August 7, 2014

Josh and Joe and I took the train and bus to training on our own from Josh’s flat.  Good fun! I was sore but ready for another day of training.  My sleep was not good…still not used to the new time I guess. Maybe tonight will be better.

We started with the same. big group warm up then conditioning. Everyone is always working.  It is a great atmosphere. Everyone knows how great England did at the 2012 Olympics and 2014 Commonwealth Games and they know they are expected to follow…it is not just possible, it is expected;  and all the coaches are working with the boys for that.  The little boys (8-10) are doing double backs on floor, honmas on rings, crazy conditioning and 2 handle pommels stocklis, russians, step up, handstand dismounts!

Everyone – older boys and younger boys - also encourages each other doing skills and doing routines.  I really like the coaches too.  They are tough but encouraging and want to help your technique. The older boys encourage the younger to do more chin ups or stretch more, all happy for each other.

After lunch break we did some fast track skills: whip backs, front layouts, front layout front layout 1/1.  Then our group   went to parallel bars.  Each event is quite quick so you do not get to sore or stale on an event.  Everyone works efficiently.

On Parallel Bars, Joe, Nathan, Dom and the other older boys worked routines.  They had cool skills like giant diam to one bar, peach to one bar, tippelt healy. I worked on the pit bars on giants with bent knees.  Lee gave me some corrections and by the end on my own I was getting to handstand without the hop, consistently. Then he assigned me to high bar.

Meanwhile the little boys (7-9) were doing compulsory floor routines then high bar where they can all do dislocate to handstand giants, endos and stalders.

On High bar I quickly warmed up endos, healy eagle hop, and healy eagle hop, front giant, dislocate, shoot through, giant, pirouette.  I was going to catch some tkatchevs today, but instead Sam worked with me on double layout progressions. We worked on the trench pit bar so that Sam could kneel beside me and lift my legs high, perpendicular to the ground , after releasing the bar.  Lee says I have fear of this dismount which is holding me back, because I don’t do it technically correctly.  When I do it with proper technique I won’t have fear.  We are fixing that!

I moved to rings and had a great set!  I warmed up honma then made my first ever johannoson – 2 flips in piked position.  I was really pleased but I wanted to quickly move on to dismounts to get some help there.  I warmed up back giants to handstand hold.  Those felt solid.  Then I did double full dismount.  Sam Hunter (he is a coach now but was recently on the British senior squad), helped me with technique on the twist and that came better.  I was really happy with rings.

I am tired and sore, but it was a Good Day!!  Off to swim and bowl with the lads!