What I Think About Russian "Choreography"

As some of you guys may know I'm not trying to be a professional writer or gymnastics blog. I'm not a good writer so my thoughts and ideas aren't written out well. This post/rambling is regarding the current "Russian choreography".

I feel lately that the Russians are being heavily criticized for their artistry and people are having a field day with it. I'm at least pleased that people do acknowledge that great upper body carriage and arm waves do equal pretty and makes a difference when performing. It makes the Russians overall performances look polish and even accomplished. But my main problem is when people seems to think it's not a form of artistry or choreography. I admit that I was one of those fans who heavily criticized Afanasyeva's new routine and I added to the negative criticisms. It's not bad to criticize or point things out but sometimes it becomes too much and negative. I'll just say I've watched some of Afan's main competitors and most of their routines just don't do it for me. Yes artistry is subjective but when you see a polish performance in a gymnast's movements it makes a big difference. I feel people just want more and sometimes that more is too much and adds nothing to a routine. For example when some people talk about so called actual choreography they mean what the actual gymnasts are doing. Like Afan's cool 2012 synchronizing leg choreo. Some say waving your arms is nothing. It may seem like a relevant point but in my opinion it means nothing. I feel some people just say that to downplay the Russians for their lack of "choreography".

These video links might bore you but it proves that it takes dedication and hard work to make arm waves and hand movements look artistic. It might not be for everyone but some people enjoy these styles.
The Dying Swan  
The Dying Swan Brazil 
Khmer Dance 
Whacking 

I can see where some of the genuine fans are coming from. I did criticize Afan's new routine by saying there was nothing really in her routine but arm waves. I feel some people and I included want something more. I guess the good part is that genuine fans really do want something cool in the Russians routines but that truly only comes once in a while. I'd rather be subjected to the Russian arm waves than awkward shimmy shaking routines that has a lot going on but actually leads to nothing.

Maybe we should blame the CoP? It's no secret that it's all about who can do the most difficulty. Juniors always seem to have great choreography but it always seems to fade off when they become seniors. I can appreciate a very difficult routine for the tumbles but the gymnasts also has to know how to move their body in a way that it looks like they spent hours in dance training but yet it looks effortless. The hours at the ballet barre should be rewarded too. I guess at the end of the day artistry really is subjective and you will like what you like. I don't talk much outside of the big four because they don't really win much but there are a few gymnasts that can rival the Russians. I feel I add to the never ending fight between USA VS Russia artistry. I admit I am bias. I'm not American or Russian but I prefer the Russians. I can appreciate the American style of gymnastics for their difficulty but they rarely put out their artistic gymnasts on the world stage. And I know it's negative to nag about American artistry but I just have to say it. After all gymnastics is a competitive sport and the fans are competitive too. I don't mind the USA wining but when I watch the Russian perform I feel their performances but when I see the Americans I don't get that feeling. But also at the end of the day who ever hits and executes the best will win. It's rare for artistry to prevail in this new code.

What style do you guys prefer? VS This time juniors

Just Because...Alexander Alexandrov in Brazil?

So I am hearing some mumbo jumbo news about Alexandrov being in Brazil? There are no official news source so I'll take this whole Alexandrov now working in Brazil with a grain of salt. If this turns out to be officially true then Russia has lost a great coach. In my opinion it was not all his doing that made Russia so successful last quad but he was part of it. Some things that bother me is that some people thinks Alexandrov did everything for Russia. I think this is why there are so many drama in the Russian Federation. Whatever the case, the Russians so far seems to be doing okay for now. The big test will be worlds in Antwerp. I have faith that the Russians will be just as successful as last quad. Regarding Mustafina, she seems to be a strong headed woman. I have faith in her to still be successful without Alexandrov. Yes it's sad that Alexandrov might of left Mustafina but I feel Mustafina has the been there done that mentality. It's not the first time a coach left her. She will be fine.

Edit: Mustafina left Alexandrov! Now there are news source about this whole drama. Basically as we all already knew that Alexandrov's contract as head coach expired on Dec 2012. It was not renewed leaving him out as the head coach. He was still allowed to be Aliya's personal coach but Aliya refused to have him as her personal coach. Alexandrov is now in America with his family.

Source 1 & Source 2

Thoughts on 2013 Russian Championships

These are just my opinions and impressions of this meet. I'm basing it on the live feed videos and interviews that I have read. This event was to determine which 4 WAG gymnasts would make it to the European Championships. The full WAG results AA EF.

