June 08 Newsletter
From the owners
Hello everyone,
Term two is looking to be a very exciting term with the competition season well underway and the introduction of GymMix into the recreational program.
The rumours of Leeming Rec Centre closing for redevelopment are true therefore Spirit will be relocating most of its programs to Murdoch University Sports Centre at the end of this term. For more details see page two of this newsletter.
We have also had huge success with athletes from Spirit being selected onto the State team for Women’s, Men’s, Trampoline and Rhythmic so far; plus our Aerobics & Cheer squad, DV8 are travelling to Spirit Down Under in July. Well done to all coaches and athletes….who knows….could this be the year Spirit has athletes representing WA in all 7 gymsports? You never know.
Also look out for lots of activities in term 3 around the Olympics & Gym week.
Caz & Debbs
Congratulations
Emily Little – National Junior Champion
1st on floor and beam, 4th on bars.
Special Needs – National Championships was held in Canberra earlier this term well done to Rosemary Hartley and her athletes on their fantastic results. Stephanie Pearson (1st vault, 2nd bars & beam, 3rd floor, 2nd overall). Katie Sells (3rd vault, 4th bars, 5th beam, 1st floor, 3rd overall).
Sport Aerobics – World Championships. Well done to all athletes that participated in this event, excellent results. For full details see the Gym WA website: www.gymnasticswa.org.au
RG – Congratulations to Sarah Bewley, Michaela & Tatiana Joannides, Amy & Jessica Quinn, Kelly Harrison and Zoe Campbell for making the WA State team for Rhythmic. Best of Luck ladies. Congrats also go to Chelsea Prout for her selection as a coach and Terri Joannides as a team manager.
Trampoline – congratulations to Simon Olszewski, Megan Davies and Peter Simpson for being selected into the State team. Congrats also go to Phil Preuss & Huia MacFarland on their selection as judges and Jenn Richards for their selection as a coach for the trip to Bendigo for Nationals.
Men’s – Tashi Hart and Lawrence Hayward have been selected from the Men’s High Performance centre as the Spirit representatives for Men’s Nationals in July in Brisbane. Good Luck boys. Bring us back something shiny! (Bronze, silver, gold, we don’t mind!)
Women’s – Good Luck to Nikki Chung our Spirit WAIS gymnast looking to be selected into the State team as an International Level 8 gymnast for nationals in Brisbane in July. We know you can do it Nikki!
Parents!! Get into Gymnastics
We are looking for people to become coaches for the club. We particularly need Rhythmic coach for Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you are interested or know any please call Debbs on 93874127. Training provided.
Club Information
Attire
There are still some issues with gymnasts arriving for classes wearing clothing inappropriate for gymnastics. Please can everyone make every effort to make sure children come to class wearing a leotard or bike shorts and singlets for boys.
Time keeping
Our coaches are very dedicated and make every effort to start and finish classes on time. Please can parents ensure they are on time for collection. There have been an increasing number of incidences when children have been collected very late from classes with no explanation or apology to the coach. Many of our coaches have families of their own and some have to pay babysitters to look after their own children while they are coaching for us. It become costly to them if they are held up waiting for parents that are running late for collection so please be on time or at least call and let us know what is happening.
New class
Spirit Gymsports will now be moving all of the Leeming classes to Murdoch Uni Rec centre from the Start of term 3. Whilst Leeming closes for redevelopment. Toddler classes will however be moving to George Burnett Rec Centre in South Perth. All current Leeming participants will receive full details of the move very soon. We thank everyone for their patience and support during the move and apologise for any disruption.
Farewell
We have to say farewell to Chelsea Prout one of our RG coaches. Chelsea has been with us since we introduced Rhythmic to Spirit and her enthusiasm and commitment to RG has been second to none. Chelsea is training to be a nurse and her studies do not allow her to commit to regular training hours necessary to be a coach. We hope Chelsea will still visit from time to time and wish her all the very best of luck with her nursing career. We will miss you very much Chels.
Coaching Profile: Rose Hartley
Occupation – teacher’s aide, special needs and kindergym coach.
Gymnastics experience – Rose was not a gymnast herself but a marathon runner.
