July Finish!

I actually did some stitching, and managed to finish a small piece:

Lyn Manning's Picanini CanCan. A NZ produced kit by a NZ designer.

Now I get to rummage amongst the WIPs and try to keep the stitching going, else I won't match last year's goal of a finish a month.

Why there have been no posts lately

I have been trying to load the video of Jess' FX from the North Harbour comp. But I guess 62mb is too big for Jetstream to cope with cos it failed to load - several times and using different computers. Oh well.

Anyhoo.
The Nth Hbr comp on the first weekend of the holidays went well, and overall Jess came 15th. We'll take that cos she was up against the fab Counties and Nth Hbr girls who filled 3/5ths of the places ahead of her.

Then on the last weekend of the holidays (last Saturday) we drove to Hamilton for the Waikato Open comp. Hamilton City Gymnastics is a lovely venue, and the host club had the event very well organised.

Jess' team came third, and she again improved her scores. She was disappointed that neither her UB or BB scores improved enough to get ribbons, but was happy with 7th overall. No Counties or Nth Hbr, but Eastern Suburbs and Argos were in attendance providing some stiff competition. The TriStar girls generally had a good comp, and lots of fun was had at Burger King afterward for a wind down before heading back to Auckland.

Next stop: Counties Manukau Opens first weekend of August.

Goodbye GamGam

I have a very hard, sad task to do today.

I have to tell my girls that their beloved GamGam (Steve's stepdad, my father-in-law) died this morning.

Bruce McIndoe was a huge influence in my huband's life, after coming into it when Steve was in his very early teens. Bruce has been a large part of my daughters' lives too - very much a larger than life character. He always made me, one of the 3 daughters-in-law of his second wife of over 20years, very welcome.

Bruce, you will be missed. Lots and often.

:(

Things to do on a Saturday evening

Attend gym comps of course - what else would an Evil Gym Mom be doing??
It was the North Harbour Junior invitational, and for some reason the numbers of L4 WAG meant that instead of the usual two separate competitions there was just one, slightly longer competition.
Why is this important?
Cos it meant that TriStar got to compete against the two top Auckland clubs: North Harbour and Counties Manukau. Girls from these two clubs took out the top spots in everything but Jessica managed to take 3rd on vault, and one of her team mates scored 3rd on bars.
WOOHOO.
Jess also reached her goal for this comp of a gold ribbon on floor and red ribbon on bars so she was stoked. We won't talk about beam, ok? Apparently the Nth Harbour beam is notorious for being "skinny and slippery". I have to admit I saw even the usually sure footed Nth Harbour girls step off some of their routines on it - and it's their home beam, so there must be something in the notion.
Tamsin had fun, but mostly it was same-old same-old regarding her routines. But I will say this - she salutes the judges beginning and end, tries hard and keeps her chin up. I could see some improvements, but not enough for her scores to show it. She loves the whole competition scene though, so we'll keep at it. Level 2 next year and she'll be 7 by comp season so maybe a bit more polish will be on show.
Now for the boring bit - yes, the camera battery was charged and I did take it with me so here's Jess' bar routine :)

KTHNXBAI

Evil Gym Mom has a new toy...

Be afraid, be very afraid cos yes, the Evil Gym Mom is now in possession of a handycam! (Blame Dick Smith - they had a really good weekend special on a JVC HDD model)

Still getting used to it, so took several videos of Jess training on Monday and today. Also getting used to transferring the files around, uploading and posting them - hence the one above.

Oh btw Floss, just so you can pre-empt Sophie's eye roll, that's a glide kip, cast, back hip circle, cast, straddle on jump to high bar, long kip, cast, straddle on undershoot dismount. It should be a lot smoother and more flowing than that, with straight arms everywhere - but she's working on it.

I hope to get better before the next comp on July5, especially as that's the last comp for Tamsin for this year and therefore my last chance to capture some L1B action. Jess has 3 more after next weekend before she's finished; the joys of being a L4!

And this is a not very good video to illustrate my long winded post regarding L4 vaulting:

I'm not allowed to deliberately video anyone other than my children, so I can't show any comparisons that illustrate a "bad" vault, but hopefully the flight and pop off the vault are clear in the 2 seconds shown. I've still to learn how to edit etc with this new toy, so bear with me :)KTHNXBAI

but I did have my mobile with me...

so ye do get to be bored with the weekend action shots.

