A good start, but a ways to go

We took the gymnastics team to Bloomington IL this last weekend to compete in the Horton Invite. It was a good meet, run on time in a well lit gym that had great viewing for the parents. Our team was by far the biggest team there. It wasn't what I really wanted, I want a lot of competition but it is early in the year and not all the teams are ready to go yet. Truthfully we use competition this early in the year just to get ready for our home meet. We want the kids to have a meet under their belt before they go against their families and friends back home.

The one team there that over the last few years has been a thorn in our sides was Midwest Twisters. It is a small gym with not a lot of athletes but they have a few groups that really compete very well. I was sure that our level 8 team had the competition sewn up but we were unable to take the day, losing to MT. Our levels 8s last year lost to MT as level 7s as well. It appears that those kids will be duking it out for the next 8 or 9 years. Our level 9 and 10 teams looked a lot better than we did at the intra squad about a month ago and that is all that I can be hoping for. Some of the girls still had a pretty tough time but that is going to happen. Those kids that really struggled had been sick a lot, and maybe they had not trained as hard as they could have. I know one of my top girls did not train as hard as she could have. She is a competitor and has always relied on her ability in competition. But she has grown taller, her routines are harder, and she has struggled with illness and injury. If she wants to have a year like she was having last year she is going to have to pick it up. And I think she saw that this weekend. She knows what it is like to win, and hates to lose. I think if I do not see a big effort from her in the gym over the next few weeks I will be very surprised.

I would have to say the quality of the athletes I have makes a huge difference. In the past I felt that I wanted "it" more than my athletes did. They didn't understand how hard it really was to be competitive. I guess that was because those athletes had never been expected to win. When mediocrity and failure is looked at as the norm, it is hard to change that mentality later on. The athletes we have are conditioned to know what it is like to win, and these girls learn to crave it. This is a tough attributed to instill in girls if not done early in life. I feel that our society tells girls that they are not supposed to compete and that everyone wins. For most of my early career I often found that girls would mentally pigeon hole themselves. They would see that they may not be the best athlete on a team, or in a competition, and instead of working harder to become the best, they would almost sabotage their training to remain in the same status.

The girls have a long way to go till they are going to be competitive on a regional, or national level. They have the skills and the ability, they just need to work harder to perfect what they have. The trick to gymnastics is making the hardest skills look easy. Some of our girls have routines that could end up being pretty competitive at the end of the season, but only if they are perfect, and perfection only comes after thousands of quality repetitions. It is a lot of hard work, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.

On the mend

I came down with pneumonia last week. I have no idea how one gets pneumonia and I have had a lot of people ask me that, but I don't know. I don't think I got it that bad though. The people that have talked to me about it have said they were laid out for weeks. Makes my one week off the bike seem like a cake walk. It started with me just feeling a little achy last Wednesday, by Friday I was hovering around a 102 degree temp and hating my life.

Monday I ended in the hospital getting my chest x-ray'd and breathing through this machine for about 30 min. Wow what a difference that, and a Z pack makes. By the next day I was back at work and went to the gym for the first time in six days.

The toughest park about being sick is getting back into form. I had been working out a lot and already could feel the loss in fitness and strength. I hoped that it was going to be good to have some time off but I guess it was too much time.It is funny how hard it is to remember that I will get back to where I was it just takes time. I work with my kids all the time after injury or illness. Half the battle with them is trying to keep them motivated. You can see how close you are to where you were but you also know how hard it was to get there.

Something that always seems to happen to me when I get sick is I get a real bug to do artistic things. It doesn't really matter what it is, I just want to do something. I have been thinking about designing a layout for a possible new gym that my organization has been mulling over. I have also been really enjoying writing in this blog and maybe I should do some more writing. I used to paint a lot but it takes a lot of work to get all that stuff set up. The hardest part is just starting or having an idea.

Is school a scam?

