Brett Wargo on Bar Technique, Off Season Drills, & NCAA Recruiting

My name is Dave Tilley , today on the podcast , super excited to have back on Brett Wargo Phenomenal coach , online educator , everything in between we actually linked up at Club Nationals and we're just talking and chatting back and forth about everything going on and the scene and I figured you know it'd be a really good time to kind of revisit some of the concepts

that he has put out , some of the things he has done , obviously in lieu of off season coming soon when this episode is coming out .

So the conversation ended up being just a phenomenal insight into some recommendations and some things that Brett has based on his experiences for coaches , for parents , for gymnasts themselves who are trying to get the most out of it . So we cover a lot of technique stuff , some drills , we cover some conditioning stuff .

We talk a lot about the college process , recruiting and trying to get involved and get ready for the college situation . So this episode is absolutely jam-packed with tons of information . So I really hope that everyone takes this one in stride .

Get a lot of information here from it and do yourself a favor grab a cup of coffee , get a notebook , bookmark some of the stuff , come back to it , because a lot of things we dive into I think can be revisited and really hammered on for the rest of the summer here and beyond . So hope you all enjoy this wonderful episode with Brett .

We're live with Brett and his fancy new mic equipment and headphones . Bro , you look like a studio producer right now . I feel like one . Is it one of those things where you have to buy the equipment to officially feel like a badass podcaster ? I'm still with my in-ear wired Apple headphones .

And then yeah , and then so , then so then I was like all right , well , I got to get this all set up , I got to make this sound good , and so then I eventually upgraded my mic and yeah , and then I got the whole little setup and everything . So yeah , yeah Looks good , man Sounds great and podcasting is great too .

So you know , yeah , exactly , I mean I , I I still know there's an Amy Winehouse cover of dave tilly's prehab , like I'm very aware that in the viral memes I can .

Are we doing , uh , a Taylor Swift love story ?

Yeah , um , well , yeah , so I mean just to kind of give people the background of this is , you know , I was obviously out and about in the world not doing a ton of podcasts , but I went to Club Nationals and you were there , saw you and a whole bunch of other people had a blast there . It was really fun .

I was lecturing to the college coaches about our new research workload paper , which I'm hoping , when this episode comes out , we'll have published , which is really cool .

So I was there and then , of course , just bump into everybody everywhere and we talked for a while and chatted , chatted it , and then when I got back , I was like you know , it's probably a good time to catch up with Brett and just talk on the podcast again , because the last one was really well received and you have a ton of information and multiple areas ,

I think , across like the club level , the college level and then elite stuff . So , yeah , there was no , uh , there was no thing on my mind burning that I was like I have to talk to Brett about . Bring on the podcast , because personally for me this is when I get the most questions about what do I do ? What should we focus on ?

I'm feeling overwhelmed with skills and drills and Congresses and stuff , and yeah , I feel like it's really easy to get overwhelmed and then you end up doing nothing , you know , you just get paralyzed by the possible scenario in front of you and then you get to August and you're like , oh my God , I got it ready for season , you know .

So , yeah , that's kind of the been the spark , I guess , for me wanting to kind of get back into the world and help people . So let's just start with . Maybe you know what is new since the last podcast . Is there anything you want to share updated , like what's been on your mind ? What have you been working on , like all that kind of stuff .

Um , I think at that point we were still doing like the ascend instagram and stuff and like we switched over and we started doing the best in our gymnastics and kind of created a little company out of that and just , you know , big on the coach's education side of things and , you know , just trying to do some opportunities for gymnasts as well .

So we started a college camp , you know the best , on Unimbar's coach's clinic and I do that with Enrique , Sarah and Cleo do Momentum . Yep , that's cool .

And we , uh , are just about to kick in and launch like a little recruiting guide and I say I say little , it's not little , it's like 89 pages , it's like 87 , 87 pages , 87 , whatever , but like , uh , that's that sounds way too big and it sounds way too much information , but it's really cool it's .

You know it's , it's a lot of recruiting tips and just little things and it takes you through timelines and it kind of just explains some of the . You know some of the titles and the verbiage that's used in in the recruiting process .

Each D1 university has its own little profile page so you can pop on there and you can see the academic info and the kind of recruiting . You know the team rankings and the GPAs and you know programs and airports and things like that . That , just like you know the coaches emails and things . You know stuff like that .

So it's just like a it's a really cool doc to just like get people started on . You know the recruiting process , so kind of like you're talking about where , like people in the off season and coaches are like , oh my God , what do I do now ? It's kind of like it's the same thing with the . You know the recruiting stuff is .

You know you're trying to find a way to bring it into a package that it's easier for people to to understand and to get started and you know , and once you get started , it's things get easier , Right , but that that overwhelming like oh my God , like there's so much , what , where do I go ? What do I do next ? What do I ?

How do I start Right , Um , so it was really important for for us to feel like we could . We could do something on that end . So , yeah , I don't know , just a lot of stuff .

So actually , and you know what , the last thing I got to say is , last time I was on here man , we were pitching that wild card and the all-star session and it was like it was like trying to .

I got on the door to get it through and it got through and so , like you know , I appreciate the platform that you gave it right and I appreciate everybody else that kind of jumped on board and , you know , talked to their people about it , but that's been in , that's , so this was so .

Therefore , yeah , it's been over three years , because this was the third correct all-star session , wild card session , um , this year at nationals , and so , yeah , so this is , I mean , it's been like four years almost yeah , that's crazy almost since we talked whatever .

So so , yeah , so , um , it is , uh , it's in , it's in and it's been working and it's been really cool and like , uh , they've been slightly making some tweaks to how it's done and so it started as like this one version and then it's it's kind of gotten a little bit twisted around and changed the last two years .

Good news is is that it sounds like it's reverting back to the original ish formula where it's going to be , you know , the full nationals and everything . So it'll be . It'll feel a little bit more like the regular sessions than it has the last two years , more like the regular sessions than it has the last two years .

And but yeah , no , I mean the stories I get out of that and the , the people that are just so appreciative of that being a session now , and things like that you know for for injury purposes or for , you know , for the kids just mentally that struggle so much in one area , or even even just the regionals right , like regionals . You fall on an event .

You know if you're oh my God , first event out , I fell . And then instead of going , oh my God , I'm out , I'm done , you know , and and and , feeling that just like a killer killer . Like just pressure and just feeling failure . In a way it lights people up and like , oh my God , no , but I still have three more chances .

something like that , that like kept them from training all four .

Uh , you know they might do some really great gymnastics and you know it's national caliber gymnastics , but it's not being seen on that , that stage and and it's , you know people have talked about it as like , oh , you know they get in front of the colleges and all that , and it's that's why it's so important .

And like , that's not why it's so important , it's just like a , it's a cool piece that that gives it extra value , but like , just the kids knowing that they're at nationals because they earned that place you know what I mean . Like that's the important part . The important part is making sure that the system validates .

They validates them within , within the program and within the system , and it's not just like , you know , you're , you're kind of the sideshow and things like that . So so , yeah , no , it's been , it's been really cool to see it go in , and I every every single year . It gives me just like this crazy feeling of like something important was done .

You know what I mean .

think yeah . So I remember when we first started talking about this , I mean I was at a similar inflection point of as a , as a medical provider and as someone who's consulting with people a lot on the club , club side , like , especially , like you know , in the States here March , april , may , for stage nationals .

It's very hard because , you know , I've never , I've never worked with a gymnast who didn't have one season or a couple seasons of something always bugging them their shoulder , their ankle , their back or something , so like that is a reality of sports , but definitely gymnastics is like when people are going through it .

So it's hard because when you advise somebody on a medical side , you try to say , you try to say , okay , can we , can we just do floor and vault , but take a break from bars . And particularly like releases right , single bar releases are what's making your shoulder really sore .

I literally this week work with a girl who's starting to train gingers and she's like my shoulders killing me , like do floor and vault and let's just like take a break from that . And she's like , well , I'm scared , I'm gonna lose all my skills for whatever . And I'm like , listen , this is summer , so it's there .

But she was dealing with something like this earlier in the year with packs or whatever . And I was like can we just do , you know , two events and train beam and then on the side and have three events to compete ? And and she was worried , you know , about nationals . And I was thinking back to like five years ago .

There was no option , there was no route to try to get there for two events or three events . It was just like , well , because I don't have a bar score , I'm not going to make level 10 regionals and qualify . And now this girl's a sophomore , so she's obviously in the recruiting funnel and so she's worried about that .

And I was just thinking back about how much easier it is as a medical provider because we have a little bit more you know , cards to play in our hand around this or that or modify this or modify that , that to your point .

It really helps kids feel as though they're not getting left behind and they feel as though they still have a shot and they feel like I think for young kids particularly , it's really important for them to like have that goal they're working towards and know that it's .

There's a lot of other possibilities for them to make nationals and get that confidence and get that experience , um , and all the other things that come with it . But like it's a big deal for a young kid who works so hard to be able to do two events or three events and still make it to nationals and have their opportunity .

Um , I agree with you , there's still some things that need to be improved upon , but I think overall , versus like all around or bust , um , it's significantly easier for me to help people as a medical provider , navigate the waters of club season , and particularly for me in the moment I they can't see it as we also have this , but like when they're 14 and

they're 15 and they're freshmen or sophomores , like I know personally having seen so many kids go through the entire gamut of , you know , club to college and beyond and come back . I know that we're looking at a six-year timeline . I'm like you have .

You have the talent , the capacity to make a college team if that's your goal , and I know we have this season , two more seasons and then four more seasons and then your life . So I'm trying to play the chessboard of right now . I know you want to compete and I want to help you compete .

