hi everyone

coachmela · #1 01-18-2008, 05:20 PM

hi guys,

not sure exactly what to do but i suppose i will tell you a bit about myself. I am from Australia and i trained at a local gymnastics centre for a couple of years until i was spotted for elite training. i trained as an elite gymnast for around 4 years training up to 30 hours a week at 11 and 12. I ended up stopping due to lack of enjoyment and generally being worn out. At 14 i became a coach back at my local club, i coached our national stream level one's and then level two's. i am now 19 years old and due to my move to university i can only coach on a Saturday. i currently coach development classes for levels, state level one, national level one and state level three. i enjoy coaching with great passion and love motivating the gymnasts to be their best.

suppose that’s it from me. hope to speak to you all about gymnastics. bye xoxo

**bogwoppit** · #2 01-18-2008, 05:38 PM

Wow, you've certainly been busy for someone so young. I think the Australian system is similar to the US one so you should enjoy being here. I am sure many of us would enjoy hearing about your Elite training, good and bad. Parents, gymnasts and coaches alike can learn a lot from experiences like yours.

Nice that you are still able to coach whilst at Uni, it can be a challenge to fit everything in whilst in education.

Welcome on board, nice to have such diversity.

MartinaE · #3 01-19-2008, 12:12 PM

Hello there!

Wow, that`s an awesome way you went!!! It is great to read how much you enjoy coaching now!

coachmela · #4 01-19-2008, 05:08 PM

i love my coaching so much. i have learned so much about what works and what hasn’t with my own experiences. Eg. i tended to always struggle with my strength however this was of no concern to my coaches and they would put a time limit on our strength such as 30 min. and whoever wasn’t finished had to repeat the strength again. The numbers in this strength meant it was near to impossible for me to finish so i ended up cheating as did most of my group (we worked together to cheat lol, we all struggled in different areas), it sounds really bad that we did this but as soon as a threat was put onto this strength I knew it was the only way (kinda a live or die thing hahaha). Anyways a few years ago I had a group of girls who trained 3 days a week at ages 6-7. As a coach my pet hate is now cheating and all the girls knew that. However for their strength I gave them individual numbers and sets and told them I didn’t care how long it takes them, just as long as they didn’t cheat and if they needed help to ask. These girls where the strongest little kids in the gym. They used to beat the girls training two times the hours at strength games. And out of the 7 of them 5 could clime to the top of the rope in straddle. And my favourite part was they loved strength. I love giving the girls the motivation to do things for them selves, they loved gym and worked so hard because of it. So yeh my experiences have taught me allot, and I am grateful to know these kinds of things.

MartinaE · #5 01-28-2008, 11:37 AM

That`s absolutely awesome!! I can imagine it is not always easy to motivate the girls for those exercises, but it seems you found a wonderful way to make them enjoy them too.

And of course beating girls who train more hours will add to that as well!

NYgymfan · #6 01-28-2008, 04:04 PM

Interesting story! I like your coaching strategy for strength. No one should ever cheat (because you are only cheating yourself!) and it almost sounds like your old coach was indirectly encouraging the girls to cheat.

Oh yeah, and welcome