This article got me thinking. It is about a high ranking school official in one of the biggest school district in the country. I don't know where that is, or who this is so I am just taking it on face value. What he does is take a standardized test that is required of all the students in his district. He basically fails it. The article states that this guy has multiple degrees, lives in a big house, has control over a 3 billion dollar annual budget, an all around successful guy. So how could a man like that fail a test meant for a 10th grader? In my opinion, because it has nothing to do with determining how smart a child is, or how well they will do in the "real world" when they get out of school. What these tests are, are political weapons used by politicians, cash cows for businesses running the tests, and are not a good measuring stick for how good a school is, how smart a child is, or how great a teacher might be.

Something that I hear quite often from friends of mine who own businesses is that they always have to train new employees when they arrive. Not that they have to show them where to put time sheets and how the printer works. But they have to teach them how to be an engineer, or an architect, or a business man. Now why would you have to do that if you just spent the last four to even eight years learning how to do this? It's because school isn't really teaching you anything, it is taking your money and giving you a piece of paper saying you can now be an engineer. They are the trolls guarding the bridge and you have to pay the toll.
I have kids who everyday work themselves to the bone to learn all this information that one year out of school they wouldn't remember anymore. Why? Because no one uses it! Except for rocket scientists, who we need lots of, (not sarcastic) who needs calculus? Unless you are going to be a doctor, pharmacist, or a scientist, why put kids though years of advanced science classes? I know that there are people out there that need these classes. And without allowing kids to try them how would they ever know if they wanted to be a quantum physicist without the advanced classes? You still can.

How many people out there are in school now just so that they can teach exactly what they are learning to the next group of students, who will then teach the same thing? What is the benefit to society, to the human race, when a type of knowledge is only created to be kept in a closed loop? I feel that it is created for the benefit of scholar class, to make a university seem greater because of how smart it's professors are. Also what is the benefit of teaching outdated, or overly complicated ways to do different activities? Money, the more a school has to teach or can teach, the more they can make you pay them. What if it only took six months to teach someone to be a stock broker? That would only be one semester worth of tuition rather than the eight needed now.

In my area of study I had an entire year that was basically a waste. I was a fine art major at the U of I and majored in oil painting. Every artist's first year was taken up by basic drawing, photo, graphic design, and every other art discipline. I didn't give a crap about any of that stuff, I just wanted  to paint and draw. So I liked the drawing courses, and I know why we needed to take the art history classes, but every other class was just another avenue of revenue for the university. I had to take calculus, foreign language, what for? I have never used calculus, I use adding and subtracting, I balance my budget and pay my bills. I don't need to be able to speak another language to know what is going on in the world. I read the news every day, I read multiple blogs, news papers, and can't get enough about world happenings. 

I think those who are in charge of making these tests, and deciding where they think the american children have to go in terms of learning are all wrong. I think it is human nature to always do more every generation. So every year children are expected to know more and more, in less time. But quantity is not always better than quality, in fact I would say the opposite is the truth. That means kids should be learning more about what life is really like younger, get more kids into a craft. Specialize more and stop making kids learn so much NOTHING.

I don't know if I am talking out my ass and am a total idiot but it is how I feel. Schools fuckin suck, and kids are not getting what I think they should out of it. I'm out.

Am I a sickly athlete?

Ive been sick since Wednesday night. I feel like I have been sort of hurting for the last few weeks actually. Had headaches and sore throats, my body aches and I have had a fever for the last two days. I remember when I was a gymnast I had a lot of sore throats and would get achey quite often. Most of the time I would feel better in about 24 hours, this is the first time I can remember that I have had a fever this long. Ive been taking tylenol and advil and that helps but as soon as they wear off my fever goes up again. I guess if I can't get into work tomorrow I will go see the doc. It is surprising that I don't get sicker working with some many kids. And there was a good amount of time that I didn't get sick at all, like 2 years maybe.

So what was the difference between those two years, now, and back in my gymnastics days? I wasn't working out like a fiend. When I was a gymnast I worked out at least 20 hours a week, and in high school often more. Those couple years that I never got sick I was working out but maybe I wasn't pushing it like I do now. I am more on the level I was back when I was in college, and I got sick a lot in college. I have read that pro cyclists do wear down their immune system and can get sick, I wonder if that is what I have done. I have also had a lot of kids really sick at the gym over the last few weeks. Most of the kids that have been sick have missed long stretches too, like a week or more. So if I caught what they have I might be in for a few more days before I feel better.

