Gracias por invitarme a Puerto Rico. Disfruté trabajando con todos los entrenadores y gimnastas. Lo siento, esto me ha llevado tanto tiempo para publicar.
LECTURES
- Twisting, Teach It Right The First Time.
- Yurchenko Vaulting
- A Few Favorite Yurchenko Drills
- Yurchenko Blocking
- Other Drills, Shared by my friend Gerson Ramirez
- Developing A Plan for Bars
- 5 skills at Bars
A more realistic timeline for long term development would have the gymnasts being introduced to most of their skills by the age of 13.
My reasoning is that developmentally it seems the best time to learn. They generally have not hit their growth spurt where you may end up having to scrap some skills that are no longer practical. They do not have a huge amount of school work and have the least amount of FEAR.
When ever I do a congress I always hear about this great 10 year old back in the gym. This gymnast is learning so fast she is going to be the next Olympic Champion. Then what happens? They grow, become afraid, have too much school work to train enough hours to finish the skills. My experience has shown me that you simply do not have enough time to introduce a skill , refine the skill and compete the skill after 13.5 years old.
In order to have program wide success you need to have a plan. A plan for each group and each individual. If you are doing 1 level per year. You are simply going to run out of time.
Questions to ask yourself-
- What age will this group start competing?
- Will they be skipping a level or at some point do 2 levels in 1 year?
- What did I learn from the LAST GROUP that I will do differently?
- What will I do the same?
- What competitions do we NEED to be at (Large invitationals to see how you stand up on a Regional or National level)?
- Should we get involved in USAG Developmental Camps or TOPs?
- Are we looking at collegiate gymnastics or potential National Team?
- What skills will these gymnasts need in 3 years?
- In 5 years?
- In 8 years?
With every group you need a plan. Ask these questions so that you have direction.
