August 15-16, 2014

Yesterday Sir Ed drove mom and I to Birmingham Airport to begin our journey home.  Ed and Carol-Angela took care of every possible detail the entire trip so that we stayed safe, well fed and so happy! I can never thank them for everything they did to make this dream come true for me.  So many people had to work together to bring it to life.

Everything went fine at the airport. We made it easily on our flight to Dublin. Next we found a map and basically hiked as far as our legs would go to the airport bus. It was slightly sketchy looking, but anything to get to the hotel.  Kind people helped us with our heavy bags and where to get off for the Academy Plaza Hotel.  Mom didn’t like the noisy bar next door, but I just bee-lined for the elevator and bed.  It was after midnight when we arrived.

Shout out to the Academy Plaza desk clerk who came to the rescue with our devices, charging and downloading what we needed when there was no service in the room.  Nice people are everywhere in the world.  Mom and I both got about 2-3 hours sleep before we had to leave for our Canada connection. We bailed on the bus and called a cab! Another super nice Dubliner! He took us literally to the gate we needed, 15 minutes flat and would not take a tip from us. Bless him!

Security was a bit tricky.  For the 3^rd time my grip bag was completely searched! They do not like the elastic bands I use for physio, or chalk dust! The plane to Canada was pretty delayed, but at least we hadn’t missed it. There were plenty of great people on board as well, which we met in the waiting area. Lots of people were from St. John’s, Newfoundland, which was our first stop in Canada. The view of the sky was awesome.

We arrived in St. John’s and went through a long customs’ line.  It was no big deal as we had quite a wait til the Toronto plane could leave. It was great to be back in Canada! I was already looking through my photos of GB friends and missing them.

We really did not want to miss our Toronto connection by a delay in Newfoundland, but thankfully we didn’t.  Here in Toronto we met up with Calgary people who had been on our original plane out of Calgary August 4^th to Dublin! They had missed all their connections too, but instead of finding a different airline like we did, they hung out in Newfoundland for 3 days and explored there. We had fun talking about our different travel adventures.

After over 32 travel hours, I was home again, 6pm Calgary time on Friday. I was exhausted, but so happy to see my family and Toby! I got my energy back when I opened my bags and shared the gifts with everyone and showed them my Great Britain Gymnastics gifts! It’s so much fun telling your family about everything you saw and did. It really was an experience of a lifetime. 

Toby!!

This is Sir Ed's backpack from the 2012 Olympic Games where Team GB came from behind to win the Team Bronze and inspire a nation (and Canadian!) of gymnasts!

YAY!!

A Team GB singlet signed by all the senior guys!

more treasures from Baz and Sir Ed

Jasmine likes her tea cup!

Toby wants to be on Team Great Britain too!

mom and toby

a pink princess notebook for my princess sister, Kaisha

Kaisha likes the Lilleshall bear I got her

Josh likes his U.K. playing cards!

August 14, 2014

Day 4 at Lilleshall! Now it seems that it has flown by.  Late tonight I will leave for Dublin then Canada.  Before training began I got photos with the senior British Team training at Lilleshall this week and all their coaches, then with the elite squad (my squad).  Awesome memories.

Senior British Team Members

Dom Cunningham, Reiss Beckford, Ashely Watson, Frank Baines, James Hall and Courtney Tulloch, Kristian Thomas, Nile Wilson, Dan Keatings and Dan Purvis

Baz and the coaches talking to the Squad

Elite and Senior British Squads with coaches

 For warm up after running and stretching, we did back tuck from beatboard, land well, turn and do your corner work perfectly like you are in the World Championships.  Baz said at a big international, ‘beat them before it even starts. Terrify people. Make people stand and watch you.’  Each repetition was to be done as if in competition.  I practiced Japanese handstand corner, leap, turn, each bit as perfect as possible. Let the other teams warm up sloppy, we will terrify them.

Next, in lines we did the handstand hold, straight roll, pirouette, perfect handstand holds each time, trying to look like the most beautiful gymnast in the entire world.  Handstand, back extensions, full pirouette lines was next.  Even the littlest boys do this type of warm up working toward perfect form. The coaches help each line of boys to be technically perfect. Baz always motivates and reminds us why we are doing this: to be world champions, technically perfect beautiful gymnasts. Elbows, feet, knees, toes, body alignment are to be perfect.  “Great Britain Gymnast- Great Start!” (for every line in warm up)  Baz was happy with our work!