I guess what I have been thinking is how funny it is that you try to do something that should make you healthier. But it could make you sick. I guess how they say you have to do everything in moderation, even the good stuff. That has always been my problem though. I don't do much in moderation and get pretty crazy about my interests and hobbies.

I hope this ends soon so I can get back to training and I can get back to the gym and work with my girls. I'm feeling a little better now, but I am a couple hours after taking some tylenol so that is normal. I will see in a few more hours.

Childhood Obesity Abuse

So last week a coach at my gym and I were talking about the problem of childhood obesity. Then this week I read a story about a two hundred pound plus, third grader who was taken from his mother and placed into foster care. Funny how that works, but not funny about how people can allow their children to get this way. I have no problem with how the authorities handled this case. In the article it says they worked with the family for 20 months to try and get the child's weight under control. I know that there are kids that are going to bigger and even some that will have medical conditions that caused them to get that way. But from what I see that is not the norm it is the exception.
There is a doctor in the article that blames society for kids being fat, and I guess you could say that but that is the easy way out. Kind of like saying being an addict isn't your fault, yes it is. Parents are in charge of what their children to, what they learn, what they eat, everything. And blaming McDonalds for your child being so obese that they are almost certain to become diabetic, have high blood pressure, and hundreds of other health issues, is also a cop out. I'm not blaming McDonalds, they don't make you eat their burgers or fries. That parent decided to give their child unhealthy food. Now if you had a parent that decided to not feed their child everyone would be all over that as abuse, but too much food?
It's all about people taking responsibility and not passing it off on others. No person ever has to look like and A&B model, but an eight year old that weighs as much a six foot tall grown man isn't right. And any person that is fit to be a parent should be able to see that. That same person should be able to also learn about how to not stay on the same path and help their child get back to a healthy weight. I think the only way to really start to make people learn how to be healthy is to make more immediate consequences, like the possibility of losing ones children if said child was morbidly obese. Obviously the threat of life long health problems isn't doing it for most people.
I hope this lady gets hit with some serious legal problems. People around the country really need to keep an eye on this one too, because unless people start to pay attention to their own children's health and weight they may lose them.

Not cool, funny, or healthy.

Success is contagious

This is something that took me a few years to learn as a coach. There is a hierarchy to competitions in gymnastics. Many times it is said that anyone that competes earlier in a session, or in an even final, or even on your team, they would get a lower score. This was because judges were said to be "holding" the big scores in case someone better came up later on. To help battle this trend coaches would normally put up the worst athlete on a team first. This is a tough spot to be in. I was normally a first up athlete in college until I was a senior. My routines were never the hardest, but I would always hit. I took pride in my coaches putting me up first. I didn't look at it as they thought I was the worst, I just told myself I was setting the tone for the rest of my team. Unfortunately that didn't always go as plan as my teammates weren't always able to keep their end of the job. But that is team sport, you can't do it on your own and you need everyone to do their job.

Then my last year things started to get rough. We were in the hunt for an undefeated season, ranked first in the country as a team and very high on just about every event. Some of our best events was pommel horse. This event is one of the most mental events there is. If you are off just a little bit there really isn't much you can do to save it. And we were missing a lot of routines. If we hit we would be unstoppable, and we were lucky early in the year that we won without all our hits. But late in the season we were coming up against some tough competition and something had to change. Our coach Yoshi Hayasaki decided that we were going to reverse the order of the athletes and put our best guy first. Boy was he pissed! But it worked, the first meet we made the change was also the first meet we hit all our big score guys. And the scores were at or very close to where they were supposed to be. Right then I should have taken note of what I was seeing. At the time I was coaching optional level gymnastics, but I was just not able to put the two together.
Later I started to mess with putting an athlete here or there up first that I knew was going to hit. But then I would go right back to putting my weakest athlete up. I guess I thought I was "hiding" my weak kids in between stronger ones. It never worked though. Then last year it finally hit me, I was going to make my lineup from my best hitter to my worst hitter. The kids, who I am sure had figured out how we were making lineups before, were a bit confused at what was happening. But our hit percentage started to shoot up. And in my opinion that is the most important thing for my kids. It is what I and they have control over. I can't control judges and their inability to see skills and connections correctly. So I don't even pay attention to it. The only meets I watch scores are state, regionals, and nationals. Other than that it doesn't matter to me. This is when our season really started to take off. For the last three or four meets of the year we had so few misses I really only remember two. That is somewhere around fifty routines with two misses. That is HUGE! And all because one kid hit their routine, and then the next kid hit theirs, and so on and so on.

