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 World Championships in Rotterdam. We are also looking to ensure we can influence our next generation of gymnasts and this appointment is an indication or our commitment to future Olympic cycles. British Gymnastics are fortunate to be able to appoint such a successful and experienced coach in Carol-Angela to work with our key gymnasts.”

Read more from British Gymnastics

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 can’t be completely soft. If I’m soft, they are not going to be tough. It’s a tough sport. They know. When they have to leave gymnastics, it feels like my child is leaving and it’s always hard. I’m not a babysitter and I can’t completely be a mom the way a mom is at home. Here you have to direct them the way you know how. When you establish the rules and environment, they follow it. It’s important to have a good environment. I think they are comfortable here. I think they know they aren’t coming here to play and be social. They are learning how to be good friends, they are learning how to support each other, they are learning how to be respectful to the adults, which is sometimes missing in our lives. These kids are so organized. I have kids that miss school and come in early, but they are all successful in school. It’s because they are organized and perfectionists and want to be the best everywhere, in school too, so they are successful.

Read the full interview here.

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 are thinking of a 2 way mirror.. parents can still see, but kids won’t be distracted. Is this a good idea?

In our gym, we don’t encourage parents into the gym to watch. I find it to be very distracting for the gymnasts. We have a viewing gallery above the gym and the parents can watch if they really want to. I always find that the children show off but in the wrong way, by trying to be funny and messing and eventually end up getting hurt by not concentrating. I don’t mind so much for our Recreation gymnasts who only train for an hour, often it’s not worth the trip home for Mom and Dad to have to run back out the door again to collect their child.

I’ve been reading this thread and noticing that a lot of members said that they didn’t have parents in the gym as they tend to try to “coach” their own child, even from window. I haven’t  noticed this in my own gym. I’d like to think that the parents leave it up to us coaches, the trained professional to teach the children. We organise displays and shows later on in the year for the parents so that the children can have time to work on their moves and then once they are comfortable and ready, show them off to parents, friends and family. If a child has worked on a move that they’re really proud of, we of course invite the parents in to view the great work they’ve done on the particular move.

So how do you operate classes in your gym? Is it ok for Rec parents to watch? Do you have an allocated area for parents to watch from? Or do you ban parents from the gym altogther?

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 coach! Go team!!

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 few weeks and we are coming extremely close to “C – Day “now. I took the approach to be less of their friend and be more of strict coach for the last few weeks, it’s really made a huge difference to them. I’ve pushed them a lot and given them a lot of exercises to do at home. So both gymnasts and coach have equally been putting in a lot of work.

 At last weeks training, we judged the girls on their performance, amazingly, they really pulled through. It seems that I have a group who step up when there’s pressure or competition involved. One of my gymnasts, who is rather shy, has really come out of herself in the last few weeks and is performing amazingly confident routines and really showing off – I see a future star!

 I’m looking forward to the competition and I know that they will do their very best, for the first time they will be competing in their own club so hopefully they will feel more comfortable in familiar surroundings and equipment.  I’m really proud of my girls and wish them the very best of luck! Fingers crossed we’ll have some National Finalists too!!

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 another blog since moving to the USA. Although I loved reading the content of a blog that was so close to home, I can’t wait to hear a European’s views on gymnastics in the USA, sometimes it seems so alien to me as the sport isn’t as big here.

I hope everyone’s 2010 season is going well so far!

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 in me and that my coaches loved about me. I can confidently coach others to perform upside down moves on the beam or giants on bars and tell them to just “go for it” but when it comes to it now,  I can’t just “go for it”, I am terrified to perform a back flip on the beam or a twisting fly away dismount on bars, not only in gymnastics but also in life.

As a young girl, I would do anything, never embarrassed. I would do a full routine with my bum hanging out of my leotard – I once insisted on finishing my bar routine in training even though my leggings had split right down the middle from jumping into a straddle upstart, leaving the older girls in tears laughing at me! I wanted to try my hardest to get the technique of a move right as quickly as I could so that I could perform it without support from my coach, to feel that I had really achieved something. I was cheeky, a show off and some might say over confident.