First event today for Ovi’s group (my group) was high bar.  We worked on the high pit bar.  

·       Warm up stalders and endos

·       Dislocates, dismounts

Next we moved quickly to floor tumbling. We did 6 ‘pieces’ (events)  in one longer training today.

·       Back layout 1 ½ punch front nice and high first time (Euin and I were working the same skill, everyone is working on their specific skill with connections

·       I made my first attempt at back handspring, back layout 1 ½, punch front ½ twist

·       I also made my first attempt at back handspring back layout 1 ½, punch front ½ !

Pommel was next.  We are just touching each piece. Everyone was cheering for Nile who did something super cool on p bars.

·       Stocklis on one handle pommel

·       Step up on one handle

Next event! Rings on the regular rings over the mats was our next event. I wanted to quickly do as much as possible before the next switch.  The seniors were doing routines on rings and pommel with Sir Ed and Andrei and the other senior coaches watching and marking.

·       Warmed up honma/johannosson

·       Worked on those most of the time

We moved quickly to vault in the main gym.

·       Half on to porta pit, ½ on, ½ off

·       Watching the seniors do vault routines and older elites do floor routines with everyone encouraging

Then we vaulted onto a mat:

·       Kasamatsu

·       Landed kasamatsu with full twist! ( new skill - first time from beatboard to mat)

Parallel Bars was our last piece. Once I did such a great vault, I headed there to prepare for the team. We took 2 sets of bars while the seniors performed their routines on the other sets.

·       Stutz practice

·       Diamidov practice

After parallel bars, we had some time to practice fast track tumbling in the pit gym.

·       I started with rows of 4 front layouts; it’s easy now to get them even

·       Front layout, front 1/1, front layout

After our flexibility stretches, we all lined up along the floor to watch the seniors going to Spain to compete, do their floor routines.  These are the guys: Dom Cunningham (we met at training at Birmingham), Reiss Beckford, Ashely Watson, Frank Baines, James Hall and Courtney Tulloch.  I already saw their p bars routines when I was working on stutz. So good. Floor routines were Phenomenal.

Now we had our final line up and talk from Baz. Ed and Baz gave me gifts to remember Lilleshall and my hard work and training here with the British Squad.  All the boys clapped for me. Thank you Lilleshall! Thank you England! Thank you everyone!

After lunch with the boys, we ran around the grounds and hung out in rooms til time for afternoon training at 3pm.  Other days we had nutrition lectures and other cool things.  We are always together, training, eating, learning from lecturers, playing bowling one evening, football each night. It is a team atmosphere morning to night.  Love it. Here are more photos I snapped, including at the Archery area where Paralympians were training!

Before training started at 3pm we had a fun game with a massive pink ball.  We all had a great time!

After this free time, I was able to join in a great game of volleyball then do flexibility until Sir Ed said it was time to go.  It was a blast! Great gymnasts, but more important, GREAT NEW FRIENDS!!

Time to fly :-(

August 13, 2014

Day 3 at Lilleshall!  Now I don't want to leave!

Today I woke fairly sore (shoulders and wrist). Training is tough and I am growing.  It will feel a bit better as we warm up. I met Tom, Sam, Sam, Isaiah, Corbin and Euin for breakfast then we all went back to my room so I could give them Canada shirts, shorts, sunglasses and other things I’d brought from Canada.  They were all really happy! I’ll give out the Canada pins, badges and pencils to the other boys on squad once we get to the gym.

We started warm up with jogging, as usual. My friends wore the Canada t shirts I gave them J . As we run Baz tells us to hop, swing arms above shoulders and things like that to mix it up and change it every day.  After some stretching we did pommel circles on the floor.  Baz takes a demo boy and shows how he wants hips and shoulders. Then he asks what that boy did correctly or incorrectly and asks us to try again.  It is hard with my wrist but I do one.  I had to ask Baz if I could do other exercises during this time.   I joined the young boys’ warm up on the other floor for a bit.  My group continued flares to handstand on floor as well as learning handstand pirouette back down to flares, flares role on your shoulder over to straddle support, Russians and spindles.