Well, there's no real action cos it is only a 2 megapixel camera afterall, but I did get a shot of the vault podium (as any good Evil Gym Mom should!).

Sunday was Tamsin's comp, plus both girls' ballet exam rehearsal.

I did fail to get a photo of Tamsin looking gorgeous/ cute for gym :(

But did manage one while she was waiting for Jess at ballet (after she'd done her rehearsal)

Evil Gym Mom FAIL

cos I forgot completely to take the camera to the comp today - so you will not be bored with photos of Jess.
I do, however, get a second chance tomorrow as a no-longer-chicken-pox-spotty Tamsin is competing first thing in the morning. I even get the chance to take some ballet shots as it is exam rehearsal day tomorrow as well.
I bet y'all just can't wait :) NOT!

Anyhoo - Jess improved her scores today and came 9th overall, and FIRST on vault!! Woohoo
So happy and proud, and she is too.
Why?
Cos at the last comp she had a huge meltdown on vault: scoring zero on her first attempt (running, touching the beat board but not vaulting); baulking her second (but without touching the board, so has a life left); then after waiting for everyone else in the group to vault she pulls herself together sufficiently to actually vault on the third (and last chance) attempt for a 12.90.
So you can imagine how I felt when her comp today started on vault. Ye gods, what if she freaked herself out again? And stayed freaked for the rest of the comp?
First, I'll bore you with some techo gym stuff - just so you get how vault works (for those that don't know)
L4 vault is a sort of handspring flat back onto mats stacked as high as the vault table.
Things the judges are looking for are: good fast run, underarm swing (overarm is an automatic zero score), good hurdle step, strong flight (no pike) onto the vault, straight tight handstand position throughout, strong prop (quick strong push) off vault, land flat (in dish) on the mats some distance from the vault.
Its start value is a 15.0; not many gymnasts at the comps so far have been able to score over 14.0 - to the bewilderment of their parents (and themselves) in many cases. And given that they mostly get to handstand ok, keep their legs straight and land in dish nicely they quite rightly wonder.
But this is what I think explains it.
L2c vault is a handstand flat back off the beatboard onto a stack of mats- no run, no hurdle, no flight, no vault table, no prop. It's a step on the way to a handspring vault - how to go up to a handstand from an underarm swing and then push off holding the handstand shape while moving through the air.
Problem is, with L3b vault being a front tuck salto from the beat board onto mats and breaking the progression, a lot of the girls don't get that they're meant to "pop" off their hands from the vault onto the mats in L4 - showing height and distance travelled.
Meaning that they instead do a kind of upgraded L2 vault: run, hurdle, somehow get to a handstand on the table, hold it, then fall (still in handstand shape) onto the mat.
No pop, no travel off the vault. And half of them pike off the beat board to get to handstand (a deduction).
And those that do show some prop, a good percentage of them get prop by bending their arms - not a good habit to get into (and gets more deductions).
A strong prop - one that leads down the track to adding somersaults and twists - comes from the shoulders. It's the same for handspring on floor. Otherwise the gymnast can't get their chest up enough to then put a salto on to it.
It's what gives the gymnast the height in the air to do something before landing basically.
And this vault is meant to show that they're going to be able to do that for the next level.
I've noticed that the gymnasts who show a "pop" off the vault invariably don't pike off the beat board, have straight arms onto the vault and get scored 13.9+ Anyone else, well, they don't score so well.
Jess does get that L4 is about handsprings (it's core skill on floor as well in L4).
She can prop too. In fact, Jess' first vault today popped so much that her chest came up (as it needs to for the next level of vaulting) and so her landing wasn't completely flat.
It's a big deduction if a gymnast actually "sits up" the landing - cos it implies that they didn't maintain the open hip position. She managed to not sit it up cos she held her shape and open hip really tight. She told me after that it actually hurt when she landed from pushing off the vault so hard!
She then did her second one - that also popped, but with a flatter landing.
Result: 14.20 from a possible 15.0

GO JESS! and here endeth the lesson, KTHNXBAI