Skip to main content

Gymmy the Owl and his Friends - Vladimir Zaglada

Vladimir Zaglada's latest book, Gymmy the Owl and His Friends

Do you want to know the difference between flexibility and plasticity?  Find out why it is so difficult to do a handstand on a balance beam?  Know what it is that your pet cat can do easily that you have to spend hours practising?  Vladimir Zaglada's latest book will help you.  A charming collection of poems and colourful, humourous pictures (by Katya Korobkina) explains some of the vital facts about gymnastics and is full of wonder at the gymnastic feats of the natural world as well as those we humans perform in the gym..  This book is for children, but parents and carers will love it too - it's perfect for a shared read.

The book concludes as the King of Beasts, Lion the Coach in his Dynamo club tracksuit, introduces himself:

"Gymmy's told me all about you
And he knows a thing or two.
You are all with gifts endowed,
And I know you'll make me proud."


This beautiful book is available at Amazon and also from Vladimir's own website.  A Russian language version will be published very soon.

Happy reading!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Head MAG Coach Alfosov on Russian gymnastics prospects in 2026

"A Really Good International Level": Alfosov on the Return of Russian Gymnasts, Belyavsky's Videos, and the Games Qualification Alfosov: Belyavsky's presence on the team was a big plus Interview by Elena Vaitsekhovskaya  Google translate Russian gymnasts competing under neutral status will be able to take their first step toward qualifying for the Los Angeles Olympics as early as October, Valery Alfosov, head coach of the Russian men's team, told RT. He believes that qualifying for not only the individual but also the team competition at the World Championships is one of the season's greatest achievements. He also explained the criteria he uses to compare his players with their competitors and described David Belyavsky's decision last year as hard-won. The current season began with good news for the gymnasts: almost all of the leading Russian team members are participating in international competitions. Does this mean the suspension situation is a thing of...

Who really won the WAG All Around?

You will find a link to the FIG's newly published book of results at the Olympic Games here .  This year, they have broken down the judge's execution scores so you can see exactly how each judge evaluated the gymnasts' performances.  It makes for interesting reading - if only I had more time to analyse each judge's marking.  A skim reading already highlights multiple inconsistencies in individual judges' marks and makes you wonder why they bother with the jury at all. I have taken the time to look at the reference judges' scores for the top four in the women's all around.  The FIG explains here what their role is, and how they are selected.  I even used my calculator, which is a risky thing in my hands.  My, how I wish we could have seen a similar document for the Tokyo World Championships. I wonder if anyone can explain how, if the FIG's Code of Points is so objective and fair, it is possible to come up with two different results using two differ...

Artistry versus acrobatics???

Watching videos of this weekend's competitions - the qualification and all around rounds of the Russian championships, medal winners from the American Cup - I am struck, more and more, by the huge difference between the American and Russian schools of gymnastics. It led me to ask the question : do artistry and acrobatics have to be mutually exclusive? (I am afraid that I think naming 'American' gymnastics a 'school' is perhaps lending an undeserved dignity to work which has become excessively obsessed with the difficult and the consistent, but I am using the word here so as not to label unfairly those individual gymnasts who are blameless in the direction of their training.) The FIG's vision for gymnastics is said to embrace more artistry; at least the publicity it has put about on the subject of its new Code makes that fairly plain.  So perhaps the Russians, with their inconsistent brilliance and superior body carriage (Mustafina, Komova, Grishina, Afanasy...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more