I have been trying to discover when things changed. I was forced to retire at 17 and began to train casually as an adult from 19. The devastation of having to retire made it difficult to begin training again casually, mainly because of the physical pain but also the emotional pain. Eventually things got better as I understood technique and biomechanics more and I was able to achieve moves easily, even if it was on a casual basis, I knew ways to avoid hurting myself or putting too much stress on my recovering injury. Throughout these years, I went through the emotions and situations that any normal person does, heartache, depression, defeat and loss of a family member. I think each of these experiences maybe took a little part of me with them, they took my fire.

Apparently as a baby, I was firey and active, my parents have recalled many a time that I would crawl out of my cot as a baby whereas my brother acted like the normal baby and just slept! I think that gymnastics kept my fire burning and developed it into something special. I will always believe that gymnastics contributed largely to the person I am today.   When I go out and will be around people I want to look immaculate, I want to appear confident, a similar feeling that I would get when stepping out into the middle of the floor to perform a routine, maybe I see people as an audience. When I am going somewhere special or to something important, I like to take my time and get my head in focus. In an argument with someone close to me I am stubborn, I know what feels right and want to do it my way.  When I feel I have done something right or made the correct decision and someone tells me I have not or that I have failed at the task, I am gutted, I don’t take corrections too well. When I work, I have to have things organised, clear in front of me and tend to do things exactly to the book, I want it perfect and will try hard until I get the perfect result for a deadline.

I remember being 16 and on holidays. A facility on the island was offering bungee jumps, I was convinced that I was going to do it, in the end we didn’t have time (although maybe my parents told me that so that I wouldn’t give grey hairs early!). Now, I will not even go on the same rollercoaster that I would have gone on several times in a day every year! Ask me to get up on the beam to do a flip or to do a flyaway on bars and I’ll have to think it over several times.

The knock backs in life have certainly extinguished some of that fire that gymnastics nurtured, developed and matured in me. I miss that confident “get up and go” attitude about myself – since retiring it has slowly but steadily begun to diminish.  As a gymnast I would never question myself, consider what others would think of me or think the consequences and “what ifs”  through thoroughly. Maybe it’s my age, I’m getting older,  I’ve seen the world and read the news. I’m getting to the harder part of life and maybe it is that I don’t want to take risks as much, if any. I am still me but I would very much like this part of me to return, I’m not sure if I feel complete without it.

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 was emailed to our club. Below are the points which are in the code that gymnasts are expected to sign and abide by. See what you think.

Young Gymnasts should undertake to:

• Participate fairly, do their best and enjoy themselves
• Represent themselves, their family and Club with pride and dignity
• Shake hands before and after events / competitions respective of the result or performance
• Respect Officials and accept their decisions gracefully
• Respect fellow team members gving them support whether they do well or not so well
• Respect opponents and be modest  in victory and gracious in defeat
• Improve and develop their skills
• Set high standards of fair play for others to follow
• Let the coach know when you are unavailable for training and competition
• Approach the Club’s Children’s Officer with any concerns or questions you may have

Young Gymnasts should not:

• Cheat – always participate by the rules
• Use abusive language
• Shout at or argue with an official
• Spread rumours
• Bully or use bullying tactics to isolate another young person
• Tell lies about adults or other young people
• Take banned substances
• Harm team members, opponents or their property

Young people are entitled to:

• Be safe and to feel safe
• Be happy, have fun and experience a sense of enjoyment and fulfilment
• Be treated with respect and dignity
• Comment and make suggestions in a constructive manner
• Be afforded appropriate confidentiality
• Make a complaint appropriately and be listened to
• Be believed
• Experience competition at a level which they feel comfortable
• Get help against bullies
• Say no
• To protect their own bodies

I’d be interested to know what peoples take is on this. What would you add to it? What would you remove from it? What might you change in it? Your comments are very welcome.

