Got What it Takes?

Hello! Wow, its been a long time since I wrote anything! I'm back again!

The other day I had a thought about what it takes to be a great athlete/coach. It was much more consideration into my coaching career and a former athlete.  This is my philosophy of being the best athlete/coach you can be using my 5 P's.

1. Purpose- When you walk into the gym, you should have a purpose. Everyone has a purpose, otherwise you wouldn't come to practice. Your purpose shouldn't be "because I have to come to practice". If you had to come then you hinder your productivity of your practice. Make sure that every time you walk through those doors, have a purpose. Your purpose is that you want to! You purpose should be your expectation and goals on what you like to achieve. Coming to practice without a purpose is like coming in with a bad attitude that will hinder your success. So come to practice with an awesome attitude and have a purpose.

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."
                                                                                                   
                                                                                                          - Thomas A. Edison


2. Passion- Passion is about for the love of it. I love tumbling and I love it with a passion. Everyday I breathe, I sweat, I dream, and I bleed tumbling. I love the aggressiveness and the challenges that tumbling offers me. No one can't take that away from me. I would expect my athletes to have that same passion as me. I want them to love it as much as I do. As a coach, I put in just as much more passion into coaching as much as I put in as an athlete.

"Follow your passion, be prepared to work hard and sacrifice, and, above all, don't let anyone limit your dreams." - Donovan Bailey



3. Prepare: Nothing is more important than preparing. Preparing comes in many factors. You can prepare physically and mentally. When I'm talking physical preparation, I'm talking warming up, stretching, strength and conditioning, and drills for skills. This physical preparation is also knowing the 7 body shapes that I talked about earlier in the blog. Mentally preparing is focusing on the task and being mentally strong. You need to be mentally tough knowing you got this. I'm not going to pretend to be a sport psychologist but my friend Dr. Allison Arnold is a great person to talk about mental toughness. You can learn more about her at  http://www.docaliarnold.com/. 

                          "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail"
                                                                                   - Benjamin Franklin



4. Practice-  Practice is everything including your fundamental drills, skills, and routines. Your practice should meet the same standards as your purpose. Remember you are the result of what you do. If you practice going through movements rather than making the effort to do it, you may want to reevaluate your purpose.
   The amount and type of practice leading to expertise requires not only the time in which the person spent in the gym but most importantly is how they spent their time in the gym. According to extensive study of experts, the specific type of intense practice a person needs to achieve expertise in any field is deliberate practice. This type of practice requires the person to receive optimal instruction, as well as engages in intense work like practice. As the person reaches expertise, he or she begins to need personalize training or supervision of the practice regime. It's important to make sure that we have good quality program protocols to learn things correctly otherwise, according to hundreds of studies among Basketball players, it takes about and average of 3,000- 5,000 reps to break a bad habit. However, I would expect the numbers to go higher has the complexity of the movement in tumbling is more complex.

I say this from time and time again. You don't deserve what you want. You don't deserve what you desire. You only deserve what you do.

"You need to put what you learn into practice and do it over and over again until it's a habit. I always say, 'Seeing is not believing. Doing is believing.' There is a lot to learn about fitness, nutrition and emotions, but once you do, you can master them instead of them mastering you." -Brett Hoebel

5. Progress- Practice to progress not for perfection. You may ask why not perfection.  I always believe that perfectionist are very dangerous. Perfectionist get hard on themselves and they lack self confidence that can lead into much frustration later down the road. I have experience working with a few perfectionist. Perfectionist have a hard time believing that if they focus on process, they will have the outcome they desire. They think that they must strive for perfection in order to achieve. Anything less is failure. It become very difficult to get them to "buy in" to focus on the process. I want mastery and excellence, not perfection. Besides what is perfection? no one really have an answer, not for performance.  Perfection is an abstract thought. There's really no guide to know if you ever received perfection.

Don't push so hard trying to be perfect. Progress for excellence on your own terms by evauluating your purpose and your practice. Progress shows improvement, growth, and learning. This way you only get the outcome you desire. Practice to progress for mastery!

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - Francis of Assisi

Learning Body Shapes is ABC's for Learning Tumbling Skills

When it comes to quality tumbling, it starts with understand the types of body shapes and how you apply them into the tumbling skills you are learning. Body shapes are the basic ABC's of every tumbling skill imagine. After learning the body shapes, its much easier to progress to new skills if progression protocol are followed. Before I continue, ask yourself what is a shape. According to the Webster Dictionary, a shape is to form or create; especially, to mold or make into a particular form; to give proper form or figure to.  However Gymnastics skills is what I called a structures. Structure is the manner of construction of something and the arrangement of its shape. Example: A handstand is a structure that has a straight body shape. A handstand can also be in other form of shapes in which we will go over the seven shapes. A bridge is a structure that has a shape of an arch.

There are 7 body shapes you'll need to know and how they are implied with the skills you are learning.
1. Straight- In the straight body position every joint is straight and showing no flexion, arching, or hollow. The straight body is commonly used when we do straight jumps, jump 1/2 turn, jump 1/1 turn, handstands, setting for a skill, front drop, back drop, front layout, and back layout, etc....

2. Tuck/ Puck- In the tuck position, both hips and knees are flexed and the body resembles a ball. I put puck in because its relevantly the same shape except the hips are less flexed than the tuck as if you would say a tuck candle stick or a hollowed tuck. The Puck is commonly used when an athlete is attempting a multiple flip with a twist. Tuck is more closed in at the hips. Tuck is can be used during a tuck jump,  forward roll, backward roll, handstand, tuck support, tuck to seat drop on trampoline, front tuck, back tuck, etc...

3. Pike- In the pike position only the hips are flexed and the knees are straight. Pike can be used during a forward roll, backward rolls, handstand, pike, jump, seat drop, L-seat hold, front pike, back pike, pullover pike (trampoline), etc....

4. Straddle- In the straddle position the hips are flexed while the legs are straight and separated. A straddle can also be applied to a star jump where the legs are separated but the hips are not flexed. Star jumps are commonly used in youth cheerleading and lower level gymnastics. Straddle can also be applied to forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheel, straddle jump, Straddle L-seat hold (bars), handstand, etc...

5. Hollow- In the hollow shape many coaches see the hollow as straight body. The hollow body is where the athlete lays down on their back while their shoulders are off the ground and feet off the ground where they show very little hip flexion but not piked or their back arched. In the hollow position, the body is in a crescent position where the stomach area seemed empty as nothing is there being hollow. The hollow body hold allows you to properly transfer force from upper body to your lower body without any energy leaks. This is an example of doing multiple BHS and Whips. Hollow body position can be applied to handstands, strength elements such as front levers, double layout, back layout, and front layout, etc.












6. Bow- The bow shape is a tight arch as if you are doing a superman hold. The bow shape is applied to back handspring, front handspring, whips, front layout, double layout, etc...

                                 

7. Arch- The arch shape is more extreme arch than the bow. The arch shape is applied to handstands (acrobatics), limbers and walkovers.

These are the seven body shapes and many of them can be combined and work together to make the tumbling skill more complete and mastered. Teaching tumbling is like learning the read. You can't read if you don't understand the letters and the sound they make. Learning the body shapes is learning your ABC's, Learning the skill is learning what the letter sound like, learning a tumbling pass is learning to read.

HAPPY TUMBLING!