Unique Gymnastics and Gymnasts

Shawn Johnson's Favorites:
HOBBIES: scrapbooking and walking dogs at a local animal shelter
GYMNAST: Kim Zmeskal
ATHLETE IN ANOTHER SPORTt: Lance Armstrong
FOOD: steak and chicken kabobs, strawberries
BOOK: You Go Girl!, by Kim Doren and Charlie Jones

Nastia Liukin's Favorites:
SONG:
Hey Stephen, Taylor Swift
MOVIE:
Marley and Me
DRINK:
Fresh squeezed orange and carrot juice
FOOD:
Sushi
COLOR:
Pink
BRAND:
Juicy Couture
CELEBRITY:
Taylor Swift

Samantha Peszek's Favorite:
SONG OF ALL TIMES: She Will Be Loved by Maroon Five.
TV SHOW: Gossip Girl and 90210
FOOD: fruit and sushi
HOBBIES: shopping, boating, hanging out with friends, going to the movies, drawing
COMEDIAN: Dane Cook
COLOR: pink

Alicia Sacramone's Favorite:
FOODS: Pineapples, strawberries, frozen yogurt (any kind!), Clif Bars, and chicken
SWEETS: I love chocolate. I like milk and dark, but definitely not white
MUSIC: John Mayer and other mellow R&B stuff
CLOTHES: Jeans

Chellsie Memmel's Favorite:
BOOKS: I absolutely love to read. My favorite author is James Patterson. I've read pretty much all of his books, so I branched out with books by Iris Johansen and Janet Evanovich. I also like Harry Potter.
MUSIC: I like a variety of music, but I am currently into Maroon 5, Nickelback and Taylor Swift.
MOVIES: I have way too many favorites to choose one, but I pretty much like any movie that makes me laugh.
TV SHOWS: "Grey's Anatomy" and "Friends"

Bridget Sloan's Favorite:
FAVORITE: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
FAVORITE: Everything (Ipod's pretty full)
TV SHOW: CSI
FOOD: Chinese food
EVENT: Floor Exercise
SKLL: 3/1 twisting layout
PETS: Dog Heidi & the Hamsters
HOBBIES: Loves to shop!

Have you ever heard of Inuit Rope gymnastics? Allunaariaqattaarneq, "games performed using harpoon line" (rope gymnastics), are known throughout the arctic. Rope gymnastics is an ancient Inuit form of sport, which demands and develops balance, strength, flexibility, coordination and pain tolerance. The exercises toughen the hands which may allow you to paddle long hours without developing blisters. Many of the maneuvers are extremely strenuous and painful. Performing them helps to build mental and physical toughness, qualities that were very useful for the hard life of a kayak hunter.

Ancient Gymnastics

Gymnastics, in the form of acrobatics, calisthenics, and disciplined exercise, has been around since ancient times. Acrobats entertained Egyptian nobility about 7,000 years ago and, judging by ancient frescoes, acrobats vaulted over the backs of bulls on the island of Crete when the Minoan civilization flourished, beginning about 2,700 BC.

The name of the sport comes from gymnos, the Greek word for naked. In ancient Greece, male athletes trained and competed in the nude. The gymnasium, originally an area for physical training, came to be a school for training both the mind and the body. There were three types of teachers in a gymnasium: Grammatistes, who taught the three Rs; Kitharistes, who taught music; and paidotribes, who were physical fitness teachers.

Physical training took place in the palestra, a square, walled, open-air area equipped with changing rooms and baths. Activities included running, jumping, weightlifting, throwing, wrestling, and swimming, all classified as gymnastics. Evidently, most exercises were conducted to music, as in the floor exercise of modern artistic gymnastics.

Among the ancient Greeks, gymnastics probably reached a peak in Sparta. With their emphasis on the military, the Spartans prized exercises that could improve not only physical fitness but also discipline. In Athens and most other city-states, only boys received a formal education and took part in gymnastics. But Sparta required that both sexes be physically fit. Women needed strong bodies so they could bear strong, healthy children.

The Romans followed the Spartan example, to a point. The gymnasium was basically a training place for the Roman legions. The wooden horse was a Roman innovation, used to train soldiers to mount and dismount quickly. However, the Romans had little interest in sport for sport's sake, and the Greek practice of nude exercise was viewed with distaste, as leading to the vice of homosexuality.

With the fall of Rome and the spread of Christianity through Europe, the knowledge that exercise leads to physical fitness seems to have been lost, along with the ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body. Acrobatics survived, though. During Medieval times, traveling minstrel shows included songs, stories, and tumbling.

From HickockSports.com

Alicia Sacramone: "I have a cross and little good-luck charms my family and friends have given me over time."

Samantha Peszek: I bring a little red silk bag that has a couple charms in it. They were given to me for good luck by family and friends.

Nadia Com%u0103neci: She had 200 dolls at home and traveled with an Eskimo doll for good luck.

Dominique Dawes: Cookie Monster

Shawn Johnson: I always travel with my blankets-but I don't believe in good luck charms.

Nastia Liukin: I have a little box of lucky charms-different things that I have picked up over the years.

