2016 Mas Watanabe Meet

Today we headed to Elevate Gymnastics Academy in Elk Grove for the Mas Watanabe Invitational.  

This made for back to back meet weekends, so not a lot of time for practice, but Ty made some major improvements.   His all around score improved by 4.2 points!  Fingers are crossed that he can continue to make big improvements to get him closer to the 54 score he needs to attend state. 

This was the first meet of the season they were all together. 

They started out on floor today.  He did a lot better by landing all his tumbling passes.  He made one major mistake by falling out of his pirouette handstand half way through.    

 He still has form issues and isn't pausing long enough in his handstand positions to make them count.  This judge was much more by the book than the last one, so the score didn't reflect the actual improvements.

 Second rotation took them to pommel.  He had some time with coach John this past week that really paid off with a 2.30 improvement on his score!  Hopefully he can continue that trend! 

 Rings were #3 on the list today where he improved by .5.   

He is still missing one skill and needs a lot of clean up, hopefully they can work on those detail in the next couple of weeks. 

Fourth rotation was vault and it went well.  His score did not improve from the awesome 9.5 he received last meet.  It sounds like inconsistent judging is going to be the name of the game this season. 

5th rotation was on parallel bars for another big improvement by 1.1 points.  He was able to add in a press handstand that boosted his score.  

They ended the day on high bar with a small .2 improvement.  This is another place where details are killing his scores, much to be improved. 

Here is his video: 

 

Next meet will be at home on Valentine's weekend.  

He loves to show off, so an audience would be awesome!   

Sunday, 2/14 at 1pm. 

Lawrence Hall of Sciences

After Ty's meet on Friday we took advantage of being in Berkley and visited the Lawrence Hall of Sciences for an afternoon of hands on fun.  One of Ty's teammates, Sam, was able to join us which made the afternoon much more fun.  

The boys had a great time exploring the mind games, animal exhibits, space, earth and engineering. 

Started with some fun climbing on a strand of DNA 

 Then on the big whale

 Foggy view

 Lots of puzzles throughout the museum

 We spent a good amount of time at the building table with simple rectangle blocks. 

 Tyler built a skyscraper with a deck and patio.

Sam built a pirate ship.

 I built a twisty tower

 Globe with interactive information about different topics. 

 Space version of the globe, staring into the sun. 

 We headed outside to see the way rivers flow and what happens whe you change the flow. 

 Engineering giant marble tracks

 

 Wind power experiments

 Wind tunnel

 Testing parachutes

 Pre-made ball runs

 Another ball maze

 Pin wall 

Tyler's hair made his head look like an apple

Sam in pin form

 Sun was setting on our way out. 

2016 Cal Benefit Cup

Friday morning we were up before the sun to travel down to Berkley for the Cal Benefit Cup.  

Tyler made some improvements and his scores were a bit better in some areas.  

Ready to head in to Haas Arena

Warm ups

 This is one of the meets where his level is split into two sessions by age groups, so the older boys will not compete until Sunday night.   

The mighty 9 year olds! 

 

 He started the meet on p-bars with a big 1.20 improvement on his score. 

High bar had a small .2 improvement from last meet, but he's making it through his routine much smoother which is a big plus.  

 Coach John was with the boys this meet, which may have helped a bit.

 Warm ups on floor were great, but stumbles and rushing lost him .3 from last meet.  

The routine is tough, but he can do all the skills.  Hopefully they will have better success linking everything together for next meet. 

 He had a couple of falls during his routine, but landed both his front tuck and back tuck in warm up.  

Bummer! 

 Pommel is a hot mess for our boys.  Ty dropped another .2 from last meet, but had another fall.  He said the pommel was super sticky so it was hard to swing.  Hopefully they will focus on it this week as well. 

 Rings brought another improvement by .60.   A couple of big mistakes tanked his score as a whole, but other parts are starting to look better. 

 During this rotation's warm-up time the were showing the Cal Men's Gymnastics season preview video on the big screen. 

 They ended their day on vault where Ty shined with a 9.50 score, improving by 1.40. 

 Chalky hand prints

Video for the day

 

Next weekend we stick close to home with the Mas Watanabe Meet in Elk Grove.