Coaching history – “The highlight of my coaching is working with Special needs both adults and children of all ages which is most rewarding to see them achieve there gaols. Also seeing our special needs gymnasts stand up at a competition not worrying if they win or loose and have a huge smile on there faces and wave to there families when they receive a medallion and certificate for there achievement.”
“I feel it is important to provide a safe environment where all children are treated equally with honesty, respect and care. I feel you should let kids have as much fun as possible, while still learning the skills and participating they need to achieve for the level in which they are training for.”
“In my spare time, I am involved with Special Olympics as a volunteer state secretary.”
In 1999, Rose received for Coach of the year for outstanding contributions to coaching gymnastics and special needs gymnastics at pine Rivers PCYC in Brisbane Qld.
Rose has been married to Jeff for 22 years retired from the Defence Force in the army after 25 years and now works in the mining industry and we have three fantastic children Sabrina (21) Jay (15) and Karla (13). Amongst juggling family and working commitments.
Important reminders:
Farewell Len Fletcher! Gymnastics WA have moved venues. The new State Gymnastics Centre is located at:
Loftus Recreation Centre
99 Loftus Street West Leederville
PO Box 1204
West Leederville
WA 6007
Tel: 92289399
Fax: 92289499
Lennies as it is fondly known served us well but we are all excited about the new State venue.
The Olympics
All eyes will be on Channel seven during August with the start of the Olympic Games. Our local gymnastic hopes are pinned on Dasha Joura, Olivia Vivian and Lauren Mitchell. These three WA girls are on the Olympic squad with the final team yet to be named. If you have been involved in gymnastics for any length of time like Caz & myself you will have seen Lauren, Olivia and Dasha grow up at WAIS over the years and it makes us so deeply proud that they have achieved such great heights and will hopefully be representing Australia in Beijing.
Dasha Joura
Just to make sure you are all up to date with the new scoring system for Men & Women’s gymnastics and so that you can wax lyrical to everyone about how fab our WA girls are, I thought I would write a dummies guide to Olympic Gymnastics.
Men do 6 apparatus (high bar, parallel bars, vault, floor, rings, pommel) and women do 4 (vault, bars, beam & floor). The Olympics is divided into three major rounds of competition. Team event, individual all around and apparatus finals. To get a team into the Olympic team event you had to qualify at the last World Championships which is why only a few countries are represented in the team event.
A gymnast’s routine is usually made up of 10 different elements (except for vault). Their performance score is made up of two sections – difficult and execution. Each element has a specific difficulty score and the sum of the top 10 performed makes up the “A” score of difficulty value. These elements are selected out of book called the “Code of points” and are chosen by the coach to show off the gymnast to the best of their ability. The more difficult the 10 elements performed the higher this score will be. The second part of the score is called execution and is basically how well the routine is performed out of a max of ten. Its not all about the landing at the end by the way, its about holding shapes, degrees and accuracy of twists, clean body lines etc. The two parts are added together to make the final score. Any final score of 15.00 and over is excellent.
Lauren Mitchell
Be on the lookout for some really cool skills. In particular look out or men’s floor and high bar, always great for amazing looking skills. Women’s beam and floor are always entertaining. My favourites would have to be Beth Tweedle (GB) on bars, Cheng Fei (vault), Dasha Joura (Floor). There is also a very amazing lady called Oksana Chusovitna (GER) is 33yrs old and has a son and still competes at the highest level. I would predict USA, Romania or China for the team event and Nastia Liukin (USA) for the overall.
Whatever happens I know it will be great viewing and very awe inspiring!
GymMix is here!
GymMix is a resource produced by Gymnastics Australia offering a fusion of all the Gymsports; artistic (Men’s & Women’s gymnastics), Rhythmic, Sports Acrobatics, Sports Aerobics, Trampoline sports, Cheerleading and display Gymnastics.
The resource is ideal for participants of all abilities involved in General (recreational) gymnastics programs and is suitable a foundation for all athletes enabling them to continue on with a specific Gymsport of their choice.
What does this mean for Spirit?
We hope you will see an improvement to our recreational program with the classes being more challenging, interesting and fun. All participants will receive their own skill chart and can work their way up through the levels from 1-10 in their own time.
Certificates are awarded on completion of a level. There are also participation certificates and special achievement awards each term.
We hope you enjoy the new programs.