Chellsie Memmel: Necklace

For an element to be named after a gymnast, he or she must first submit the element to the FIG and then successfully perform the element in a FIG sanctioned international competition, such as the World Championships or Olympic Games.

These are skills named after U.S. athletes that are still included in the current FIG Code of Points.

SKILLS NAMED FOR US WOMEN

Uneven bars
Bhardwaj Salto (Mohini Bhardwaj) - From the high bar, facing the low bar, swing down and flip backwards with a 360 degree twist to catch the low bar.
Chow (Amy Chow) - Stalder (swing around the bar in a straddle position backward) to handstand with one-and-one-half turn in handstand, ending in mixed-L grip.
Dawes (Dominique Dawes) - Giant with one and a half turns in handstand.
Fontaine (Larissa Fontaine) - Swing down between bars - swing forward to salto backward tucked with 180 degree twist into salto forward tucked.
Maloney (Kristin Maloney) - Swing backwards, bringing feet to the bar and into a handstand position while executing a 360 degree turn to mixed-L or L grip.
Maloney (Kristin Maloney) - Innerfront support on low bar, pike sole circle backward through handstand with flight to hang on high bar.
McNamara (Julianne McNamara) - Jump to clear support on high bar, immediate clear hip circle (circle backward without hips touching bar) to handstand with 180 degree turn in handstand phase on high bar.
Miller (Shannon Miller) - Cast handstand, 540 degree turn to mixed-L grip.
Okino (Betty Okino) - On high bar, facing away from the low bar, clear underswing with 180 degree twist to back flip in stretched position.
Ray (Elise Ray) - On low bar, facing high bar, stalder backward (straddle position underneath bar) to release and hang on high bar.
Ray (Elise Ray) - On high bar, swing underneath touching feet and releasing to fly backward over high bar and regrasp (toe-on Tkatchev).
Ray (Elise Ray) - Double layout dismount with two full twists.
Ray (Elise Ray) - Handstand on high bar - pike sole circle backward counter straddle - reverse hecht over high bar to hang.
White (Morgan White) - Stalder forward in L-grip to handstand with 180 degree turn in handstand.

Balance Beam
Borden (Amanda Borden) - Sideways straddle jump with a half turn.
Garrison (Kelly Garrison) - Round off onto spring board, back tucked salto with 360 degree twist to land on beam.
Garrison (Kelly Garrison) - Free shoulder roll forward with straightening to tuck stand or stand without hand support.
Garrison (Kelly Garrison) - From extended tuck sit - Valdez swing over backward through horizontal plane with support on one arm.
Henrich (Christy Henrich) - Sideways split jump with rear leg bent upward.
Humphrey (Terin Humphrey) - 2.5 turn in tuck stand on one leg, free leg at horizontal throughout turn.
McCool (Courtney McCool) - Jump to handstand with hip angle to handspring forward to land on two feet.
Okino (Betty Okino) -Triple turn on one leg - free leg optional below horizontal.
Patterson (Carly Patterson) - Arabian double salto forward tucked.
Phillips (Kristie Phillips) - Press to side handstand, front walkover to side stand on both legs .
White (Morgan White) - Wolf jump from side position with 180 turn, take-off from both legs.

Floor exercise
Garrison (Kelly Garrison) - Cat leap with 540 degree turn.
Johnson (Brandi Johnson) - Split leap forward with leg change and quarter turn to side split leap or straddle pike position.
Memmel (Chellsie Memmel) - 720 degree turn with free leg held upward in 180 degree split position.
Strug (Kerri Strug) - Tour jete with additional 180 turn to straddle position, land on both legs.

SKILLS NAMED FOR US MEN

Floor exercise
Thomas tuck and pike (Kurt Thomas) - One and a half back flips with one and a half twists, lands in a forward roll.
Thomas stretched (Kurt Thomas) - Thomas stretched.

Pommel horse
Bryan (Casey Bryan) - Scissor half-turn to handstand, half-pirouette and straddle down.
Roth (Bill Roth) - Listed in code as: Russian wende swing with 360 degree turn and 3/3 travel.
Thomas (Kurt Thomas) - All flairs.
Sohn (Mark Sohn) - Kehr with full turn on one pommel.

Still rings
Bhavsar (Raj Bhavsar) - Pull through momentary front lever press to Maltese.
O'Neill (Paul O'Neil) - Stretched double feige backward to hang.

Parallel bars
Gatson (Jason Gatson) - Swing backward with hop on one arm and full turn to handstand.
Gatson II (Jason Gatson) - Gatson with half-turn to handstand on one rail and a quarter-turn to handstand on two rails.
Wells (Trent Wells) - Giant swing backward showing inlocation (looks like shoulders turn inside out).

Horizontal bar
Gaylord (Mitch Gaylord) - Salto forward, tuck, pike or straddled over the bar and regrasp.
Gaylord 2 (Mitch Gaylord) - Gienger (back flip with half turn) over the bar and regrasp.
Hayden (Daniel Hayden) - Double salto backward, stretched, with full twist over the bar.