Tweet You might know Carol Angela Orchard as the former Canadian National Technical Advisor but she has taken up a new role as British Gymnastics Women’s National Coach – Beam & Artistic Preparation. Carol-Angela will begin work on November 18th and will work alongside the rest of the coaching staff in preparation for London 2012.

Tim Jones, British Gymnastics Olympic Performance Director says:
“ We have highlighted that we can make significant performance gains in our Beam work with the aim of building on our successful Team results achieved at the …

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Former Russian Olympic gymnast Elena Davydova moved to Canada in 1991 and since then has been coaching and working in Gemini Gymnastics in Oshawa. Recently Elena was interviewed by Durham Region and discussed how she has created national champions, coaching and her relationship with gymnasts.

Do you try to be more than a coach to your gymnasts?
Davydova: You always feel like a mother. I hope that all of them fell that I am giving them my heart. Basically, I’m their mother in the gym looking after them. I …

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I was reading through the forums on the Chalk Bucket. The 7 page thread began with this post :
I’m just curious as to what other gyms policy is for allowing parents to watch. As of now, my gym allows parents to stay. The problem I find is that many try coaching through the window or from the second floor! I think it might be a distraction and there are some kids who turn around to get mom or dads reaction after each skill. We are making some renovations and …

Tweet My girls competed excellently at the competition last weekend. Their individual scores were so consistent that we came away with the team gold. I’m so delighted for them. As I  said in my previous post, the girls really deserved medals for all of the hard work and effort they have put in over the last few weeks. They’ve really pushed themselves and it’s paid off. I know they have it in them to reach their full potential for the competition finals in a few weeks time.  I’m one very proud …

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This is just a quick little post to update you on how things are going in my gym. We’re smack – bang in the middle of competition season at the moment, so everyone is busy in the gym from coaches to gymnasts to parents and to the admin! My girls are competing in a level which has set moves based mainly on strength and flexibility. They’re all brilliant little girls who each deserve a medal so much. I’ve put a lot of work in with them over the last …

Tweet Many thanks to Gymnastics in Europe for drawing my attention to this blog Coaching Gymnastics In The New Millenium. So far I have just skimmed through some of the posts but I’m so excited about reading the posts. The post content seems to be the exact type of subjects I like to read about when it comes to gymnastics. Biology, Anatomy and Physiology are a huge passion of mine so as you can imagine, I can’t wait to read some posts!
Speaking of which, Gymnastics In Europe has just started …

Tweet There’s something I have noticed about myself since I’ve come through my teenage years and left my gymnast days behind. I am now nearing my mid-twenties and have begun to realise that a part of me is missing. It’s not that I feel less of a person but there is something I really miss about myself.

 
As a gymnast I was a hard worker, stubborn and fearless but now I am just a hard worker and stubborn. I no longer have the firey fearless persona that the other gymnasts admired …

Tweet Recently enough, I attended a Child Protection Course.  During this time we were spoken to about codes of conducts which should be made out by our sporting Governing body for coaches and participants and also for the coaches to establish our own code of conduct – as such, what we expect of our gymnasts.  We have always had an unwritten code of conduct.  Generally speaking, it is what is expected of any person  but overall care and respect for others.  In the last week or 2, a Code of Conduct …

Tweet As mentioned in my previous post, I had my first training session of the 2009 – 2010 season. It was slow to get started as the children were so excited to see each other (as we had taken a five week break), wanted to tell me all about their holidays and everything new about school. After the excitement died down a bit, we began training.
I was happy to begin training on Floor as two new girls had joined my group. They had begun in the competitive class in January with …

Tweet Tonights training session will be the first for me in the 2009 – 2010 season. I hope that this year will be a very successful year for all gymnasts and that throughout this season that they find out more about themselves and continue to enjoy the sport.
Throughout the year, I hope to continue to write more blog posts about the adventures in the gym.  As I explained in my previous post, three of my best gymnasts have progressed to another group so it will take me some time to get used …

Tweet Irish Gymnastics have released their new Code of Ethics on their website.  You can download it from the download section in the main menu. How does this compare to the Code of Ethics in your country?

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I recently began subscribing to  The Gymnastic Minute ,  a clever tool used by Gym Smarts.  In these 60 second videos, coaches provide some tips and drills for other coaches to use to help their gymnasts.

I’m really enjoying them and love when they come into my youtube subscriptions and into my Google reader. Whilst the videos are generally at a more advanced level than the girls I coach, I have made sure to let the other coaches I work with about the youtube channel. Keep up the good work …

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When I think about my role as a gymnastics coach, many thoughts and images come to mind. When people I meet for the first time ask me what I do and I tell them I’m a gymnastics coach, they ask me to tell them all about it and have many questions. I tend to give a brief outline, similar to what is written on my CV , simply because I could talk about my role as a coach all day!
 
My main role as a gymnastics coach is to teach …