But I have an obligation and a responsibility as someone you're asking for help for to make sure we're thinking about next year and I don't want you to blow your arm off and then not be able to train all summer and then now you have a slap tear you're dealing with for junior year and senior year and then you have to get surgery right , like I think about

those things now that I'm a little more seasoned experience .

Yeah , and and I , the first two years that the , the wild card , the all-star was , was in play , um , we didn't personally use it , you know , like we didn't have a kid that took advantage of it , um , but this year we had two and it was for for different reasons , you know .

One was just like a , a mental , mental hurdle , you know , on an event , and then the other was we got like little thumbs up things .

And so we got to keep training bars for that whole time and just no dismounts , right , but we got to train , train the core of that routine , you know , and everything .

And you know , coming back late in the season towards regionals , it's like , well , the ankle's , decent enough , we can maybe get , we can maybe get some more out of it , but like it would be a risk , you know it would be , it would be , it would be really pushing that timeline a little bit , and you know .

So we got to do just the dismounts and we got to hold off on the other stuff and we got to really let it heal up .

And she's now she's out of season and she made the wild card , you know , on bars and you know , and got to hit , hit an awesome routine at regionals and hit a nice routine at nationals and , like you know , get there and and she and we got to keep her healthier , you know , and we didn't .

We weren't forced with that weird stupid choice of like , oh , we got to keep her healthier . You know , and we didn't . We weren't forced with that weird stupid choice of like , oh , we got to push it to see if we can get the all around out , or we have to totally sit it out and tell this kid she has no opportunity this year .

You know , and it's like it's to have that , to have that pathway is just so valuable and important and like it , you know , I thought about it , you know and how how great it could be . You know , hypothetically , when it started , right , but like , yeah , to hear the stories . And then also , you know , to have our own story and our own kids .

That , like , really , you know , needed , needed and got to take advantage of it . It's , you know , it's , it's a it , it feels , feels pretty awesome to to know that , like the , there are people out there that that it , it is impactful Totally , yeah , so thank you , thank you for helping .

Thank you for helping , like , shed a little more light to that , Thank you for writing it Cause I wouldn't have known how to do that .

But like nationals is a bit of a whirlwind in terms of like the process and getting used to it and , like you know , it's intimidating having all 200 college coaches up on the banisters looking so like .

I think for someone who does want to go the college route or just have successful nationals and then graduate and move on , which is totally fine , or any experience for life , it's like knowing that process of hotels and flight and training podium and you know the actual setups and the two flights and the thing like .

It's very stressful for a young athlete to go through that later in their career when their pressure is on if they do want to go to college , right , there's a lot of moving parts for that .

So I think when they're younger , if you have someone who is a sophomore and , can you know , has something go wrong , they don't skip out on an experience from a life point of view and family point of view and accomplishment , like self mental you know pride , of course , but like , also , if you go and do one or two events , like that's really good experience ,

really good experience .

And then you have a good summer , you can heal up , like you said , because you're a little bit more recovered , and then the next year , when you're back in the saddle and you have all four , like you know exactly what's coming , like different city maybe , but you know , you know the process and the thing , and you're much more prepared for that junior year ,

which is probably a little bit more important in terms of recruiting and stuff like that . So , yeah , I think it's all a very good thing , that I think I want to continue to see um progress and give kids more opportunities . So , yeah , the , the feeling is mutual , man , about , uh , thanking you for it .

So , um , you did mention , though , how that system allowed and transition into a healthier , uh summer and off season , which is definitely one of the benefits , and I kind of want to dive there , because right now , a lot of people are dming , asking , emailing me , both college and club to do some consulting work on , like what should we do , because everyone comes

to me and says , like something didn't go as well as they wanted , like scores , cardio injuries , whatever everybody has the same problems , you know . But they essentially say , like I have this week off , um , after uh , nationals , or maybe two weeks or whatever . They have a downtrend .

And then like they're like I really want to get into it for when school gets out for the kids and our time , it's like around mid June , and they really only have like what ? 12 weeks , I would argue , to really get new skills , work upgrades , think about levels , think about changes , fix basics and technique , get stronger .

You know , all that kind of stuff is only really a three month window and from my experience as a coach , it's like you know , between a couple of vacations and a couple other like down weeks and up weeks , like you look up and it's like , oh God , I got to kind of get in cardio mode for a half routines , right .

So I'd like to kind of give you like an open platform to maybe say what your experience is with the off season and approaching it .

parents , maybe . But yeah , we did , uh , so we did the week off after nationals , you know , um , letting everybody come down . Uh , we gave everybody , you know , the sevens and eights and things that ended at regionals we gave , gave them a couple extra days off after regionals to to just kind of to come down a little bit from that .

And then when they came back in , it wasn't , you know , it wasn't full bore , it was , you know , kind of keep it , keep it just a little bit lighter and easier on them , you know , mentally and physically , just to just to let them come down a little bit .

And then , yeah , we gave the whole optional program off the week after nationals just to let everybody get a little reset , including coaches and everything .

And then , yeah , and then we got back into it this week and it was just kind of a we're just slowly ramping up throughout the week and trying to do the physical , you know , come down , but the mental come down as well , of , yeah , we've got big goals , yeah , we've got really good things that we want to work on and like you've got to start thinking about

and considering , you know kind of , what those next steps might look like for you and things like that , but like you got to get in the gym and just , you know , have a little bit of freedom to just move your body , play and and and just start to develop , kind of that .

Kind of this is what I feel like I'm going to be most passionate moving towards , you know , and giving the chance to just kind of like I don't know , to do a few extra , just kind of side drills , and to do a few extra , just , you know , really taking advantage of the super soft surfaces .

You know , I think that's number one is like , yeah , they've just they just pounded out their body and took a ton of hard landings and things like that .

So like , deload that stuff is , you know , um a lot and do a lot more tumble track and , um , you know we have a air floor pro from tumble track which is like the it's like the eight inch thick , um air floor and you can't bottom that thing out .

You know it's like it's , it's got some really nice little little bounce , so it it really plays to the speed of the floor and like the punch angles and stuff are more true to what you really have to experience in tumbling .

Um , you know , like the tumble track is going to be a little bit slower , so you've got to hit different angles and you've got to wait for it to ride a little bit more and like that's great too , it's it to ride a little bit more and like that's great too , it's , you know , good for training .

But like uh , we , we , actually we we love that air floor pro and it gives us just a little bit softer , softer surface to work on and like we use it throughout the year . But like , definitely hit the soft season . It's like man , we're gonna , we're gonna , we're gonna rock on that thing quite a bit .

Um , you know , and then tumble track and some rod floor and stuff and just yeah , soft surface landings and you know , just just trying to give a chance to jump in so you can get a glass of water .

I give a keynote lecture every year to all the college coaches when they're they're recruiting , about different topics , like one year was achilles tears , one year was um , strength conditioning lifting , and this year was a workload paper we're working on that we're publishing soon , myself and Ellen and one thing that I saw from that paper is we looked at college uh ,

a bunch of college kids for the whole season and measured their workloads , their wellness and stuff and their forces , but the myth is still very much propagated in all parts of gymnastics that time off is causing people a lot of problems , and I think you know if you take six months off , like , of course that's going to be different .

Like a week or two off to like come down from nationals , be a kid , go on vacation , do whatever . A lot of people say that their coaches are telling them that , like that time off is causing them problems like injuries or performance problems or but it's not , it's the . It's the rapid spike in workload when they come back the first two days .

And you said how , like , even when they come back from a week , we ease into it . We're doing basics , we're doing a little chill stuff . It's not like we're like okay , you had a week off , we're going to crush your legs on Monday and Tuesday and hit this really

hard . And I think people aren't malicious , they're excited . You know they want to , they want to trial this new active flexibility stuff or whatever . And it's with well intention . But you take someone who comes off of a really hard season a peak , peak , peak intensity for routines .

They haven't done a ton of volume because they're trying to peak for nationals , right . So it's not like their volume is super high , their intensity is . And they drop down even more in terms of how much volume they're doing because they have a week off to be a kid and then so they're in this trough , right .

And then that Monday or Tuesday back when you're well-intentionally throw a bunch of new drills or throw a bunch of plyos or throw a bunch of strength at them , that is a like insanely large spike up in workload volume and that in the college research we saw and I've seen this in club too as well is that , um , that is where people have problems .

It's it's cause there's no slow Monday , tuesday , wednesday ramp up . It's just like we got to hit it hard . And the other thing about that is that other research shows us and our research showed that is , that it's not for two weeks or a week after those effects start to set in .

So like the shin splints , the sore back , the cranky shoulders it's not like they do all these things and they feel immediately sore or they're exhausted . It's two weeks later there's a big hangover effect and delay in a lot of these workload spikes . And so I just caution people to one , not propagate that myth that time off is causing kids problems .

But two is when you're planning your first month back like build in three days of relatively chill drills , soft , play around , have fun , get , just get . Get in there and like get the get , kick the rust off the tires right .

Don't expect to do your full strength program and your full drill program the first couple days , because it's not going to go well and if they've grind through it you're going to be dealing with ketchup the next two weeks and I'm not sure if your experience is like that .

I mean , that's obviously what the academic stuff says and the dork in me says , but I think intuitively it makes sense to coaches when they hear that you know yeah , yeah , no , I mean that vibes with vibes with everything that kind of we we see and deal with and stuff .

Hopefully I support what you guys are already doing . Yeah , and so it just , I mean , from everything that we've heard and everything that we've seen and read and kind of watched and stuff , that just seems like the right idea to do and it's just it makes sense to to slowly ramp up .

