Coaches Coach brag thread

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Haven't had one of these in awhile. What cool stuff have your kids accomplished lately?

I've been working with this upper-level boys group since returning to coaching a little over a year ago. They were struggling with tumbling and dismounts, so I've basically spent the last year working hard with them on trampoline, heavily emphasizing twisting technique and use of visual cues.

And over the last couple practices, now it's all coming together. I had one guy nail a clean double back 1/1-out off rings today, another got his on trampoline, a third got his tkatchev on high bar, and all three are confidently twisting double saltos into the pit off a mini tramp.

It's like everything we've been doing for the last year has finally clicked, all at the same time, and suddenly they are comfortable and confident in the air in a way they never were before.

None of this is going to hard landings yet, but the fact that they are confident and comfortable and know where they are in the air is a huge step forward for all of them.

EDIT: OH, I ALMOST FORGOT THE BEST PART OF TONIGHT'S PRACTICE:
I have successfully brainwashed this group of boys; they were goofing off, procrastinating, and avoiding their assignments on rings. Laughing and joking the whole time, clearly in the "I'm avoiding work and getting away with it" sort of mindset.
Now what, you may ask, were they doing instead of their assignments?
They were taking turns spotting each other on rings strength. Their idea of goofing off was conditioning.
Brainwashing successful

 

[sun]

Wholesome brainwashing!!

My co-coach and I started a competitive program from scratch last year with an emphasis on tracking their strength and conditioning on a daily basis - based on the TOPs physical abilities.

Similar to your brainwashing - a regular occurrence at our gym is me having to kick the team kids who arrive early off the floor to make room for rec classes because they're getting in the way... doing straddle-L's, timing their handstands and stalder pressing.

Man, is it working. We are still getting owned in competition by the more established teams but I'm so pleased with their trajectory.

I just checked our stats the other day and we now have 14 kids who have made stationary straight cast handstands by themselves and 27 kids who can do the 8 year old TOPs leg lifts! This is out of ~20 Lv.2's, 12 Lv.3's and ~30 preteamers who only do conditioning class.

At past gyms where I (foolishly) didn't take physical prep seriously or inherited groups of older gymnasts with varying levels of conditioning ability - it was always about straddle casts and trying to coax the teens into squeezing in leg lifts here and there... Now I just go to coach conditioning class and the kiddos are all excited to try to beat their PRs

Lastly, kips are starting to happen! The only drill we do on a regular basis is stemme-rise on pbars or a block+rail - and we don't practice kips except for in TOPs practice, but even before we started our TOPs group we had 5 kids make kips with probably less than an hour worth of accumulated time spent on it... Strength is like a cheat-code in gymnastics.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Aaaaand the guy who last week got his 1/1-out on trampoline just did it off high bar for the first time into the pit -- and found it so easy that after three turns into the pit, he was confident enough to put it on a mat, where he stuck it on the first try. (He wanted to do it on a mat after one into the pit, but I made him do two more to be sure). He said he found it shockingly easy, which tells me that he's been on exactly the right track as far as lead up drills and progressions. (His tap going into it is still not what I'd like it to be, but I'll leave that for the other boys coach, who is a lot more of a high bar guy than I am)

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

MY UPPER LEVEL BOYS ARE ON FIRE!

I can't do an iron cross anymore, which means this picture right here marks the first time in my ~21 years of coaching that one of my students has undisputably surpassed me in strength, and I could not be prouder.

I think I'm just as excited about it as he is!

 

[sun]

Expansion brag!

We started a year ago in a 4,500sqft space... a single rail, quad bars, 3 strips of floor, tumbl trak and trampoline to a raised foam pit and 2 beams.

Then, we expanded to the building next door at 6,500sqft... added uneven bars, high bar, strap bar, vault runway...

We just gained access to the adjacent building... a combined total of 20,000sqft. OMG. Beyond thrilled. We started construction yesterday. I have never been so happy to hear jackhammers and saws during class.