Daria's and Nastia's bar routines have the difficulty built more on connections vs. like Ferrari's or Tweddle's bar routines that are by more release moves - so if you mess up on a routine built with connections, you can lose more points and be off the medal podium, whereas in one built with difficulty around release moves if you mess up a little it won't be so hard on your score and it's easier[ Read More... ]

[quote=DevilsAdvocate069]The touching thing could be a cultural thing - in one of my human resources classes I read about how Asian cultures are not big on physical contact but Italians are ... which of course is stereotypes but still we had to understand that people from different places are obviously going to be different and we should try to understand.[/quote] Ya, true; but it really does[ Read More... ]

don't forget Martha's hand clutching Shawn's neck too after her bars routine..ickqqq

if you missed the NBC Broadcast of the American Cup: video links to the broadcast: 2007 American Cup part 1 [youtube]DjLD-5Z274Y[/youtube] Shawn's coach is pacing and pacing - he looks more nervous than her - but the close-up of her face shows she is anxious yay, she does the comaneci she misses her handstand on the cast-handstand before her giants, dismount look at how marta is holding[ Read More... ]

[quote]"They did it on Mondays so we wouldn't eat much over the weekend," recalls Eaton, who now lives in Arizona and is the co-owner of the Desert Devils Gymnastics Club. "I never ate on Mondays, I'd just have a Diet Coke, and I can remember standing there in my sports bra and underwear to be weighed. It wasn't a negative thing then, it was just part of the whole experience we were used to as[ Read More... ]

Make sure they are not like the coaches in this article, that literally "screwed" their gymnasts -- literally, with screw drivers -- if they did not have perfect form. It is really important to watch practices esp. if your child is young -- and beware of the gyms that don't let you!! Here's the link to that article: http://www.wftv.com/news/9513925/detail.html

Up until last year, our coach said it would be good, like it would be "active" flexibility / warming up, and then later he told us not to do it...must have heard that it was bad at Congress or something!