Once my squad was done all the floor pommel work I asked Sam, leading the 9-10 year olds, for permission to rejoin my group. I joined in on handstand, pirouette lines as before.  We did them individually (groups of 5 of us across the mat at a time) and Baz said we all did really well. Then we helped a teammate do 30 second perfect handstand with tiny spot/correction.  (We watched Tommy do his vault, cheering him on to land it.)

Our first event of morning training was Parallel Bars.  The little boys were still conditioning on the bars so we started with healy practice on the floor with mats. (Kristian Thomas and Dan Purvis started on floor tumbling beside us.)

·       Stutz practice going well

·       Tippelt practice, getting corrections to work on – delay the straddle so legs don’t touch first; good one with light touch of the legs, hands hit first, ‘awesome’

·       Diamidov practice – made it!, ‘good one’ from coach ;-)

High Bar was next. The switch to high bar happens in seconds basically and we are warming up.

·       Stalders, pirouette, endos to start

·       Healy’s – very consistent with the catching now

·       Dismount practice…letting go at height of swing for double layout; it is getting much higher and straighter from handstand now

Rod floor was next.  After a quick warm up we did:

·       Round off back layout 1/1, stick, present J

·       Round off back layout 1 ½ ready for connection

·       Round off back layout 1 ½ punch front – big improvement

·       Round off double back twist, I get it on the first try now

·       Round off back handspring double back tuck, getting more height and sticking/finishing properly as they say;

·       We warm up really quickly then go from skill to skill. We don’t spend hours warming up one skill in other words. We just ‘get on with it’ as they say here.

Two of the women’s Commonwealth Team are here as well as the juniors. They are, of course, working hard just as the men are.  The only ‘sitting’ is after training when athletes are rolling and stretching and before training.

We finished with half an hour of flexibility work then sprinted to make the lunch time! (the dining hall closes at 1:30p! ) It is raining a bit, which is normal for England, but 90 percent of our stay has been in sunshine.

After lunch I saw Jamal Mashlab, a physiotherapist who has worked with British Gymnastics for many years.  He assessed and treated my right wrist and said it is just overuse, not to worry. He massaged the forearm for a long time which felt really great.  Then he gave me very specific exercises for strengthening my forearm which I am to do with elastic bands for at least 6 weeks.  It is great to find out what I can do to heal and prevent injuries in future too.

Training started with Sam leading us in 5 teams of lines:

·       Beatboard jumps (straight, straddle, 1/1 turn, front tuck, front pike, standing back tuck, best person was chosen to do tuck back full twist, , stick, ‘finish’ scoring teams

·       To the pit gym for fast track work: front layouts down the track; after we each did them, the coach gave us all feedback about how each layout needs to be long, the same height and straight legs.  Then as each of us went he would ask the rest for corrections on that boy’s go. By the third time everyone was improving and I got a ‘well done’.

·       Front layout 1/1, front layout

·       Next we ran down almost to the end, did one normal front layout then one really high one in to the pit; next we added a late 1/1 twist in the high one. I started to get it by the last go.

·       Low front layout at the end of the track, then double front into the pit. ‘impressive Elijah’

The little boys did trampoline into the pit for their aerial awareness training. 

Pommel was next.  Now that my wrist was feeling a bit better I could try again.  The seniors were on pommel at the same time – the group going to a competition in Spain that is.

·       Scissors nice swing and high; each boy takes 1-2 turns then another boy so there is rest for wrists between sets

·       Each boy works on their own skill – some Magyar, some spindle or turn in, some scissors

·       Step up on one handle mushroom

Our coaches are:  Sam Hunter (National Developmental coach), Baz Collie (National Junior coach), Lee Woolls (from Birmingham), Dave Murray (not at Lilleshall, but at Birmingham and from Leeds), Ionut Trandsburu (worked with me together with Ovi), and at least 6 other coaches, and my coach at Lilleshall, Ovi Rugina (my coach at Lilleshall is mainly Ovi)  from Romania originally.  One of the great things about training at Lilleshall is that you are with one steady coach, but the other coaches all have input in warm ups, fast track, trampoline, any event. Everyone’s goal is to make a strong team and that means everyone is ‘on it’ all the time – coaches and athletes.