Already this year I am seeing it again, more and more. We play little games with the girls to get them ready to compete. We try to put as much pressure on them as we can to simulate competition. And even in the gym I am seeing kids starting to hit one after another.

It is amazing how success, and even failure, seam to be contagious. Just like the cold or flu. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. It takes a tough kid to get the team off on the right foot, but it takes an even tougher kid to get you back on track once you fall off. This will be my game plan this year, and I am hoping    that the worst part is trying to figure out who is better at hitting their set.

There is a video of my alma mater's gymnastics team. These guys make my college team look like juniors.

Competition and Focus

Competition focuses goals and doubles efforts to achieve those goals. I am not unlike others who over state their position at any one time. I like to think I am better than I may actually be sometimes. Competition helps me to open my eyes to where I actually am.

I say this because this last weekend was my team intra-squad. And things went really about as good as they probably should have. But that doesn't mean I was happy about it. I need to win, and not just for myself. I need to win for these kids. They have a lot of time, effort, and money on the line. They are all working very hard to make their way to college teams. If they have anything less than a great year, it could be tough for this to happen.

For the most part the girls did great. Most events I feel like we are ahead of schedule and things are looking good. My toughest event is bars and we have been working very hard to increase the difficulty level of the girls. It is happening but it is slow going, and it makes it tougher to be consistant, and to get everything done every day. Another issue I am having to work with is a large team. I have never had so many high level gymnasts all at the same level and at the same point in their training. It is a good problem to have, I just have to get better at keeping the kids moving.

Our first real meet of the year is in Bloomington, IL at the Horton Invite. The last few years we have gone to the Justin Spring Invite. It was a very good meet, in a great building, and we had a lot of fun. We just could not find enough competition for our athletes. We won just about everything, and while that is nice it wasn't because we were dominant. It was more because we were the Goliath in the room. I don't like to be in that situation. I have always wanted to be on fair terms with my competition, and didn't like teams that would go to small meets to beat up on the little teams. We were now that team and I wasn't okay with that. I remember the Horton Invite from my days in Champaign. It always seemed that there was some good competition there. I guess we can always try elsewhere next year if we don't find it in Bloomington.

This weekend was also the first meeting of Quantum Mesa Cycles. Most of the team was able to make it and we had a great time. I ordered a bunch of pizzas, people brought their own beer, and I tried to get though the drudgery of rules and policy as fast as I could so we could have some fun. After we all kind of got into talking to each other, sometimes in smaller groups, other times as a whole. People were also trying on fit kit items. It was funny seeing guys and gals trying on items as small as they could fit into. Some guys liked it a little more than others I think. A few of us ended up staying pretty late, 10pm I think. After a few guys from the west part of the state stayed at my place for the night. In the AM we had a 60 mile ride in the St Charles, O'Fallon area of the STL. The weather sucked, and it was cold, but I think we had a great time.

I am too excited about next season. The thought of it has been a huge carrot at the end of the stick for me while I lift weights, or push though a few hours of tempo riding. My only worry is that I do too much too soon. It is sort of funny how often that comes up in cycling. Almost like people tell you that so they feel better about not training, I don't know. I do know that if I am ever going to catch up with someone faster than I am, I better be going twice as fast or twice as long, or I will never catch them. That was something I learned in gymnastics and it served me well then.