And I mean , even even when we have a two day weekend , you know we do , we do five days on and we do a two day weekend , like Monday is still a little bit of a small ramp up day , like it's , you know , just every week , you know , and that's during season too , that's not , it's not just like you get into Monday and all of a sudden it's like

everything's the max , every , just the hardest , hardest surface every day . And right , like I mean , we , we even we even look at Monday as as just a slight , a slight ramp up into the week , and then the rest of the week is is a little bit more intense . So yeah , Okay , cool .

is like , what percentage of time in the week would you say is like based on skills and event time versus physical prep flexibility , um , like like kind of generally speaking , how would you organize maybe five days like you had , um , if you were , if you were looking at the summer or what you guys are doing now ?

And then we've got a , uh , a stretch period and then we do like some , um , we have a little bit extra time where we'll do some line drills , where we're doing basics and you know , just like the little , the little prep things to get you going on the day .

Or we're doing prehab circuits , um , depending on what the days are , and we , you know , we kind of just flip flop through those through the week .

Um , you know some bar lines and things like that , just for for some basic preps .

Um , we have , uh , you know , a half hour to 45 minutes of conditioning , depending on the day , and uh , you know , and then for each event , I think we also have some built in just uh , either some little prehab things or some different shaping stuff , or , uh , you know some , some , um , you know , some stability work or things like that , and that's just kind

of built in throughout kind of the day .

So I mean I , you know , just like , pure , like blocked time is probably just about 25% , and then actual time of doing stuff like that in the gym is probably , you know , it's probably 35 would be , would be my guess , or somewhere around there , maybe , maybe even a little bit more than that , I don't know , yeah , no , that makes sense .

Like all they're trying to do is get new skills and then get the kids as strong as possible , which is definitely has a role to play . But I I don't know I feel like from hearing you and nick and many others , it's like two weeks of really hammering great basics , great shaping , trying to fix some of the technical things that may be in season .

It was just like we got to get routines done . We don't have time to do this like .

I find personally that the only time to really spend a lot of uh , effort and time and correction of teaching proper mechanics or fixing things or people grow and things get weird again , right , like all those like basics and shaping and drills and stuff I feel like that is not only is it good to slowly ramp up into new skills and teach fundamentals , but I

feel like by fixing the base layer of handstand shapes or some things like that , or how your cart wheel is right or whatever , or how your layout head position is , like that improves everything across the entire gym .

And I feel as though if you can fix some of that stuff or work on those more mundane things in the beginning , when they start to get into skill work , I think a lot of those things click a bit more easily . Right , and I can't speak .

And this is why I'm asking you is like I can't speak to , like you know , level nine , level 10 skills Cause I'm not actively doing those right now with people . But that's my gut and I feel like when I tell people like , hey , let's spend two weeks on a really like , is your round off ? Like really really good ? Like , do you have a really great layout ?

You know , and it's , you know , it's that concept of you know , if you have a blunt ax and that that edge doesn't really chop in and and and knife into that wood , then you're sitting there and you might as well be taking a baseball bat to the side of a tree and like how long , how you can put in the most effort ever , you can be the hardest trier , you

can be really focused on how hard you swing and where you're making contact . But if the ax doesn't go into the tree , it's not an effective yeah right , it's not efficient use of your energy . And so you know , we've we've used that quote before and we've talked about it . You know , within our program and like it's , I mean it probably bears repeating again .

You know , going into this off season , you know and kind of , and keep pitching it , but it's getting people and the kids to understand and buy into as much as possible that the physical prep and the foundation of their gymnastics and the basics is going to be . That's going to be what makes your turns more efficient and effective in the learning process .

And that means that you know the variability of your roundoff is too big and it's all over the place and it doesn't , you know , it's not well defined into a specific slot or something , then if your back handspring is a little bit off here and there and it changes a lot , you know .

Then now , every time you're trying to do a double back , it's you got different punching angles and you've got different . You know you've got different load into the legs and you've got . You know it's and it's . So you're trying to make these technical changes on a double back but , like you're , you're dealing with too much variable .

Root skills are the stronger and better chance you have of staying efficient in your process , of your training , your bigger skills and things like that . So I mean , I think that's the big thing is is is getting them to buy into just that idea of like I got to spend .

I got to spend a bunch of time and effort and energy on these , these little things that might seem mundane and boring and like they're not as exciting and um , you know , but the the that really does make the difference in .

Uh , instead of having to do 12 double backs to try to get three good ones , you know you do five double backs to try to get three good ones , or six double backs , try to get three good ones . You know you do five double backs to try to get three good ones . Or six double backs , try to get three good ones .

And , like you know , I mean from a numbers perspective , you know , I mean those things all add up and I mean I think we talked about it on the podcast before . But like the car mileage analogy , right of like I think that was on our the first podcast was like you only have a certain number of miles on your body .

So like you can't , just like you can't just like tick , tick , tick , tick , tick , tick , tick , tick , tick and expect to be a , you know , a 21 year old senior , a 22 year old senior in college , and like feeling awesome , you know , and like so , um , we try to take that long-term perspective as much as possible .

And so in doing that it's you know , I was having this conversation with the kid yesterday . Actually , like you know , you're looking at this bail .

You know I'm looking at your tap swing and it's like , well , if your tap swing is really awesome and you get this awesome little candle shape and you've got your chest done , you know underneath and you've got your , you know , you get that nice little scoop through and it's a really well-connected body position .

Well then , when we go to do the next , thing we probably have more success with it , you know . And so you get frustrated with the , the bail itself , you know .

But , like , put that energy and and and recognize that it's a newer skill and don't don't frustrate yourself over that so much as you focus on well , I can keep getting better at these other little things and these other little things are going to make a bigger impact to those skills .

You know double backs If you don't have an awesome tap shape , if you don't have an awesome , you know giant shape with a scoop and you're always doing that early tap and the you know the chest over the top and throwing the shoulders out and things like that well then , like , you're not going to get the best turnover into a double back and you're not going to

get the best . You know you're not going to be able to build a Takachi of action that comes in through the scoop and then it comes back out and you're not going to be able to do an awesome ginger or you know what I mean Like . So it's , it's like those purist technical basics are really the .

That's what everything else launches from , and so if you want a bigger skill set and you want to learn more , then you have to do better basics .

So from my side , in terms of like medical strength and conditioning and like advising people , there's obviously like , in the short term , the smaller piece is the efficiency and the toll on your body per rep . Right piece is the efficiency and the toll on your body per rep right .

So , like every single double back or every single back handspring for a little kid like you're , we're trying to spread out that force across the most joints possible and dissipated as much as better . So good technique , where you understand stiffness and how to change your body efficiently and how to tune the equipment or the floor .

We are hopefully spreading out the force across multiple joints , multiple muscle groups and that's why , like the landing thing , is so important knowing how to land well , because you spread force out across everywhere , not just your knees or your ankles .

So good technique and good basics , I think , is trying to put less miles on the car per rep , you know , per trip .

But then there's that piece to you which is that if you don't have great technique and you don't spend time on those basics , like you're saying , it's every time you get to floor or bars or whatever , or rings or whatever , you're doubling the amount of reps you need to do before you feel as though you've had enough to make a positive , like tick for the day ,

like if you want to get five and it takes you 15 , because your technique is , like you said , variable and sometimes high , sometimes low , like the , the miles per rep , and then the miles per event and per day are exponential , right . And then you course that out over weeks and months and years .

I think that is where we see people get really accumulated , banged up . Right Back to the whole wildcard thing , right , a lot of kids are nursing constant crankiness and then season comes in and it blows up a bit , but 75% of the injuries in gymnastics are overuse .

So I think , if we can think about how do we realistically chop that down right , it's having much better technique and much better basics and being the art form of coaching , of teaching kids why that mundaneness is important for whatever their goals are , you know .

So that was , I don't know , that popped up to my mind and I do want to kind of dig into , like what basics and what drills like . Maybe a couple examples for each , but I don't know .

You know , I saw like , uh , I saw the Yukon basketball team and they're standing , uh , you know , kind of like along the along the basketball team and they're standing you know kind of like along the along the sideline and they're just doing these like just little dribble drills and doing around the backs and doing back and forth and doing you know whatever , and

like that , there they were the best team , you know , and then it's NCAA right and , and they were doing the mundane little drills , you know , and then it's NCAA right and , uh , and they were doing the mundane little drills .

You know , they weren't it wasn't just layup lines and it wasn't just shoot around , it was like , you know , on the sideline for the games . They were doing really basic drills , right , um , I just started listening to um , kind of I'm an audio book guy now .

I didn't know that I was going to become one of those guys , but like I became one . Um , you know , like the NPR , you know the , the podcast listener all the time and the yeah , the , the master class watcher and the whatever , but the Ted talks , you know .

But so , uh , my latest audio book that I've been digging into um is the talent code and it's a good one and it's a it's great . But like , uh , part of what I was just listening to was he's talking about um , this tennis , uh , uh , tennis place um in russia that like has developed and you know a just an unbelievable amount of like great tennis players .

And he said he rolls up to this place and you know he's expecting to hear these like thwacks and thwacks and thwacks and whatever .

And like he walks in and they're , yeah , they're swinging their rackets , but like they're going slow motion , fast motion and whatever through imaginary volleys and they're just doing like the the purest , without hitting the ball and without getting Mm , hmm , and the coach would go over and just like correct them and make them do like another slow-mo version of it if

they didn't think it was what it should have been or where it should have been . And you know when they actually started playing , you know they would all right , you missed a shot .

Like let's go back through this and let's like slow-mo what that should feel like , and by going faster and going slower and by playing for real and doing the imaginary and things like that , like it was just building up the the skill stronger and stronger and stronger .

Um , you know , through those mental pathways you know it's big on , like the myelin sheath and you know the growing that and right . So , like you're , you're getting a more efficient electric , you know pathway in your brain to perform faster and stronger and more consistent in a skill Right . That's kind of like the big base of of the book .

But like I it was just interesting to me you know that like some of those top places and the people that are performing the most are the are , they're the ones that are are still doing the more mundane tasks and skills and and drills . They're not , you know , it's not just because they're , they're throwing out smarter corrections all the time .

You know , and like I think that's what we get caught up with every once in a while . It's like we're trying to just like , oh , we just give them a smart correction and like , well , that's that's .

You know they , they might even , they might even conceptually understand it , but if you , you got to make your body do it and so I have to catch myself doing that a lot too Right . You know you're like , well , no , I taught him this and then , like you , you get away from it for a chunk up and it's like , well , you got to go back .

But you know you're like man , I felt like I put a lot of effort into teaching that Right , but they didn't . They didn't do it enough times to get it to set in strong enough .

You can't do 50,000 and you , you know , but it's like you do have to figure out a way to like set in physically for the kids , like how to make those skills really rock solid , sure , on the lower levels , which is where , hopefully , you're doing that up , your whole program , you know , and you're not , you're not trying to redo it at level 10 , but like

right , right , shoot , we got off of nationals and like the first , the first thing we talked about on bars was like guys , I think our kips need to be better .

Like I , really , I just you know like it's like we , we start to get these , you know the the rise and we're starting a little too early , and then we're coming down and we're , by the time we get there , we're all unloaded and like now you're rolling a cast and it's like it's it really comes down to .

You know , like some of our inconsistencies on casts , it's like it was really KIP . It was a KIP problem , right ? So like , make make your kip a little bit stronger and more consistent . And I could have talked about that earlier , you know I could . I could have dug in on that a little bit earlier , but like , yeah .

I mean sometimes you gotta go back to the purest basic .

Is that a piece of advice that I've learned from Nick and some other peoples , and I don't know where I saw this actually but the um , even though there's a huge disparity in what , like you know , level fours are doing versus level tens , some of the gyms that I've been fortunate to look into that are very high performing are , when they do lines , the , the

level tens do the same basics as the fours for some of that stuff . So everybody can lay on the ground . Everyone can do a hollow arch dish shape . Everyone can do a handstand hold , everyone can do whatever on releve for dance .

And so when the younger girls see the older girls still practicing those maybe it's a Venn diagram of overlaps , right , obviously it separates a bit , but like that's a very important role modeling and thing to say like oh , look at you know Sarah May over here who's going to wherever and has this dream right , and she's been doing gymnastics for 15 years longer

than you , little one and she , uh , she's still doing this lay on the floor , handstand basic or this thing . Like it's a very good cultural thing to have the older girls who are doing those things continue to work on it for themselves , but also to be a really positive like . This is a lifelong thing . We're always going to do these basics .

We always come back to these basics , no matter what , and so for those that are struggling to try to get that cultural buy-in , I think that's very important and something I've seen in you Sarah and I talked about this when she was on , nick's talked about this is that the same but different , you know like ?

So there's a lot of ways to work ears covering or arms covering ears . It can be in seven different spots in seven different ways , but they don't have to all be the same . Two boring drills every day , all the time , on every event .

So if you find a few drills that you like and they seem to be effective uh , kip , drill at ears cover , drill whatever like try to be creative and think about are there other ways to reinforce this fundamental basic , which is ears covered in tall shoulders , and not do the same seven drills for 14 weeks , right ?

Because the reality is that everybody gets bored of that , and that's the art of coaching is to is to spice that up a bit with different things . So Nick , on his examples , talked about like shoot over drills on tramp , shoot over drills on low bar , shoot over drills on you know some sort of other device down a wedge or whatever .

Like there's a lot of options that makes it fun for the kid , but it's all the same mechanics , yeah . So I think that's that's really important to say and I think , before we maybe wrap this piece up , is you mentioned , like you know , tap swing and how that was maybe thing , or Kip , right .

So for people , concrete advice wise , I know there's a bajillion basics that could be worked , but is there a couple examples of like something that you feel as though , like globally , everyone needs to work on for like a basic and maybe a drill for that ? So tap swings and something else , or kips and something else , or floor round off or whatever .

Like I think it'd be good for people to have a couple things to tuck in their pocket and bring to the gym to try , um , to find some new drills not to put you on the spot , the tap , the one I think about now is tap swing and the brush bar that you have , the yellow , uh , brush bar with tumble track , which allows them to feel something .

Yeah , load that down and do tap swings instead of just doing more bails .

markers . You know that you go like , all right , if I could pick out what's maybe the most impactful piece . Right , it's like , uh , and I've even started to do this way more than I used to is , even though I talked about , you know , creating like this hollow .

You know I'm trying to create this like hollow up and whatever on on a tap swing , you know , because that's going to make a better hollow giant across the bar and things like that . Is you ?

You know one thing that I think , uh , I started to focus on more and and be , and and and gave more power into the conversation was keeping their ribs as low as possible .

And because then you know , if you're , if your ribs start to come up , you know you're probably extending your shoulders and you're , you know , when your ribs come up , your start , you start to , you start to flare the feet away from you . Well , that's now you're not going in the same direction anymore .

Now you're , now you're , you're trying to take one part of your body and you're moving it . You know , uh , trying to keep it going over the bar , but you're taking the other part of the body , the longer part of the body and the farthest part of , and you're , you're pushing them the opposite direction , right .

And so trying to get that understanding of like , just keeping that chest , as , like , the rib cage , down as much as possible , um , you know , and so finding drills and finding ways for them to do that , and then you know , and figuring out how to connect that upper core , lower core and things like that , so that it's you're , you're , you're trying to do one

body line and it might not be straight , right , but it's still one curved body line like a bow and arrow , a bow , right , that there's strength in that connectivity across the whole body .

And anytime you do the segments , you're losing power of your overall next shape change that you want to make right , or just in the shape that you're losing power of your overall next next shape change that you want to make Right , um , yeah , or or just in the shape that you're in , so , um , so , yeah , I , I think that , like , maybe for that like , just

like any kind of technical focus you can put onto , like just that little , that little action of keeping your rib cage down as much as possible and letting everything else come around , you know , with those straight arms and trying to keep that neutral head position Right , um , and then there's a million ways to do that and there's a lot of different options and

there's a lot of different choices . But like just targeting , targeting a couple of those major major concepts right Is is really important .

But if you can learn that shape change ribs down , right , that can be your flyaway gets better . That could be your layout shape gets better . Your , your shape change on your chain go gets better . Your layout step out gets better .

So by spending a week , right , or a couple of days really bringing the group around and showing an example and saying this is what we're doing wrong , this is how we fix this here .

The drills we're going to work on and kind of just being on top of that with daily line drills , like if that , that one thing , that one shape of a hollow ribs down , arms up , got 5% , 10% better , everything across their entire profile becomes a little bit more safe because they're spreading load out and it becomes a little bit more consistent , right , so go

ahead . Sorry , if you want to jump in .

Nick and I have talked about this in the last podcast is , if you're trying to put somebody in a shape and it's just not working , like every time , the arms go up , ribs come up , ribs go down , arms go down , and it's just not happening , despite all your best efforts . You have to . As a coach , you have to pause for a second .

And this flexibility , strength , core control like there might be something underneath that right , because a lot of kids have different problems here . So the rib flare example is perfect . I'm glad you said that , because I've seen rib flares be kids that grow and their lats get super stiff because their arms grow longer and they go .

They grow like a weed and now their arms are so stiff from swinging bars that they need to just spend a little time on flexibility foam , rolling soft tissue , chin up lowers , stick stretches and in a couple of weeks it gets better , but there's no drill or cue you can say to get a kid's ribs to stay down when their arms go up , if they have like super

duper stiff lats from growing right . So you just got to take a step back and realize I can still work this drill , I can still work this shape , but I have other things to work on Right .

I've also seen the same problem , though , be an upper back flexibility issue with thoracic spine issue and an older girl who's gone through a maturity and she just does a crazy good dish shape on her in bars and she's gotten stiff and it's just like a little bit of work is needed . Some of the younger kids struggle with core control .

They don't have a mind core control to like I don't know how to , like you said , control the upper lower and you got to spend some time and just drill that one thing . Or some kids , unfortunately , are just not as strong as they should be with their hollow and arch shapes and they need more raw strength .

Um , some kids it's a technical thing , they they get it all on the drill , the conditioning , but when the , when the actual drill happens , they don't have stiffness , they don't know how to create tension in their body or length in their body , which , which Nick talks about and you talk about , is so like that's an example of like the goal is let's get ribs

down , arms up , right , but there's five things right there that each individual kid might have a small detour to make .

And the only time you have an opportunity to figure that out whether yourself or maybe with a healthcare provider is now Like if you have a kid who just can't seem to get it , it's like don't just keep like the running ahead , like take a pause and be like , hmm , is there something else to work on ?

Pause and be like , hmm , is there something else to work on ?

And that is my like , probably the best , hopefully useful advice I can give somebody is all of the basics that you recommend , nick recommends , sarah recommends like there are things beyond that that might be also important to kind of address , because the same way as if one kid's shoulders gets 10% better flexibility , wise , every skill gets safer and better .

So that's that's something to kind of chew on , you know .

But if you correct that one thing , like you just said , it might connect to eight more skills , you know . And so all of a sudden , now you just got more efficient with your work for eight more skills . Well , that's going to , you're going to get , you're going to get better a lot faster , yeah .

If everything , if your shoulder flexibility got a little bit better and your reposition got down a little bit better , your Yurchenko layout , step out , your pack , everything like okay , now we're talking about efficiency across a very wide compounded scale , like that is how kids stay safer and have more longevity . In my opinion is that plus a great strength program .

And obviously communication is really like the hallmark of what I try to recommend to people who are maybe a little frustrated on that side .

But I think that the other thing that I see in the off season which sparks the conversation is people go through nationals , through a season , and they're . The end goal for a lot of people is is either do gymnastics , move on with life and be happy , or get to a college situation right , like division one , two , three , club , whatever you know .

The end point is is not the topic , but it's more so like when you're coaching kids that are 12 or 13 or 14 , and the goal is six more years of gymnastics right , or or moving up and getting harder and harder .

I think there's a lot of people who are young and starry eyed , they're looking at college , the coaches see potential and it's exciting , and parents and get wrapped up into this too as well .

But I personally feel that the , the , the sport , has changed dramatically in the last five to 10 years for very good reasons , and whether it's college , nil and what's happening at the college level with coaching .

But I still feel as though it's extremely overwhelming and stressful for a coach to look at four , five , six years of work and planning before I say they're 12 and they have to get to 18 for a college recruiting , and then there's four more years beyond that .

So I'd like to maybe uh , move the conversation and talk about the first half of that with , like , your recommendations for those who say they have college goals , they have the potential to kind of go in the college route , maybe like the 12 , 13 , 14 year , and then maybe switch gears and talk about , like the older , I'm mature , I've got my skills , you know ,

and I'm trying to navigate how to safely get through 16 , 17 , 18 before I do get to college . So let's maybe start with the younger ones of you know technique , basics , obviously important things talking about like how are you helping kids understand what needs to happen in those two to three years if college is the goal ?

Of like you , I mean and I when I'm saying that it's like , of gymnastics that fits within the ncaa , right , like , you can't do beautiful level nine gymnastics and be a , you know , and go , uh , d1 , you know , at a top university , right , um , you know you can't , but but , um , you know , and that gets that , gets you noticed , and it starts to open the

doors when it's time to engage in the recruiting process . Um , you know . So , like we said , committing to the great basics um , you know , and the bigger skills are going to come down the road . Right , you got to be careful with the idea of rushing , right , just like we're talking about with going back and focusing on those little basics .

Is like if you go purely on a timeline perspective and you say I have to be this . By this , therefore , you , you , you rush the process , you don't take the time to do things .

Well , you , you have , you know , some mediocre skills in there , you know , just because you have to be this level by this age , then you know , then you're setting yourself up perhaps um , or or people are helping you set yourself up for maybe not finding the most success overall , um , when it comes down to it , and then that's probably going to make it harder

for you and your recruiting process .

So , trying to stay in a skillset that is progressionally appropriate for you , and then , by detailing and working on the basics and by caring about those things and allowing yourself to maybe move slow at the beginning but move faster later , right , it's , it works out fine , right , but , um , I think that's not everybody and that's , that's not the normal , normal

story for for the , you know , the kids across the country . So , um , there are programs that are going to be right out of the gate . They're going to try to get you know those , those really top , you know fast movers , and they've been there a little while and they've got , you know , five years of level 10 and they're whatever , right .

But there's going to be some other programs that are looking for the late bloomers and they're going to be looking for the kids that are coming on strong , you know , in the back half of their high school careers and because those kids are maybe maybe don't have the same level 10 mileage on their body and the same number of hard double backs and double a's and ,

you know , beating themselves up and and things like that . So , like you know they're .

Essentially , I think , the goal is try to move progressionally as much as possible and try not to fall into the trap of just I have to be this by here , right or , or my or my journey is over and it's impossible and , like I think , just avoid avoiding that one pitfall . It would be important .

And then at those younger ages , right before the pressure of the recruiting stuff starts , you got to be , you got to learn how to be the best for your team and not just try to be the best on your team and being coachable , being a great teammate , staying team focused .

When you're struggling individually , right , um , never too high , never too low emotionally , where you're doing those big swings and you know if you're having a great day , well , you're really fun to be around and it's uh , it's awesome for the program , you know .

But then you're struggling on a day and all of a sudden now it's like , well , everybody has to tiptoe around you because you've made it clear that you know , nobody can enjoy themselves next to you today . You know what I mean .

And like , and everybody's like , oh my God , right , like and and it , the , the culture of a program and the stuff that that goes on in the gym . It's like it's , it's , it's hard , hard . You know it's hard to deal with frustration .

You know , as a kid , especially if you're really dedicated and you really do want success and you put a lot of stock into you know , whatever , but um , I've , I've had to remind myself and and be reminded of this in recent years , of , like , identifying yourself as a gymnast or identifying yourself I'm a gymnastics coach .

Like I'm not , I'm a , I'm a , I'm a dude and a human being and a guy that coaches gymnastics .

And you know , I mean like I've , I've worked hard and put in a lot of time and hours and energy and effort and a lot of passion and a lot of whatever , to , to try to , to to do new projects and come up with new equipment , stuff , and you know , and and start these clinics and camps .

And you know , do all the social media and like it's , it's a lot , social media , and like it's , it's a lot .

And so you know , at a certain point , you know , with all of the energy that goes into it and this is how the kids feel , I think , with their gymnastics is like all the energy they put into , okay , school and then , but then outside of school , it's like , man , I'm , I'm in the gym and then I don't have a , I don't have a huge life outside of that

because , like , it takes a lot of .

So , all of a sudden , now you're , you're a gymnast , you know , instead of just like I'm a kid and I'm a student and I do gymnastics and I do study and like , so when you hit the rough spot , right , it's avoiding that I'm fate , I'm a failure , yep , right , it's , I failed at this , right , but like I'm also just a learning , a learning person , and I'm

just working my way up and I'm maturing and I'm trying to get better , yep , and , and it hopefully then it doesn't become as rough on you . Like I'm pretty hard on myself and like I really I judge my mistakes pretty , pretty harshly .

I judge my mistakes pretty , pretty harshly and , um , you know , I mean , that's just self-reflective and and and I I just don't , especially as a coach , I don't like to fail other people , right , like I can fail myself and it's not . I can get , I can give myself a hard time and it's not that bad .

But like , if I feel like I'm failing other people and they're trying to give me their best , like I'm really hard on that and so I totally understand it and I , totally , I , I get , I get how that can hit you so hard , right , but it's like trying to trying to figure out how to get that better balance and like , but I , I really believe that that goes

just an incredibly long way towards making the journey . One , probably easier for you physically , right . But two , it's the recruiting process gets way harder If , if you're flying up and down and all over the place and your and your hard days are hard for everybody , you know it's .

It's if , if you , if you can just go about your business and you can just try to try to keep a little bit more of that even keel and just focus on trying to just improve over time , yep , right .

So I , I think , I think that's the biggest thing , right Is it's like , yeah , physically Right , but then like just culturally if you're , if you're awesome to be around in the gym .

That's obvious , right , but like , people focus a lot on that , but too much in my opinion sometimes versus like the patience factor of like when you're 13 or 14 , like like going slow and getting , like getting through your growth periods and like getting all your , your basics and your skills and staying keeping your flexibility up , getting really strong , like learning

proper management of yourself . I think that stuff is all really really important and you're not going to kind of obviously get there , but , um , the human level things I think are very important to distill .

Like you're saying , when you're , when you're young , here is mentoring kids about emotional regulation and highs and lows , and you know how this is a , this is a consistency thing and a showing up and putting in the work . You know , day after day , these things are how these goals are accomplished .

Um , but also , to just like to your point of like , I think , a lot of coaches at the college level . Uh , they're looking for good people who are , you know , able to be in the gym and work on a team and are , you know , supportive and they take care of themselves but they take care of others .

Like college is not this one solo rider who's doing everything for the team . It's a team effort and constantly right . That is the benefit and the great thing about college gymnastics .

So , when athletes are younger , a big part of what we're doing is using gymnastics as a way to teach that , um , taking care of yourself , not being too hard on yourself , not letting like the high days get you euphoric and the low days make you miserable , like coping strategies , like consistency factor discipline is a bad word , I don't like that word but like

like just dedication to your goals , right , like the small little things every day , doing the mundane basics when you don't want to , but you know it matters for a good vault that you want to get for whatever .

So , like these human level things are so important to work on and kind of get when they're younger , along with drills , flexibility basics , because those things are everlasting and they're eternal for the rest of their career . But to your point , which is where we'll go now is it only gets harder and more stressful and more challenging .

Each year you get closer to being recruitable on a deadline or having to go , like I said earlier , to nationals and be .

You know you got to show up and you got to compete at some point when the time is right , when you're older and mature , like it is , do you hit good , clean gymnastics at you know , a regional , national level , in front of people in pressure , because that's what college is .

If your goal is to compete in college , it's a lot of pressure , it's a lot of like in the moment you got to hit , you got to be ready , you got to manage yourself well .

So , laying the foundation for these things , when we don't really talk about like , okay , you've got to hit your routine right now , because you never know , it's more about handle that Right , like what if you do hit and you have the routine of your life and then your friend falls and are you gonna , are you gonna be cheering , you know , like crazy and make

your friend , you know , feel bad that they dropped the ball , like ? Those things are really important to build at a baseline level and it makes the higher pressure cooker years later when you do have to show up and do four good events or three good events at nationals , um to talk to your coaches and

stuff . So yeah , is there anything else ? Maybe on the ? I'm thinking like this is like 12 to 15 is kind of where I think this is most important and like 15 to 18 is a separate kind of chunk of this . But is there anything else you want to share on maybe this like kind of lower age bracket ?

You're being disciplined , right , or consequence means like there's a consequence that happens to you when something you know right , but it's like a consequence is just the natural . What happens after something else , right .

So it's like you're free to choose , but you're never free from the consequences of those choices , right , and like those consequences might be great . The consequence might be that you get the job that you really wanted because you chose to . You chose to apply for something that was maybe you thought was a dream job , right , and oh my God , why I got it .

That was the consequence of you Right , and discipline is the same thing .

It's like , if you look at it from like a disciplinarian right and you think of that being like that negative connotation , but like discipline itself is just the idea of holding yourself accountable to something right , and like making sure that you stay consistent with what you said you wanted , when it wasn't that easy , you know , it's like I said I'm not going to

hit my snooze . So I'm not going to hit my snooze , but I'm really tired today and I feel like I don't want to do it , but that , like the that's discipline is like to go .

No , but I said I was going to do this , I'm going to get up , and I said I was going to work out , and I said I was going to have a full glass of water before I did whatever . And I said not saying it as because I think I live it perfectly and I'm the perfect model and example of all of those things . Right , it's just examples that you know .

But it's like I , you know , it's when I have , when I have not held myself to high discipline , I , I , I feel like I just kind of float around , you know , and I just kind of , I just kind of go through life and like when I actually hold myself to and I and I stay disciplined to what I say I'm going to do or wants to do , or think that I should

do , it gives me a little bit more power and control over my other decisions that I want to make .

And so I think that , yeah , I just like I don't know just the way you said it right , like it's like it's like an interesting thing for me is it's like it's , it's like you can turn it into a positive , right , if you , if you're , if you're not afraid to look at it from that perspective , and then , like the , just the , you know like we're talking about ,

like how you handle the tough stuff . Right , gymnastics is different and it's hard because it's that individual sport where you're out on the equipment alone , right , and then so your performance is your performance In other team sports , right .

If you're on a basketball team and you miss a three-pointer , right , you have to run down and play defense , you have to immediately turn around and you have to get rid of that shot and you have to commit yourself to playing defense so that you don't let the other team score an easy bucket and now it's a five point trade-off because you missed your three and

you gave them a two on the other end . Right . So , like football , you know , like , if you , if you missed a tackle on one play , right , and then the ball goes to the , to the guy you're defending on the next play , well , you better get back up and you better be ready to stop them on the next play .

Yeah you can't just like , you can't just sulk and give up and then now they scored , you're not , you're no longer playing if you do those selfish things , and so I think that's kind of the message .

It's just athletics , it's sport , gymnasts being individual , they don't have the same like team thing about it where , like your next play , you are responsible for the team outcome , the same way that some of the other sports are sure right because it's like it , it's it's on it and you have to and you have to learn those things .

But honestly , if we can learn from some other sports and we can watch them , that recovery and that resilience off of those mistakes is a really cool skill to gain and it can be really impactful . And so I think it's I yeah , that would be , that would be .

My thing is like is is maybe just bringing in some of those other sport examples and like just trying to help help kids understand , like how quickly other sports are required to be resilient and maybe we can learn something from that and we can try to like uh , act that way a little bit more Um . Uh , act that way a little bit more , um .

But yeah , as far as like the rest of the stuff on um , you know the , that age bracket or whatever . Like I feel like that's , you know that's .

That's the big stuff is develop your good basics , develop your good gymnastics and then , yeah , and then , and then develop the habits of the resilience yeah , and those things so that , like , if you create that habit , then when you're when the pressure comes on , you're more apt to be able to to hold on to those specific things , because you've just that's how

you have always treated things right , and so yeah and uh , I think there's like kind of two parallel things we're talking about .

If you choose to skip conditioning and not come in and not do these drills , not listen to the feedback , like , well , the negative consequence or the negative effect is that next year when you have to hit a bar routine , it might not go the way you want it to go right .

And like then you have to like help kids reflect back on , like if you did not the greatest at nationals or originals or whatever event , well , maybe there were choices along the way that we could have made differently and that would have led to a different outcome . It doesn't always happen that way .

Sometimes sports are sports , but like it can be positively spun to your point , which is , you know , if you show up and you make the choice to do the work , and you know not hit the snooze button or get there early and do your prehab when before practice , or take care of your flexibility , or you know , grit through that last 15 minutes of cardio on a

Tuesday night when you're really exhausted , but you know you got to get in there Like all those small things have positive effects that when you do hit your bar routine , when you do hit your floor routine , when you do flip that new skill , when you do , you know , feel good throughout the rest of the season and stuff like those are the sum of all your choices

you made leading up to that and so , like you said , you can spin that . But the parallel that's really interesting is when we're talking about college . You know , I think that choices and effects do have a little bit of a big impact .

And we see , like I think your example of basketball is perfect , right , but I have seen situations for good and for better when you know you watch a team compete or you see them live and one person who you know wants to hit to hit really well , they , they don't hit , they fall , they fall on beam , they get off , and you know you see them , like you know

, slam their water bottle , they're all pissed , they're like bringing this big negative mood into the corral or energy , like of course that's going to affect everybody . That's the same as in basketball If you've pouted on the other side of the court and you were cranky and somebody scored a three because you weren't back there defending , right .

So like it might not be your performance that you're doing next , but your energy and your responsibility to your team is to be like this sucks , I'm sorry it happened , but go over . Maybe not go to the person , but say the person like listen , my bad , but like you got this , like we're here , you can do this but and still maintain positive

morale . Like I can tell you as someone who works with a lot of college programs , the number one thing you can do to not be recruitable is piss and moan when something doesn't go well and be all cranky and throw your grips down and be a negative Nancy on the sideline .

Because they see that and they're like I don't want that crap in my team , in my gym , right . And there are some times directly where you know you land short on a vault , right and something happens .

You step or whatever , guess what You're first on bars , like it's coming , like you have to , like you have a small gap in window where you can let that just like poison you for the rest of that and then fall on bars and make mistake and then , oh well , that was too bad , why it just throw like , like that happens in in in our situation and so that

teachable skill at a young age of like it's okay to be upset , you care about it back , wipe your hands and let's go . We got to support our teammates . We have more to do here .

So , and you see a lot of examples of where teams were out , quote unquote , you know , at nationals or whatever , at a college setting , and like they , they come together and they win , you know , or they have a really good result in the final hour .

So , yeah , those were all just floating through my , my head in terms of like , paint a picture of their goals and be like . This is why these human level things matter , cause every day leads to the next thing , which leads to a positive end result . So , yeah , I think we kicked the you know the the bucket pretty well and that , uh , that kicked the bucket .

That's not a good analogy . We uh , what's the word ? Shook the shook , the rest off , I don't know Covered that topic very . 16 comes on and now we're kind of past that learning phase .

But I think , in my opinion , the reason I separate it is because now it is a little bit of like learning to control stress and learning to compete in the moment and learning to kind of go through the I don't say pressure cooker , because that's a bad example , but the nationals this year .

You know I was looking across , I had a bit of a meta moment where , like you know , all the college coaches are there and I'm fortunate to work with them . I work a lot of coaches . I see the kids , the parents with their phones and I was just watching how one it's . It's actually turned on to be a really great environment to like set that up .

But also , like there was one set of bars , if you remember , that was literally in front of a couple big coaches , like a couple of big schools that are very , very high level , and I was just thinking about , like you know , if you get a draw and you're on the set of bars , that's way apart from the other side of the gym , you know , versus in front .

That can be spun both ways . You can . One kid who's prepared for that is like good , I want to be in front of these coaches , that I'm really important , I want to impress these kids . I'm ready , I'm ready to rip . You know , hasn't gone through that . It's like , oh my God , I want those bars so far away , I don't want to be anywhere near those coaches .

Like there's no way I can go in front of these coaches . Like it can be developed on both sides and I think , like when someone's mature enough and they're emotionally able to handle that . The 16 , 17 area is where it's a little bit of a different . You know basic should be there , skills should be there .

We're working on the things we know are realistic , but there's a different edge to it . I think about , um , the college recruiting process and that kind of stuff . So I'd like to maybe shift gears and talk a little bit more about what you recommend to what you see now that we're older and we're actually in a proper recruitment .

You know age and window and stuff like that .

still have a whole lot of growing to do , they still , and it's like it just becomes this and then this it it was negative , it was bad , it was it was bad .

it's better . Um , it does add pressure to certain situations in certain years per se . Right and um , you know , it's like , uh , the concept of betting on yourself . You know , and like , if you're not willing to bet on yourself , then why would anyone else ?

You know and like it you better , you better believe that you can do it and you better believe that , like , if you put in your best effort , yeah , no matter what , you're going to walk away and you're going to , you're going to come out of it somehow , you know , like , at least feeling like you gave it what you had . Right , I the the .

The tough ones are when you see kids start to give up on themselves because it wasn't going the way they thought it would and it wasn't . All of a sudden , it's the big year and they're not doing as well as they wanted to , and so they start to get frustrated and they lose confidence .

And then you lose confidence and then your work ethic changes and you don't give as much in your practices . And when you don't give as much in your practices , the results clearly can't get much better .

You know you , you don't , maybe you don't , you don't , you don't take that extra two turns to get that little better handstand or to find that stick or to write , like you know .

So it's you have to bet on yourself and you have to be willing to do that every day , all the time , and it's you can be frustrated and you can be upset , but you still have to show up and you still have to try to give your best to whatever that is . And so I mean , I've had a couple of kids in the past .

Like you know it's , it's like , and they were on the doorstep of like you know , in that area of time , right , like just wanting to be done , you know , and just like give up on it . You know it's like it's not this , just isn't it anymore .

And you know , I can think back to one conversation I had with a kid and like she was , she was recruited early and got decommitted not decommitted , not dropped , but like wasn't getting signed , you know , and like was going to , we're going to wait and we're going to do this , and like it just wasn't looking good .

So it's like , all right , well , well , should we be working on something else for this kid ? Should we be trying to find her a different recruiting option , whatever , and , like you know , and ended up , ended up doing that and finding , you know , finding different option for her and like it .

Um , but she was on that doorstep in that process of like , of quitting and like being done and giving up on it and like , because it was just like , so overwhelmingly , you know , upsetting and frustrating and disappointing , and you know it's like it's like you it's . Things are hard and it's not , it's not what it . It's not easy anymore .

You know it's like it's . This has gotten , this has gotten real tough and it hits the psyche and , like you know , we talked about it and we're like all right , well , what percentage do you think you're giving your practices right now , in this moment when you're , when you're frustrated and you're not feeling good ? Right , 50 , 60% ?

All right , well , like now we're getting 50 to 60% of the results that you wanted to get . So it's like how about this ? How about we figure out how to give a hundred percent for two months ?

If you give a hundred percent for two months and you just say , I'm , I just got to dig in and I'm , I'm , I'm , I have to do this for a set time , if , at the end of that two months , when you gave 100% , you don't see the progress and you don't see the outlook change for yourself , right , then let's , maybe it's time .

Maybe it's time to call it what it is and just we can walk away , right , but like , if you're giving 50% to 60% out of your frustration you can't get the 100% results that you think you want and that you're frustrated you're not getting .

So now you got to flip that over and you got to decide like I'm going to give 100% and then , when I start to find those results and I start to do better , right , like now you don't have that lack of confidence and that lack of like feeling that you're not going to get what you want , right .

And so , you know , here's a kid that was on the doorstep of quitting and ended up being a college um , you know , college stud and was a captain of her team . You know , in college and it's like , but it's like the it .

Even the best kids , even the nicest kids , even the ones that are well put together , right , have these moments and it's like even those people can feel that , like that drain and that give up , and it's like figuring out how to figuring out how to stay after it and figuring out how to bet on yourself and um , you know , and and I think that's how you get

through the pressure the most um is is just to give it , give it everything you got and and lay it out on the line and see , see where it ends up . And like I remember , as a gymnast myself , I , I , you know , I was a kind of a late starter . I played a bunch of sports .

I played football , basketball , baseball , soccer , golf , diving , gymnastics Like I just , and I , gymnastics was one of my last loves , honestly . So like I didn't , I I competed for my high school team and like , didn't really do a lot of club stuff and , um , you know , but I'm , I'm a big dreamer somehow .

You know , I got grand visions in in in life and like , just this , you know , just hey , it's out there , somebody can do it , I , maybe I can do it Right . And so I remember , like Michigan was the team at the time .

They were awesome and I'm like I want , I want to go to Michigan , right , and I'm looking at them and I'm watching their stuff and like I'm , I go visit the school and whatever , and like I was not going to be on the Michigan team . I was not good , I was not good enough for that Right .

So like I ended up walking onto the JMU James Madison gymnastics team and like that was when they still had a program , yeah , rip , like they got dropped in , oh seven maybe , or something like that , but um and it and it's such a far cry from michigan in terms of like quality of overall , like gymnastics team and program .

But like I was happy , I got there , I was happy , I was happy I was on that team . I enjoyed working out there . I enjoyed my school experience there . I enjoyed everything about my college experience and it wasn't the best team and I might have been able to get a little bit better through college if I had been in a different environment or something .

You know what I mean From a gymnastics perspective , but in the grand scheme of things , I walked away happy . You know what I mean From a gymnastics perspective but like , in the grand scheme of things , like I walked away happy .

You know what I mean Like I walk away from that whole situation happy and like I guess it's just for me it's if you're constantly realistic about where you , where your gymnastics , fits right and you don't mind shifting your , shifting your tier of goals , goals right , like you can be really happy about the process anyways , because you're going to find the place

that's the best for you . Yeah , right , take , try to try to take the ego away from it like I want to .

I want to be at this school because it will make me feel like I'm one of the best of this , or I deserve and I've earned and whatever , and just like I'm trying to find the best fit for me , and the best fit for me is boom this school , right , and they might be . They might be ranked 22 . They might be ranked 42 . They might be ranked 53 .

It doesn't matter , right ? If that's the place that , that is the best for me , right , it's , it's going to be an awesome experience for you . And so , like , yeah , instead of just getting caught up in like am I going to be a top 10 kid or am I going to be a this or what school , you know ? Like , what has the best program for me to get into ?

And I have to get to it . Like that's not , that doesn't that doesn't have to be the factor . It's like , where's going to help me grow as a human being ? Where's going to support me in my growth ? Where is going to be the right fit so that I can , I can feel good about my gymnastics there ?

You know , like I , I don't want to be the worst kid on my team , right ? There's something about that that maybe doesn't give you confidence . I want to . I want to solidly fit on my team . You know what I mean .

Like , I want to feel like I belong on that team and then I can give value to the team with my gymnastics , which means that you know you , just , you change . You just change where you're looking , depending on where your gymnastics fits the best , right , but then you're , you get .

You get to walk in and feel like you're a valuable part of that team , instead of like , oh man , I'm going to maybe fight for one spot in the lineup in four years I'm going to compete seven times . Yeah , total , right . And it's like , well , maybe that's not the experience you want , maybe it is , maybe it is Right Like it's .

Everybody has their own choices and their own like things , whatever .

But like , I guess , just in the process , when you're getting disappointed or you're getting frustrated or it doesn't feel like it's going the way you want , right , like it's always , it's always okay to like take the right fork , take the left fork right , just just re rejigger your and realign your , your where you're , where you're shooting for right , and like you

might find the best place for you if you just are and if you're open to , you're willing to and you're not , you're not like getting hit ego wise that like it's , it wasn't where you wanted to be originally . You know what I mean like , and so I don't know .

I guess that's like when the pressure's on right , like if you take the pressure off by , by not putting that extra stuff on top of it , and you just recognize that , like I'm gonna end up where I need to go , I'm gonna end up where the right place is for me .

If , if I go through this process the right way , then , like you , you , maybe you put less on . I have to get this or I have to get that , or I have to be here , I have to be there , or I have to do it by . If I don't get 18 phone calls on June 15th , then I'm a piece of crap and I'm never going to get recruited .

You know , like if I don't have seven official visits offered in two days , then I'm not , I'm going to be , I'm never going to make it . And then my disappointment is there and my frustration is there .

And then I start to my 60% , you know , and you and you , you go down that toilet bowl of like as the percentage of effort and and whatever goes down , so do your results and so do your opportunities .

Right , like , you do good , you do bad .

If , like , if you do good as a gymnast and you think you're a good person and you should be awesome , it's awesome and that's how you get happiness , versus if you do terrible and you bomb a meet and you think you're a piece of crap and it's whatever , like that is unhealthy , that is not good to do , but it happens to coaches too .

You know , like , I am a gymnastics coach and the number of kids that get to nationals and make scholarships means I'm a good coach , I'm a good person , I feel good about myself . And if they don't do well and if things don't go the way you plan , then I'm a bad person , I'm a piece of crap and like that really is not healthy parents , same thing .

You know , if my kid does well , gets a scholarship , I can talk about it at the dinner party and feel like I'm a , I'm a great , you know , whatever , like that's awful right , versus the other way , like the best coaches , parents , gymnasts , whatever , to your point , are humans who are good people because they work hard and they're nice and they care about people

and they're kind to themselves and they do the best they can . Gymnastics is a layer on top of that life . You know , that happens to be one thing of what they do , but they also do this thing on the side . They also do whatever uh , back and forth .

I I can talk about this because brett's coming on next uh week and he's talked about this in his podcast . But brett is like uh , not brett wargo , brett nell Nelligan of Maryland is an obsessive woodworker , so he's like like crazy , like the craziest thing he's ever seen .

I'm going to make him show stuff , but he just talks about how important it is that he is a person . He is a husband , he is a dad , he does woodworking and he also coaches gymnastics at a big university . That's a part of his life . Brett's self-esteem is not tied to whether they do well .

He is one of honestly the most fired up , passionate guys I've ever met for the sport , but still , like he's not , I'm a piece of crap if the girls don't do well , and I'm amazing , I'm a God If things go great .

You know , like he's anchored in human level , being nice , working hard , and I'll bring that up in the podcast , but everyone should really just take that with a grain of about .

That you came up is like okay , well , how do you tactically get to that confidence level that , like you know , I'm going to do the best that I can , I'm going to put in my 100% effort , I'm going to try , you know , to hustle the best I can and get to , you know , a national level and show my gymnastics off .

And the quote that came up is have you so many ? So he says it's like a viral tweet he has says you don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror , but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are . Outwork yourself , doubt , and so I think that I don't agree with everything Alex says .

But that really has always stuck with me , which is like if you need to get to a point where you have to hit an event or routine at nationals in front of all the college coaches because you want to have as many possible routes as possible . As you said , how do you get to the point where you can raise your hand ?

And if you get put on that bar , set in front of all the big coaches , you're like yep , got this , I'm ready , I'm ready to cook this right now or I'm ready to do .

I know that I didn't think I could do a , a , a hindorf , and I learned all the drills and I caught a hindorf , and then I caught three hindorfs and then I caught a hindorf two days in a row and then I missed one

, but I made four . Like you , build up confidence in one skill by doing all the drills and the work and the grind and by consistently catching more and catching more and feeling good . And then the next step is well , I hit it in a routine at practice . I hit it under the pressure of everyone watching me and cheering for me at a mock meet , right .

And then I hit it at a local meet and then I did really well . Like you , build confidence by having these stacks of wins over and over again .

And that is again the art form of coaching is helping kids have a ladder in which you're not asking too much of them too soon where they're going to fail over and over and over again and get frustrated by that and not feel like they have confidence .

But like setting up a ladder or a progression of like , okay , in two years , when you become eligible to get recruited and we know you have the capacity for these gymnasticsastic skills and you fit in for this level of gymnastics , that makes sense . Here's what needs to happen throughout that season and definitely at some of the bigger meets .

So what can we do to build up this ladder over ? We want to get this new Hindorfin . We want to get this your tranquil full . We want to get whatever .

How can we build the path that you're hitting layouts really well and then you do falls into the pit and you stand a bunch up multiple weeks in a row and then you competed on hard to local meet and it's really exciting , great . How do we keep building that up until I've done so many of your tanko fulls on hard that I could .

I could warm up , walk in the gym and do this right now . It doesn't matter who's watching , it doesn't matter , you know what's , what's on the table right now .

I think , like that quote from Alex is really important for people to resonate on , because it's not just going to be like I'm a gamer and I show up and I hit , even though I've bombed and I've fallen nine times in the gym , right , that's not a good strategy to bank on , and colleges don't want to recruit kids that you know , have it one day and don't 13

other days , like I think a lot of them are looking for consistency , clean gymnastics , good people , good hardworking humans . So , yeah , that was the last thing I wanted to kind of . Maybe share is like . That quote has always stuck with me for helping gymnasts understand how we get to that point of confidence .

Um , you know , instagram quotes are great and , uh , it's awesome to have that positive mentality . I believe in that optimistic . You got to surround yourself with that , but at some point you have to do gymnastics .

It was actually like if you're not in your best place with your confidence and you give yourself the positive affirmations and you tell yourself I'm good enough and I'm smart enough and I'm whatever , right , it's like it actually makes people feel worse because , like , they feel like they're lying and so it's like you're talking about it's giving those micro wins and

like the ability to get like , and that's where that's where those cool little like discipline things are in your normal day is like if you give yourself little wins from the from the moment you start your day , I said I was going to not have my snooze . So I didn't have my snooze and I got up right away .

I just my alarm went off and I literally threw my legs out of my bed and I sat up right . That's my first win of the day . Now my second win was I made my bed . My third win was I did my water drinking . My fourth win was I did 10 minutes of working out . My fifth one whatever , it was right .

If you , just if you start stacking all your little micro wins right , like you give yourself confidence for the day , that , like I am who I say I wanted to be right and I think that that's really cool .

And then , like you're talking about the competition stuff and when I raise my hand it's like I believe I'm gonna make it well , like competition is a skill , competing is a skill , and so I actually , like I had some notes jotted down from , you know , from some of your questions and stuff for before .

But like , um , you know , going back to like common mistakes that people you see in the off season , it's like , don't , don't , a kid comes out of level eight and they had a good level eight year , that doesn't mean they're a level nine . Out of level eight and they had a good level eight year , that doesn't mean they're a level nine .

At the beginning of summer , when they start training for level nine , they're not a level nine yet . Don't call them a level nine , don't say they're moving to level nine . That's your goal , we're trying to get there Right . But like your math teacher doesn't give you an A on your test before you take your test , right .

Like you have to , you have to study , you have to learn , and then you have to earn . And so , like you have to earn your way into that next level . And sometimes , when you put that card in front of the horse and you say , all right , now you're a level nine , now right .

And then , like you're from the first meet where you're going to be a nine and you say , all right , now up , you're level nine , now right . And then , like you're from the first meet where you're going to be a nine and you , you pitch that all along and like , well , now they're , now they're struggling to get some of those skills .

And like you , you pegged yourself into like making them a little nine , and so you either have to really crush that down and like pull them back or you have to let them be a nine . But now they're not a , now they're a suffering nine , a frustrated nine and one that's not doing very well . So it's like trying to keep trying to keep .

Like you earn that reward of moving up , and you earn that by doing your gymnastics and whatever .

And like , if you put out kids that score 32s as a coach on at certain levels , like , well , they're probably not , they probably shouldn't be competing , or or they should be at the level back , right , or you should hold them out a couple more meets and wait until they're ready to actually like go out and be successful .

Because , like , a 32 is not very good gymnastics that's . I mean , that's pretty pretty low score average , right . So , like you , you need to put them in a better place and and so like .

But if you're , if you come up the ranks and you're a 34 to a 35 at every single level up the line , well , like , are you going to get to level 10 and then be a 37 magically somehow ?

Like , probably not , because you've learned and you started to identify yourself as a kid that goes out and gets 34s and 35s and 32s and 33s because that's what you've always gotten Right . So that's the proof you have , that's what you know yourself to be Right .

But if you're like , if you're , if you're always more successful than that right , and you've learned that , like , you compete things that you're good at and you compete things that you do consistently well and that's the . You only put it in competition .

If it's like , if you should do it and you deserve to do it right , then then hopefully you take on that attitude and you become that kid that believes that like , oh , when I go out I'm like I hit a high percentage of routines that it meets , so I really have that confidence , you know . So then , you don't identify yourself as somebody that always .

Well , now you have seven rungs in the ladder to jump right and what you're probably doing , you're setting somebody else , setting somebody else up to not do well and that diminishes confidence .

That's how you erode your confidence and you start in a pit versus the right way , which is , you know , okay , we had a pretty good season at eight , but like we have to do this and this and this and this pretty well to get to nine .

So that when we do get to nine , it's two rungs on the ladder right and you're crawling up one at a time and then that next rung is like , okay , I went from a 34 to a 35 at nine , or 35 to a 36 . Like you're building up the confidence by allowing them those small little wins .

And I think sometimes I think some coaches don't want to share all this with the athletes . When they're younger it makes sense . But when they're older and they're 15 , 16 , 17 , like , you should tell them this . You should explain this to them of why you're doing things and what the rationale is , and kind of be a joint based process .

When they're older which you can't with your kids , which I think is a different , you know , than a 12 year old or 14 year old a 15 , 16 , 17 year old starts to understand this conceptually and you should be educating them on this because it's part of what they need to to wrap their head around . You know what I mean .

Yeah , yeah , um , we could go on for longer and more about the stuff . I think more , but I think this is a fantastic way to just let it marinate . There's so much good stuff in here and stuff in here and I I don't want to go into another topic and then , you know , have this be diluted and people like , all right , I'm going , I'm done .

So I think this is an hour and a half , this is . This is amazing , man , this . I think we covered a lot of really great helpful topics , from the nitty gritty drills to the recruiting stuff to college .

So I'll let you make the last word here on any advice or things like that you have kind of uh , yeah I mean , um , I guess , just let's , how do I , how do I bow it up , how do I ?

know

I . But if I don't , you know , if I don't practice enough and I don't play a lot , and I don't , I can't do that stuff Right . Like , um , even if I do play a lot , that doesn't mean I don't have a bad round here or there .

That doesn't mean that I put it really well one day and I didn't pet that well the next day and I still focused really hard and I still tried really hard and I still wanted to do well , right , and so , like , sometimes it's just nice to like humble ourselves a little bit as coaches , um , and understand that like those kids are going through the same stuff

and it doesn't mean that they're necessarily not committed or they're not giving their effort or they're not trying or they're not focused .

Sometimes it's like the , it's hard to make the body do everything the right way all the time and it's hard to find that perfect feeling that , just like man , that was natural , right , you know , like just just , it's X's and O's and it's technical , and just try to just try to help them figure out what , the , what , the little pieces that's missing , and try

to , you know , try to keep working , um , you know , and and I actually Sarah needs to remind me of this Sometimes it's like I always try to , I always try to figure out like what's the little solution I can give them or how can I help them just like , tweak it or whatever she's like .

Well , sometimes they just have to struggle a little bit , you know , and sometimes they just have to figure it out Right , and sometimes they just have to find that themselves too .

And so , you know , I think that's , you know , that's something that I'd actively have to work on too , cause , like you know , I'm just I'm , I'm kind of that like engineer brain where , like I , just I , I want to , I want to just tweak and fix and make it , you know , make it a little bit different to to try to find that next solution , right , and it's

like sometimes they just need a little bit of space to just like , try to figure it out , um , you know , and so , yeah , um , but I really appreciate the opportunity to be on with you , as always , right , like , you always have some awesome coaching points that like make me think about the way that I'm doing stuff too , and the way that we're doing stuff , and ,

um , your resources and everything that you give to everybody is incredible and it's made the community way better overall , probably , right , like , over time .

So , yeah , so , thanks for everything that you do and thanks for the opportunity to be on here and in everything that I say , know that I don't live it perfect and I don't do it , I don't do it the best ever and I don't , you know , I mean , I feel like I , I feel like even the things that I talk about on here and , like my , I fail at living up to

that .

Uh , you know a decent amount , and so , like , uh , try not to try , not to like , try not to listen to what I'm saying , and , and you know , and , and , and we're all flawed , and try to judge yourself harshly on on any of it because , like you know , I understand that it's figure out the concepts that you're trying to , trying to step up , to figure out

the things that you're trying to really work on and improve on , and then just actively , actively be working on them and actively be trying on them and like , uh , if you put in , I think , uh , the number one thing that I recognize is , like you know it's passion , and bring passion to what you do , and if you bring passion to it , then you've got a decent

chance of figuring out how to make it work better , right , and so give the passion and give the energy to it and like , let everybody know how much it means to you and if they know that , then , like you could probably , you could probably improve those things and it'll , you'll get there , right , like you'll figure it out .

So I think it'll help a lot of people and I think the best way to people to follow up for you is , uh , ascend gymnastics and then best iron gymnastics right on social and stuff like that yeah , best iron gymnastics uhcom .

it'll be . I don't know . It'll be right around the end of May and beginning of June . So , yeah , so that's going to be an awesome resource . I really had a lot of energy and effort went into creating that thing . Like I , I gotten awesome feedback from coaches and stuff that I passed around to and a few parents of .

Like you know , I I wish I had this resource earlier and like it's it's so I'm I'm really hopeful that it's going to make a a valuable impact in the community to help just disarm that first part .

You know , because it's so overwhelming to still look at , so like , just disarm it a little bit and give you some information and from because it's so overwhelming to still look at so like , just disarm it a little bit and give you some information and from there it's like you can really I don't know take that next step with a little more like huh yeah ,

totally well , right , I will definitely include all the the links to show notes and stuff and either it'll be in the show notes now or when it does come out for the podcast later I'll email it to everybody and make sure they have access to it .