Senior Men’s coaches are here as well: Ed Van Hoof, Andrei Popov and others. It’s hard to remember all the names!  Most of the Commonwealth Games Team is here training as well as another team of seniors that includes Dom Cunningham, going to Spain tomorrow to compete.

Rings was our next event in the main gym (no pits):

·       Started with dislocates from uprise, firming up body position through back giant (almost to handstand hold) – a different way to get to handstand on rings; cool to try something new

·       Tried same thing for front giant, starting with dslocates and trying to end in handstand – swinging right through the handstand; ‘good!’ plus getting my arms in good position to hold the handstand

·       In the back gym we did honma/johannosson and dismounts

·       Double full is getting better into the pit; I am learning how to keep the tuck through the twist

Our last event was vault.  We did this in the pit gym as well.

·       Warm up half on, half off

·       Full twisting kasamatsu in tuck position; getting a better run and better height (beatboard into pit)

·       1 ½ twisting kasamatsu

·       Lots of full twisting kasamatsu’s, working on Ovi’s corrections

·       Tried kasamatsu in layout position and made the full twist the first time, the second was more piked

·       I finished with a tucked full twisting kasamatsu

We always end with stretches and flexibility.  We stretch each other and the coaches help stretch too.  Every moment of training is used! Baz went around checking our form and improvements in flexibility compared to the beginning of squad this week.

Baz gave us a talk as always at the end of training.  He told about our good events and how he was really proud of how hard we were working.  As a reward, after 4 hours tomorrow morning, we will just have short warm up in the afternoon then games and a movie.  I have to go home L at 4p so I will miss the fun activities.  It is really like a family here now.  The boys are just great.  Ovi told mom she can go with Ed to the airport tomorrow, but Elijah is staying here on squad to train.  He is gruff so mom thought he was serious. J  

After supper we usually meet at 8pm outside for a football game and general exploring and running around. It is good fun to get some fresh air and have fun before going to bed. 

August 12, 2014

Day 2 at Lilleshall!

I met my friends for breakfast and then quickly went back to my room to get ready for 9:15a training.  Nile Wilson and the other seniors came to morning training. It is an amazing atmosphere with them training in amongst us young guys.  Nile was super nice.  They all were!

Nile Wilson and I just before training

Baz gave us a talk about how yesterday was for training.  He talks about how the team did on p bars, what the team needs to improve on high bar.  It’s a great motivator and keeps everyone working together. He’s high energy and motivation just like Carol-Angela.  All the boys listen really carefully and try their best as we head into warm up running. 18 boys are in my group of 12 year olds.

Warm up:

·       Running, doing forward, side and back rolls as we ran!

·       Standing back tucks, then back tuck punch front, standing back full! (I tried on a soft mat)

·       Facing Carol-Angela we started with stretches

·       The seniors started arriving – Nile Wilson, Dan Purvis, Kristian Thomas, Dan Keatings. One senior team is just coming back from Commonwealth Games and one senior team (the one with Dom on it) is preparing for a competition in Spain.

·       Splits all ways, pike sit, hold one leg straight to face, good posture, switch, then hold each leg up without hands in the same way, great posture

·       Bridges, pushing shoulders

·       Line up in our squads and start forward rolls, pike up to handstand, roll, pop handstand (Baz said that was rubbish, don’t stop and wait for people, space yourself out, get a good handstand!...so we did it again, fewer in each line)

·       If you fail (fall back from handstand) you go to the back of the line

·       Straight leg rolls, pike up to handstand full pirouette, hold the handstand at the end

·       Back extension knees straight, back extension to handstand, full pirouette, hold the handstand (coach checks position and spots if necessary) – 8 coaches, one for each line checking perfect position

·       Handstand hold, roll, straddle press – just to planche hold,  roll uprise to handstand,

·       Slow pike up, 5 second hold, then walk on hands in perfect form handstand walking

·       Endo rolls,, planche, then planche up to handstand twice, then straddle press to handstand, straight leg roll out, present

·       Back roll extension, full pirouettes

·       Punch front tucks down the floor – second time higher tucks

·       Punch front pikes

·       Front handspring walk outs (‘we want to be the best boys in the world!)

