is necessary to consider a series connected? For a forward, […]
Weekly GymNews 4/3/2020
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve written one of these news posts. It didn’t really make sense to me to write about gymnastics news when no competitions were happening and the only news was about cancellations. To be honest, it was all just a little depressing. But this week I realized that things […]