Grishina, Mustafina, Shelgunova

My impressions of this meet is that it was basically a practice meet for the top gymnasts. They weren't all at their best shape and peak. My theory is that Mustafina worked really hard on her new beam routine and wasn't too worried about getting her other events. With time she will work to get her other events up to par. She was pulled out of day 2 event finals to rest her knee. This is good that Mustafina is gaining more confidence on beam. Her DTY vault is still great as always. Her bar set is still great. Even if it's a watered down routine, in my opinion she doesn't have to worry about upping her difficulty for this year. If she wants to make it to Rio I think she still has time to figure out a new bar routine mid quad. I think it's a smart idea that she is focusing on beam. For floor she might surprise us with some upgrades but for this competition she looked tired and rusty on this event. I don't think she was ready to compete floor at this event and she'll be ready by Europeans. Mustafina is the new Russian all around champion with 59.850.  Russia really needs to keep this girl healthy and safe.

Anastasia Grishina did well enough winning AA 2nd and gold on UB. She does need to get her DTY consistent though. She crashed it in team finals. It seems she is a bit weak in terms of endurance. It's really hard for her to finish up a floor routine without crashing or staying in the corner for a long time. It seems she just needs a lot of repetition and practice to get consistent. Apparently she was feeling fatigue for day 2 event finals so she scratched that finals. I think it's a shame because it seems she is not a strong enough gymnast. Most likely her coaches just wanted to keep her safe and free from injuries as she is most likely to be the 2nd AA for Europeans Championships.

Maria Paseka

Perhaps another reason for letting Grishina off the hook was to give competitive competition for Dementyeva, Afanasyeva and especially for new senior Evgeniya Shelgunova. This was particularly a weak day 2 event finals, well actually day 1 was pretty weak as well. With no Mustafina and Grishina it was a competition to see who would be the other gymnasts to compete with them at Europeans. In day 1 EF, Maria Paseka won vault with a decent enough Amanar. She is in the mix for contending for a European spot. Valentina Rodionenko stated that the team will be Mustafina, Grishina and Paseka. The others must prove themselves worthy, mainly Dementyeva, Afanasyeva and Shelgunova. I still think the team is undecided between Paseka, Afanasyeva and Shelgunova.

On day 2 EF Dementyeva pretty much lost her spot. She fell on her 3/1 dismount off beam and had problems on floor, she botched her Memmel badly and fell. Afanasyeva still proved that she is relevant to team Russia. Like Mustafina, Afanasyeva is doing some interesting new beam combinations. She stayed on beam and looked good enough. Her beam was obviously a work in progress routine. She still did 6 acro skills in her routine so that tells me that this is her chance to just practice and not take this event so seriously. Her routine consisted of Kochetkova + split leap 1/1, truly impressive! Also Onodi + side somi + 1 1/4 spin! The 1 1/4 spin was unexpected for me. This routine is a risky routine but hopefully she'll get it down and figure out which skills she'll use and leave out. I'm guessing she most likely did not get credit for all her connections as her beam score was low 13.775, no D-scores posted. It's encouraging that Afanasyeva is working up the courage to do these combinations.

Goryunova, Afanasyeva, Polyan

Her floor was alright. Could have been much better. She is still the top Russian to have the highest floor difficulty. I think it's a bit sad for Russia but it does give Afanasyeva a better chance at making European and world teams. Her double layout is still sky high and powerful. She had some issues with her difficult whip + whip + 3/1 twists. Her spins are beautiful but at the end of her routine she went out of bounds on her double pike. Actually a lot of the gymnasts went out of bounds on their double pikes, hmm. Afanasyeva scored a low 13.600 and still won! It's great that Afanasyeva is still committed to continuing. It seems she will only get better on beam and floor with more work and time. Oh and she can still do a decent DTY which is good for her and Russia.

New Russian senior Shelgunova may have some bad form and execution faults but she is a steady and consistent competitor. She did a good job of staying on beam and doing an okay floor routine. She won beam with 14.050 and also won 3rd AA. Beam final scores were low but Grishina and Mustafina could have posted huge scores if they competed in EF.

Overall I was impressed most with Mustafina's and Afanasyeva's upgraded beam routines. It's great that Paseka can still do the Amanar, although it still looks scary with bad execution. Russia is not at full strength and they don't have the depth of USA so it's encouraging to see the Russian Olympians competing and getting back into the groove of things. It's early in the season so most of them will hopefully get better when the real competitions are on. I haven't forgotten about the talented Komova who is sitting out due to back injury. Hopefully she will be ready for worlds.

I think the Russian coaches still have a lot of decisions to make for the European team. Some things are still not clear. If they bring Shelgunova she could make AA finals if her other teammates falter but most likely that might not happen and she doesn't have much difficulty to contend for EF medals. So will the Russians just bring her for qualification? Or will they take Afanasyeva who could win a floor medal. Will Paseka still be able to do the Amanar in April for Europeans? As we all know she is not great on any other events. Paseka's bars is okay but if they have Grishina and Mustafina on the team Paseka's bars will not be received well by the judges. So basically she is a one event woman. I think Russia still has some internal competition. Also there are some up and coming world cup events. Afanasyeva and Paseka to the French Cup. Grishina, Shelgunova and Dementyeva to Cottbus Cup. Looks like Aliya will just compete at internal events.