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 another coach so I hadn’t really had a chance to look at them.  They’re not too far behind my other girls but it’s going a while for the gymnasts to get used to me and also for me to get used to their temperaments. Within five minutes I heard one of the girls say “I can’t” so I’ll have to encourage her to be more positive.  In regards to moves, the girls need some fine tuning, I think mostly I will have to remind them to tighten up and push through their shoulders for moves.

We then move to vault. Unfortunately the girls are still struggling to do handspring prep to land on their back at 90cm’s, whereas my existing group are working on full handspring. Vault has always been a poor piece for our club so I’m going to really try hard to get the girls doing excellent vaults from the beginning. Overall I think the whole group could really benefit from some running skills and also some plyometric work.

For our final piece, we moved to bars. I need to get the girls working on upstarts as soon as possible. They’re nowhere near ready but they will need the move and it will be easier for them now as they are very small and petite. We have seen our mistakes as coaches leaving it too late with our older gymnasts, so when they reach the competitive level where they must do upstart they find it impossible. We worked some swings on the loop bar, the girls really not understanding the shaping. It will really take some time for them to get used to it as we spent 5 months working on it with the existing group and they still find shaping difficult sometimes!

Overall I was pleased with how the session went. Yes, I did miss my other 3 gymnasts but I’ll just have to get on with it and bring up the new generation of star gymnasts from this group! I’m looking forward to our Saturday session where I’ll meet my new recreation groups and have a longer training session with the girls.

Right now, I’m off to plan for the competitive season ahead and hunt out some fantastic floor music!

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 to not coaching them. I’m looking forward to meeting my new recreation groups too.

I imagine that I will be very tired by the end of this evening and by tomorrow, my poor muscles will be aching from lifting the equipment in and out and also putting the gymnasts through moves.  My new group in the competitive class have some great potential so I’m really looking forward to seeing what they can do!

To everyone else who’s season is just kicking off, good luck and enjoy it!

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?

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 and I hope to see some more great videos in the near future!

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 them the core skills of the sport. Being children, they ask many questions. I do my best to answer them but I try to refrain from answering opinion questions, as I don’t feel it is my place to do so. In saying that, I do like to teach them new things outside of gymnastics but I always keep it gymnastics-related as there do need to be some lines drawn between the relationship of a gymnast and coach.  I don’t feel it is my place to tell the children what to eat and what to not eat. It is up to their parents to decide whether they are allowed to eat sweets and drink fizzy drinks, although we do not encourage it in the gym (also because of the sticky mess of clearing up a spilt drink that is anything but water!).  Part of my role as a coach is having the responsibility to educate the children I teach about their bodies. Luckily, this is fusing two of my passions in life; my gymnastics hobby and part of my college education, Anatomy & Physiology. It is extremely important that children are educated as to why they need to look after and respect their bodies. We only have one body and we should do our best to look after it.

 I make a point of teaching my gymnasts about posture, why they should look after themselves and how to do it.  I recently taught my 7 – 9 year olds about posture. They had already been told about standing up tall and keeping their shoulders back and head up on the beam but I wanted to give them a little more information. We had great fun with it, looking at pictures of different postures good and bad. I realised that they understood what I was hoping to get across to them as they began to call a “Lordotic” posture (arched lower back with buttocks sticking out) “Bendy Back” and a “Kyphotic” posture (curved upper back, forward head) “Banana Back”. They have even started to correct me if I slouch!

I promised my gymnasts that I would make them their own “Conditioning and Stretching” book. Since they are young and do not train as often as girls in other clubs that they would normally compete against, they still need to do some additional conditioning at home. This way with pictures and easy to follow instructions, they have no excuses for not doing their extra work at home! It had various stretching and conditioning moves, I also included a small bit at the back about posture. Their parents told me that they were delighted that I had given them this and said that they had even learnt a little bit themselves!

Every so often they ask questions such as “Why when I do this does this bit of my arm move” – as in when they have their arm extended and bent at the elbow and they move their clenched fist, why does their bicep move. In these cases, I give a  very simple explanation about their muscles, sometimes it goes over their head, sometimes it doesn’t .  I just hope that any information that they do retain, how ever small it is, that they benefit from it.