Teaching Fundamental Gymnastic Skills
by Debby Mitchell, Barbara Davis, Raim Lopez

Now you can teach or coach gymnastics—even if you don't have a gymnastics background—and ensure that every child learns and succeeds.

Teaching FUNdamental Gymnastics Skills is a hands-on guide that provides you with a strong foundation in exploratory gymnastics skills as well as formal gymnastics skills and helps you bridge the gap between the two approaches.

A unique feature of Teaching FUNdamental Gymnastics Skills is the use of specific verbal cues for different learning styles. You'll get "kinder" cues appropriate for young learners, plus cues that address these learning styles:

• logical/mathematical
• visual/spatial
• bodily/kinesthetic
• musical/rhythmical
• verbal/linguistic

The book covers these essential teaching topics:

• Foundational positions and movements that form the building blocks for all gymnastics skills
• How fundamental skills fit together to make complex movements and sequences
• Common errors in gymnastics skills and how to correct them
• Hard-to-find safety information, including injury prevention and tips for spotting

This well-organized book also covers skill progressions and lead-ups for floor, beam, springboard/vault, and bars. Each skill includes practical information you can use for individual or small-group work at stations: a complete description, common errors, spotting information, and checklists.

Additional special features include the following:

• A movement chart in each chapter outlines the skill progressions
• Sequential illustrations clarify skill sequences and progressions
• A skillfinder chart makes it easy to find skill descriptions based on level of difficulty

Learn how to deliver effective and safe gymnastics instruction in an educational setting, no matter what your experience or comfort level. Teaching FUNdamental Gymnastics Skills is a great way to get started in teaching gymnastics, build students' confidence, and introduce fun programs.

Gymnastics Conditioning For The Legs And Ankles
by Karen M. Goeller

Coaching the Female Gymnast
by Sandra J. Hatley-O'Brien

Combining theoretical knowledge with direct practical application, this text provides the teacher/coach with a highly organized, progressive approach to instructing gymnastics. Initial chapters discuss the physical profile of the female gymnast, talent identification, and health and safety. The author then presents a comprehensive program of conditioning exercises. Principles of training and performance standards are detailed, and coaching strategies for training and competition are provided. A final chapter examines judging as an evaluative process. The text is augmented by numerous illustrations.

Letters to a Young Gymnast
by Nadia Comaneci

If there were such a thing as an "elder" states-woman in women's gymnastics today, Nadia Comaneci would win that title as readily as she once won gold medals. Olga Korbut came before her, and many other medalists would follow, but none has ever been as dominant in winning the hearts

Born in 1961 in Onesti, Romania, Nadia Comaneci made sports history during the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal by scoring the first perfect"10.00" in a gymnastics competition. By the end of that Olympiad, she had repeated that feat six more times, winning three gold medals, as well as silver and bronze. She defected to the U.S. in 1989. Since then she has remained very active in promoting her sport, and is now married to American gymnast Bart Conner, himself a two-time Olympic champion. Together they run the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy, publish International Gymnast magazine, run Perfect 10 Productions, and travel the world in support of the Special Olympics, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and other charities. She lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

Teaching Rhythmic Gymnastics: A Developmentally Appropriate Approach
by Heather C. Palmer

• Complete teaching tools that make teaching rhythmic gymnastics easy—even for those with little or no experience with the sport
• Developmentally appropriate skill instruction for fundamental movement experiences and five types of apparatus: balls, ropes, hoops, ribbons, and scarves
• Ready-to-use checklists, assessment guidelines, learning outcomes, lesson plans, and even routine-planning posters that you can enlarge on a copier and post in the gym
• Shows you how to use students’ natural curiosity and enthusiasm to shape their movements into routines in fun ways

Rhythmic gymnastics offers a unique blend of music, movement, and apparatus that challenges students to discover their bodies’ capabilities. The opportunities for movement are endless as children use their natural creativity and imagination to manipulate ribbons, balls, hoops, ropes, and scarves in fun and spectacular ways.

With Teaching Rhythmic Gymnastics, you don’t need any specialized training to put together a developmentally appropriate program; this book leads you through the entire process. It’s so easy to implement that once you’ve begun reading you’ll be able to lead classes through the basics of rhythmic gymnastics from the very first day. This book has everything you need to get going:

• Practical ideas for making your own hand apparatus from everyday materials
• Lesson plan ideas and strategies for class management
• Activities that you can use to develop each of the movement elements: locomotion, jumps, leaps, balances, turns, and pivots
• Learning challenges for every fundamental movement using each apparatus
• Tips for selecting music, including basic information about tempo, rhythm, and beat

The book takes a developmental approach that places you, the teacher, in the role of facilitator, using themes, guided discovery, and problem solving to encourage students to work at their own ability levels. The students may work individually or in groups, which help them build teamwork, collaboration, and leadership skills. You can easily include special-needs populations by using simple equipment modifications or program adjustments. Plus, the book includes suggestions for tailoring a rhythmic gymnastics unit for older (secondary) students.

By providing open-ended movement tasks and challenges, you can use this program to guide children to self-discovery within their individual capabilities. After developing movement and spatial awareness, students get the opportunity to use apparatus and discover the fundamental movements and vocabulary along the way. To expand their learning, students refine and add to their movements through a series of learning challenges. The culmination of the learning process occurs when students combine their newly discovered skills into sequences and routines.

This open-ended approach and extensive illustrations make this resource easy to use. To make your job even easier, the book includes a variety of convenient and time-saving tools, including ready-to-use checklists, assessment guidelines, lesson plans, word searches for vocabulary development, and even routine-planning posters that you can enlarge on a copier and post in the gym.

Rhythmic gymnastics is an enjoyable sport that develops fitness, inspires creativity, and enables every child to work at his or her own level. With Teaching Rhythmic Gymnastics, you can add variety to your gymnastics and rhythmic units; start a rhythmic gymnastics club; or introduce a safe, enjoyable alternative to traditional gymnastics programs.

Gymnastics Drills And Conditioning Exercises: Over 100 Drills and Conditioning Exercises
by Karen M. Goeller

This book includes drills and strength exercises that have been used with Karen's athletes for many years.

Although the drills, when done correctly have proven challenging to gymnasts of all levels, they are most useful to the developing gymnasts in levels one through eight.

Positive feedback has come from many people, including the coaches at a YMCA who used the original handwritten version, the USAG NYS Chairman, and the owner of the gymnastics camp USGTC!

As the owner of a gymnastics training facility for nearly ten years and a gymnastics coach for well over 20 years, Karen has spent thousands of hours coaching, teaching skills through progressions, drills, strength, and flexibility.

She considers it a privilege to have worked at Karolyi's Gymnastics Camp in Texas for seven summers as well as at US Gymnastics Training Camp held in Massachusetts and International Gymnastics Camp in Pennsylvania for a decade of Holiday Clinics. Working at these camps along with working for Paul Spadaro and attending many USA Gymnastics events such as Regional Congress and the National TOPS Training Camp have all been contributing factors to her vast knowledge of the sport. Karen has great appreciation for all those who were so generous with their knowledge!

Teaching Children's Gymnastics: Spotting and Securing : Step by Step With Thousands of Ideas--From "With Each Other" to Be Able to Help
by Ilona E. Gerling

This book is very thorough and has excellent diagrams and photos to help in following the step-by-step instructions. Even young children can get involved and learn how to spot each other if the suggestions given in this book are followed. Gymnastics needs to be a safe activity for children, but it also has to be fun -- this book is helpful for any teacher or coach in achieving both those goals. A very practical and helpful manual. Recommended.