Call me bias but I hope Afanasyeva makes it to European Championships. She missed 3 European Championships in a row, due to injuries or getting back in shape from injuries. Maybe this is her chance again? But on the other hand I feel Afanasyeva has been given many chances and maybe it's best for Russia to give other girls chances. I say maybe Shelgunova does need the experience and Paseka should be rewarded for her Amanar. I think Universiade will be perfect for Afanasyeva. Maybe Afanasyeva missing a lot of Europeans will be a blessing in disguise. Maybe she'll make it to worlds? I hope so.

I'm also glad to see that some other older veterans like Pavlova, Myzdrikova, Kramarenko etc are still competing. Pavlova's regional team won gold :)

*photo credits sportgymrus

Just Because...Random

I'm running out of ideas for this blog. I guess I have to think harder :D. This blog post is pretty much random/rant.

It's no secret that I am a huge Afanasyeva fan. I was watching some training videos of Afan when I came across a video of her training the double attitude spin. The double attitude spin is named after Ksenia Semenova. It's no surprise that these two have the best double attitude spins in gymnastics. They both come from the same gym and have the same coach. I personally find attitude spins more aesthetically pleasing to watch than any other spins in gymnastics. Doing a double attitude spin is hard and it's hard to make it look beautiful like Semenova's and Afanasyeva's. I have seen a lot of nice single attitude turns from many different gymnasts but no beautiful double attitude turns like Afanasyeva and Semenova. The Memmel Spin is probably harder than the attitude but most gymnasts make that spin unpleasing to watch. Plus there are too many gymnasts doing the Memmel. I've seen some gymnasts attempt double attitudes but none of them come close to looking anything like Afanasyeva's and Semenova's. Even some of the other Russians who attempted the "Semenova" made it look wonky.

Here's the short training vid. It was during the 2010 Netherlands tri-meet.

(Source: echoesinthewind)

And here's another turn being done by Afan. It's the leg at horizontal turn or L-turn. I absolutely hate that turn. It's ugly. It began to be a trend in the 05-08 quad and it never died. I can't stand that spin. Afan adds a little elegance to that ugly spin on FX. I like how creative her coach is. Afan eventually stopped doing the double stag because it's worth nothing. Later on Grishina started to do the stag too but took it out.

 (Source: starkofwinterfell)

Olympic Gymnastic Thoughts #1

I'm pretty much blogging for the sake of blogging right now. I'm excited for today's opening ceremony. I haven't found a personal link yet but the wonderful people on various gymnastic forum/blogs are hooking up with potential links that might work. I hope one of them work. I can't afford cable and Canada's online CTV sucks. I can't seem to get any videos to work, even when I downloaded the required program.

EDIT: I'M WATCHING OPENING CEREMONY HERE http://tvpc.com/Channel.php?ChannelID=3

Disappointing Thoughts
-The gymnastic podium is PINK. WTF? I like all the people who are complaining about the pink podium. I want the London designers to know how much of a failure they are. They even have some equipment in pink. The men's rings is pink, I kind of can't take it seriously. Seeing a fit and strong guy on a pink ring is kind of laughable. I feel this is the joke Olympics. The pink is not even pretty. It's really distracting. Seeing all the gymnasts blend in with the pink is hilarious. I think the only good colour that matches the pink podium is a black or dark coloured leo. It was also distracting to watch the American girls in podium training because they were in bright pink. I don't mind pink leo's and in fact I get very annoyed at people who complain about pink leotards. I seriously almost vomited watching the American girls, not because they weren't good but because I was getting motion sickness from all the movements and bright colours. Also red leotards will be a bad idea to wear on the pink podium. It's like they're just fading away and clashing with the pink. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!

I will eventually get over the trashy pink and solely concentrate on the actual gymnastics, but I will not ease up to the horrid pink and dark depressing purple venue. Yes it looks kind of depressing when you see the dark purple walls. No one is going to change my mind about the epic failure of the colours. There are people who actually love it and are orgasmicly gushing over it, "OMG it's pink, I totally love it."

- I'm really disappointed about all the injuries.

Positive Thoughts 
- Viktoria Komova landed two very good Amanars in podium training, and she rarely had any mistakes on the other apparatuses
- All of the Russian gymnasts did good beam routines

- I'm glad Larisa Iordache can compete AA after all
- Team Japan supposedly looked good in podium training. They are looking good for team gold. Kohei Uchimura had some mistakes in podium training but still looks very strong for the AA gold
- And finally, please allow me to be BIAS. Afanasyeva's floor routine is getting a lot of praise from bloggers, and tweeters who were at podium training. She does have some landing problems but her choreography is apparently great. I'm only scared about her music choice. I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Just because...