·       2 frontspring walk outs, front handspring toes pointed in the air, knees straight, best you can do!

·       Handspring flyspring (quizzed them on proper technique, then said think before you go again…if you want to be the best gymnasts!)

·       Front handspring, 3 fly springs

·       Front handspring front layout (good!)

·       Front layout, nice tight straight legs, really improving *

·       Front spring, round off rebound back into your coach (all re done with concentration, pointed feet)

·       Front spring, round off back handspring rebound back to your coach’s hands

·       Then Baz demonstrates all the mistakes made with a boy and asks them to fix them in the next try; ‘think, be clever’

·       Round off whip back back handspring rebound (did it!)

·       We are the best in the world, act like it, think! – repeated whip back line, (well done!)

·       Round off back handspring, whip back, rebound

·       Coach stopped them and talked to them about being quick to adapt and thinking..make the change straight away, don’t take 10 goes (change in body position from round off whip back to round off back handspring whip back)

·       Round off 2 whips (tough for everyone)

·       Round off back handspring back layout, hold finish position (present)…every one stuck!

We moved into our groups and started with standing back tuck and back pike sticks on the floor.  (Some of the women’s Commonwealth Games team arrived for training.) Parallel Bars conditioning was next. Nile Wilson was doing peach to handstand, peach to handstand hold on one bar, on the bars beside us, just as a warm up. No wasting time at chalk buckets…there is just a little bag one person’s hands can fit in at a time – quick rub then off you go.  Next is planche push ups on 2 handle pommel.

First event today was vault.  My body is adjusting to the hard training.  I still have aches and pains and an ‘off’ right foot, but I can vault. Here's what I did: 

·       Real vault with beat board half on, half off, every time form counts

·       Kristian Thomas was tumbling on the rod floor beside us

·       Kasamatsu stood up tall!

Next we worked on the trampoline into the pit:

·       Double front pikes

·       Double back tucks

On to the next event: parallel bars

·       Made a diamidov on the real bars, then on to the next skill (4 sets of p bars to rotate to and a senior on one of the 4 all the time)

·       Made first tippelt but on the legs; good bravery! Second even better; getting good corrections and making it almost with no leg touch and going right into press to handstand

·       Frank Baines was training p bars beside me too. All the seniors and young boys encourage each other and cheer for hit routines!

In two minutes we were already warming up on high bar in the pit gym.  We worked on regular high bar, but the pit gym also has the trench pit like Birmingham for rings and high bar and even p bars so coaches can be really close for spotting.  Younger boys were working at those stations.

·       4 endos in a row, pirouette, 4 stalders in a row (coaches clap)

·       Tkatchev warm up and straddle tkatchev with one of the boys throwing the mat, coach says “It’s better”, Baz said ‘Elijah, brilliant!”

We joined Carol-Angela in the main gym for stretches and splits keeping great form. She works with each of us making us better and better.

3 ½ hours in the morning, then we break for lunch. I hang out with the guys, we all went to a nutrition seminar, then headed to the gym for 3:15 to start 3 hours in the afternoon.

At 3:15p the Birmingham boys going to U.K. School Games arrived: Josh Nathan, Joe Fraser and Harry Caulwell. Now they are friends and it is good to see them again! Their coach, Lee Woolls, came with them.

Sam Hunter led warm up.  We formed lines across the floor, spread out and one line would do burpies, one line jog on the spot, one pike sit ups, one holding hollow position on elbows and toes, then switch.  Then we did some stretches, straight legs, good form.

Each group was sent to their stations.  My group: Corbin, myself, Sam, Sam, Euin and Tom, went to parallel bars strength in the pit gym.  We did handstands on parallets against the wall, holding weight on our stomach while suspended between blocks, handstands inside the p bars, toes around the uprights. The GB Commonwealth seniors were tumbling on the rod floor in the pit gym at the time.  They tumble onto a mat over the pit.

