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: