Extreme sports program teaches how to fly, fall
Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 9:25 pm
Friday, September 29, 2006
By Barbara Beal Schmid
The Grand Rapids Press
Want to improve your flipping and turning moves for boarding, biking or blading?
Gymco Sports in Grand Rapids is offering an extreme sports program designed to help athletes ages 8 through adult learn how to flip, spin and turn ... and then come down for a safe landing.
The hour-long classes will meet for seven weeks beginning Oct. 4, at 2306 Camelot Ridge Ct. (off East Paris). The cost is $89 for the series. A second session is scheduled to begin Feb. 7.
"We specifically designed this program because of a lot of us do extreme sports and we realize how important it is to have body and aerial awareness," Shannon Austhof, the class instructor, said. "Most people learn while they're out there. Instead of learning your skills through trial and error, the goal is to learn the progressions that lead to the skills."
Using information she learned from coaching gymnastics for 20 years, combined with her own extreme sports endeavors, Austhof plans to work with students on balance, body control, coordination, rotating and flipping skills.
In most sports, athletes are upright and moving forward, she said. Unless someone has participated in gymnastics or diving, two sports where athletes go upside down, they might not have a sense of where they are in space when they perform tricks.
"Some people have never done a cartwheel, but they want to flip on a wakeboard or kiteboard," she said. "You need to know how to keep your trunk tight, how to spot your landing, understand how fast you're rotating, when to open up and what direction you're traveling in. We won't be able to train an athlete on a toe edge or heel edge, but we'll give them everything else they need to know when they're in the air."
In learning better balance and movement, snowboarders, skiers, kiteboarders, wakeboarders, BMX riders, inline skaters and skateboarders will have the tools to take their sport to the next level. It will also help them avoid injuries.
Austhof will start with the basics. First she will evaluate each student's balance and coordination. Then students will be directed through a progression of skills using 40-foot-long tumbling tracks, an Aussie trampoline (more bouncy than a normal trampoline), mats, ropes, rollers and Resi-Pits (a firm sand pit).
Austhof studied hours of video tape to develop the program, she said. She watched wakeboarders, kiteboarders and snowboarders, all of whom turn on a similar axis. And, since she also is a wakeboarder and snowboarder, she understands the intricacies of board sports.
"At Gymco, we take a skill and break it down to the smallest piece of that skill, and that's what we call a progression," she said. "We follow the progression and in doing that, it creates a neuro pathway to your brain. It takes about 1,000 repetitions to make muscle memory. And these are the patterns we'll have for the rest of our lives. So it's important to make sure you're laying down the correct foundation for those skills. If you don't, you can't move up a notch."
Gymco Sports was started by owner Doreen Bolhuis 27 years ago as a gymnastics school. It has since evolved into a recreational sports facility with 1,200 students enrolled during peak months.
Send e-mail to the author: sports@grpress.com
By Barbara Beal Schmid
The Grand Rapids Press
Want to improve your flipping and turning moves for boarding, biking or blading?
Gymco Sports in Grand Rapids is offering an extreme sports program designed to help athletes ages 8 through adult learn how to flip, spin and turn ... and then come down for a safe landing.
The hour-long classes will meet for seven weeks beginning Oct. 4, at 2306 Camelot Ridge Ct. (off East Paris). The cost is $89 for the series. A second session is scheduled to begin Feb. 7.
"We specifically designed this program because of a lot of us do extreme sports and we realize how important it is to have body and aerial awareness," Shannon Austhof, the class instructor, said. "Most people learn while they're out there. Instead of learning your skills through trial and error, the goal is to learn the progressions that lead to the skills."
Using information she learned from coaching gymnastics for 20 years, combined with her own extreme sports endeavors, Austhof plans to work with students on balance, body control, coordination, rotating and flipping skills.
In most sports, athletes are upright and moving forward, she said. Unless someone has participated in gymnastics or diving, two sports where athletes go upside down, they might not have a sense of where they are in space when they perform tricks.
"Some people have never done a cartwheel, but they want to flip on a wakeboard or kiteboard," she said. "You need to know how to keep your trunk tight, how to spot your landing, understand how fast you're rotating, when to open up and what direction you're traveling in. We won't be able to train an athlete on a toe edge or heel edge, but we'll give them everything else they need to know when they're in the air."
In learning better balance and movement, snowboarders, skiers, kiteboarders, wakeboarders, BMX riders, inline skaters and skateboarders will have the tools to take their sport to the next level. It will also help them avoid injuries.
Austhof will start with the basics. First she will evaluate each student's balance and coordination. Then students will be directed through a progression of skills using 40-foot-long tumbling tracks, an Aussie trampoline (more bouncy than a normal trampoline), mats, ropes, rollers and Resi-Pits (a firm sand pit).
Austhof studied hours of video tape to develop the program, she said. She watched wakeboarders, kiteboarders and snowboarders, all of whom turn on a similar axis. And, since she also is a wakeboarder and snowboarder, she understands the intricacies of board sports.
"At Gymco, we take a skill and break it down to the smallest piece of that skill, and that's what we call a progression," she said. "We follow the progression and in doing that, it creates a neuro pathway to your brain. It takes about 1,000 repetitions to make muscle memory. And these are the patterns we'll have for the rest of our lives. So it's important to make sure you're laying down the correct foundation for those skills. If you don't, you can't move up a notch."
Gymco Sports was started by owner Doreen Bolhuis 27 years ago as a gymnastics school. It has since evolved into a recreational sports facility with 1,200 students enrolled during peak months.
Send e-mail to the author: sports@grpress.com