Flex-Strength-Skills n Drills

If you want to get the leotard with your gym's name on the front and your name on the back, you have to work hard.


Your coach tells you, "It's your responsibility to do your training at home and bring your skills folder back every Saturday to show it."


If you forget your work chart, you worry your coach will be mad (she wasn't).  Then you don't forget it the next week...because it's your responsibility.  


Flexibility:
right split x 1 minute
left split x 1 minute
middle split x 1 minute
rainbow bridge x 1 minute
pike stretch for 30 sec x 2
shoulder stretch x 1 minute
pancake x 1 minute 
backbend down & up x 1 minute
forward lift kicks x 10
side lift kicks x 10
back arabesque kicks x 10


Strength:
handstand hold at the wall x 1 minute
handstand pushups
pike hold on floor 
straddle hold on floor 
tuck hold on floor 
triangle pushups 
triceps dip 
2 footed squats 
right leg squats
left leg squats 
V-ups 
crunches 
scissors in hollow hold 
superman holds 
lock holds on toe 
press handstands


Skills/Drills
handstands with flat backs
practice scales with chest up
practice running on toes
practice splint jumps


Then you learn how to do harder and trickier stuff.  But, you don't try it at home until your coach says you can do the harder, trickier stuff outside of the gym.  You listen to your coach cause she wants you to be safe and you respect her...ALOT.


You do all this stuff because you want the leo with your name on the back.


When you get that leo, you will have earned it! 

I Need to see More Chinese Girls...

Kate loves gymnastics. She loves to watch it and she loves to do it.

She looks forward to going to her gymnastics class each week. Every Monday we remind her that she's going to go to Salto (name of her gym) and she jumps up and down. (Then reminds us that she needs to go to Krispy Kreme for doughnuts and chocolate milk afterward.)

Steve decided that if she likes gymnastics so much, he should look on the internet for video clips of some champions performing. Well, he hit the jackpot and Kate was in heaven. She loves watching the the videos and has now become rather choosy about who she watches. We found a few of the Chinese athletes and she now only wants to see the Chinese athletes perform. (Yes, she can tell the difference!)

We asked her if she wanted to see some American gymnasts and she replied, "No, just Chinese."

Steve then asked her, "Kate, don't you like American gymnasts?"
Her reply was simply, "No." (We have no clue where she got that.)

We switched to the male athletes (Chinese male) and as she watched them perform on the parallel bars she said, "Man no fall and go boom!"

I guess we know who she will be rooting for during the Beijing Olympics!

Since she is now watching gymnastics, she is now workng on variations on her forward roll...she now does the:
1) simple forward roll
2) the Nascar forward roll (from a dead run into the roll)
3) the Peter Rabbit forward roll (hopping into the roll)
4) the "look Momma no hands" forward roll (hands held out to the side) and
5) the spread eagle forward roll.

Hopefully if she decides to compete in floor exercises, she adds something else for variation!

We have decided that her small size may make gymnastics a natural sport for her. We ran out of pants for her this weekend, so we had to put her in a pair of her brother's size 18-24 month pants. They were about a 1/2 too short, but otherwise fit. She thought it was pretty funny that she could where Sam's pants.