Our first event was rod floor in the real gym (no pit). We started with basics like front layouts, front layout 1 ½, round off back layout 1/1, working on form and toes, always presenting before the run and at landing. My coach says I am a hard worker, a good boy.  There is NO ONE who does not work extremely hard here.  They would not be on squad otherwise and judging from Birmingham’s gym, they would not even be in the competitive boys’ program in Britain at all if they did not.

·       Front layout 1 ½

·       Back layout 1 ½ prep for connection (but I still have to ‘finish nice’)…coach said add the punch front

·       Made back  layout 1 ½ punch front nicely

·       Round off double back twist

·       Back layout ½ , punch front

·       Euin tumbles really well, nice form and connections

·       Double back tucks – nice height on my second one after a longer run

Joe, Harry and Josh (from Birmingham gym) quickly did their vaults for competition, then moved to P bars.  They are doing routines at each event to get ready for U.K. Games. They work quickly in warm up then present their routine.  The seniors and all the coaches clap as they finish each routine.  The coaches give specific corrections to improve the quality of each element in the routine. The 3 boys did really well on the p bar routines, congratulated each other and got to move on to their next event.  The spirit is great.  Oh, and they have cool spotting tables (metal legs, padded top like a table) that move around to spot on rings, p bars, etc.

Pommel was our next event.  Time to re-hab!

·       Step up on one handle mushroom, step down, circles

·       Dan Purvis did pommel alongside of us as did Nile Wilson

·       The seniors are always working, either on an apparatus, stretching, rolling, getting individual help with form and style on floor or getting direction from their coaches. All the equipment is in use as you look around the gym.

·       Magyar on pommel with no handles….a triumph when I’ve been off pommel so many weeks

Rings was our last event today. 6 ½ hours training today. J

·       I started with honma johannosson and got good corrections from my coach; making it, now trying to flip up to planche after the two

·       We moved to the pit gym for dismounts where I improved my double full into the pit.

·       We did rings strength at 2 stations: one with our head between two benches, shoulders on mats, tight hollow body position, with coach helping just a bit raising legs up and down; the second station we had a spot for maltese, planche, cross

·       Last we attached a two handled elastic around the wall ladder and did exercises for proper arm and shoulder position in giants.

The seniors were doing tumbling onto a mat in the pit.  Kristian Thomas can go amazingly high!  I’ll definitely need to watch him!  I also noticed them doing sticks from the trampoline onto a mat at the side, when we were doing doubles into the pit from the same trampoline.  The coaches said all the boys do a lot of landing practice because it is so important to stick landings. Aerial awareness is super important as well. Even the youngest boys (9) do doubles with twists into the pit.  Speaking of pits, they have a lot more foam (rectangles, new looking and feeling) in their pits.  The foam overflows the top edges of the pit.  Also the pits are 8 feet deep.

As we were cleaning up the gym, Carol-Angela came to say good bye.  She is traveling to Whales to work tomorrow. She gave me Sir Ed’s 2012 Olympic backpack!! Wow. This backpack represents more than 6 years of Ed’s work on the entire British Men’s program to bring it from not qualifying a team in the Olympics to an Olympic Team Bronze!  It was wonderful finally meeting her and Sir Ed in person.  They are more awesome than I even imagined.  We get along so well.

The boys in my group and all the boys really, ask me a lot about how it is in Canada and whether I go to the national training centre for camps every month.  I told them it is a lot different in Canada because we are such a large country.  It is expensive to get everyone together. But I do wish we had this program of camps every month, athletes training 4 days a week through the year at the national centre once they are 13 ish, and national coaches visiting the clubs regularly to ensure everyone is on target. The system is working, say the coaches, because the juniors coming up are even stronger than the current seniors and the 12 year olds are stronger than the current juniors were 3 years ago.  That is when you know you have a strong program.

It rained tonight so we just played outside for an hour or so then relaxed in our rooms and went to bed.  We watched funny British shows together and had a good laugh. Everyone had to have showers. ;-) Baz lined us up and said we all smell and are to have showers before training tomorrow!

 Here are some photos from wandering right behind my residence room. It is very hard to describe in words, but so amazing: