Talk More with Rosemore - The Calisthenics Podcast

Honestly, where do I start? To be fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to chat with Valerie Kondos Field has been an absolute highlight of my life. And more importantly being able to share this with you, our calisthenics community. Whether you are coach, pupil, parent, business leader, whatever, you will take so much away from this podcast that you can instil into your life. Her philosophies and approach to life has literally changed the way I now look a lot of things, and most definitely, as we are about to embark back on our training for 2021; change the way I intend to coach and interact with our dancers. "Life is about choice, and the choices you make will dictate the life you lead" is a quote you will often hear throughout this podcast and one that Miss Val (as she is affectionately known by her gymnasts) vehemently instilled in her athletes. Her reputation for teaching valuable life lessons, while encouraging individuality and joy is only one reason 46 former US national team members came through her program and why half of the last two Olympic teams committed to UCLA. Miss Val has since retired as head coach of the UCLA woman gymnastics team, however, under her leadership, they achieved seven NCAA Championships, 22 regional and 18 Pac 12 Championships. She was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010, four-time "National Coach of the Year", West Region Coach of the Year and Pac 12 Coach of the Century. WOW! If that is not seen as an impressive testament to coaching, I don't know what is! Miss Val's many other credits include choreographing and directing many live variety shows and 26 years of cirque-type shows for SeaWorld's Summer Nights and the San Diego Zoo. Current projects include additional live stage shows, TV specials, events, and the development of a theatrical musical, plus the post-Olympic "Gold Over America Tour" featuring an all-star team of female gymnastics champions, headlined by Simone Biles and also featuring Katelyn Ohashi. I came to know of Miss Val through her book 'Life is Short, Don't Wait to Dance.' This book captured me from the first sentence. It was one I couldn't put down. I have now purchased a copy for each of our coaches at Rosemore because I want them to develop into the best possible coaches they can be and to have the opportunity to learn from one of the world's greatest coaches. During the podcast, you will hear me talk about a poster I developed called 'Miss Val-isms". It is a collection of some of her quotes from the book, especially the ones I loved. I created this so I could put it up in my office and remind myself daily not only what impact I can have on others' lives,  but to help me make better decisions to choreograph the life I want to lead. At the end of the podcast, you will hear Miss Val talk about an organisation she supports called the Refuge. This is an organisation that assists in the recovery of girls rescued from sex traffickers. Profits that Miss Val makes from sales on her website go to the Refuge, which is fantastic. To help support Miss Val and the team at the Refuge, we have put a pdf copy of the poster up on our website under "ABOUT>DONATIONS".  If you would like a copy, we ask that you make a donation, all of which we will send to Miss Val to pass onto the team at The Refuge. Even $5.00 will make a difference, so please get behind this cause, every little bit counts, and if we can help impact the lives of these girls, then that's our way of paying it forward. So now sit back, relax and enjoy what is a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear from the beautiful and absolutely inspiring Miss Val. Miss Val-isms Poster https://www.rosemore.com.au/donate/ [https://www.rosemore.com.au/donate/] Miss Val's Website https://officialmissval.com/ [https://officialmissval.com/]

Nutrition has always been a passion of mine, even as a young girl, which is why I chose a career Dietetics. However, my work has predominantly been in adult nutrition, in particular obesity management. So when I started to see some of our young calisthenics performers struggling with their nutrition and even my own teenage kids. I thought I better bring in the expert. Today we are super lucky to have on the podcast today Sam Armstrong, a dietitian specialising in teen nutrition. Sam loves working with adolescent athletes, she loves their passion when they talk about their sport, their drive when it comes to their dreams, but most of all they transport her back to when she was an adolescent athlete herself. Sam loves to help athletes achieve what she couldn’t. As an athlete, Sam was on track for great things. She was a National level swimmer, with scholarship offers to the USA - all of which all fell away when she developed an eating disorder (in conjunction with undiagnosed coeliac disease and anaemia). By the time she got these issues seen to, years later she was an adult and it was too late. She clawed her way back to Olympic and Commonwealth Games trials, but never got the Green and Gold tracksuit. These days Sam runs her own business and has been doing this for 3 years where she has worked with some major teams such as the Brisbane Lions, East Leagues Football Club and Nudgee College to name a few. She has also worked individually with multiple Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Her niche is working with older children and teens and she has a keen interest in adolescent growth as performance. Instagram Accounts Sam recommends young athletes follow 1. Peak Potential Nutrition  - peak-potential-nutrition 2. Sports Dietitians Australia - sportsdietaust 3. YLMSportScience - ylmsportscience 4. SPORTRITION - sportrition_

Today on the podcast I talk with Julie Fox about the pupil skills syllabus and the increased requirement of good ballet and dance technique in calisthenics. Julie is not only an adjudicator but winner of the RSSS Most Graceful Girl and has had many years of ballet training herself. She has been instrumental in the development and running of the Pupil Skills Syllabus especially regarding the aesthetic and dance components. Julie began adjudicating in 1971, became a Level 1 Adjudicator in 1993, the inaugural year of accreditation, and an Advanced 2 Adjudicator in 1997. She has adjudicated the National Championships on three occasions, has extensive experience in adjudicating at RSSS (since 1976), CVI and many other Victorian and interstate competitions. Julie was appointed as an ACF Skills Examiner to Gold Medal level in 1985, redeveloped the aesthetic and dance sections of the program in 1995, and was appointed as an inaugural member of the ACF Examiners' Advisory Board in 2000. Julie commence calisthenics at age 8 and joined Clifton Calisthenic College at age 15 where she enjoyed many successful years as a championship performer being coached by Miss Vera Hopton, B.E.M. At age 17 Julie won the prestigious Royal South Street Graceful Girl title. She then went on to coach all age groups at this very successful Championship class. In 2006 Julie was awarded the ACF Official of the Year, and in 2015 awarded a Life Membership to Calisthenics Victoria. Julie was awarded Life Membership of the Australian Society of Calisthenic Adjudicators Victoria in 2018, and is a Life Member of the Royal Academy of Dance.

I love the opportunity to look outside our current sport and learn from other disciplines. What they do and what can we bring back into calisthenics to help our pupils become stronger and achieve more. Today’s podcast is exactly that as we talk with Andrew Chadwick or as he is more well known – Chaddy. If you listened to one of our earlier podcasts with Lisa Howell looking at flexibility, we discussed ways to improve flexibility and why potentially some girls may struggle more than others. She suggested to ask those that are struggling with flexibility whether they crawled as a baby,  and to help improve flexibility, we should incorporate crawling back into our practice and strength and conditioning. She then recommended me to look at Animal Flow and adult crawling and some of the work done by Mike Fitch and his team. So today we are fortunate to have with us Chaddy, who is one of the Australian Animal Flow Master Instructors and is located here in Brisbane. Chaddy has over 15 years of fitness industry experience, he is a course content creator, NLP Practitioner, PTA Global Faculty Member, TRX and Trigger Point Performance Senior Master Course Instructor, Senior SandBell, Kettlebell and Battling Ropes instructor. He is now proudly associated with the bodyweight movement program Animal Flow as a Master Instructor. Andrew’s time in the Australian army led him through some physical pain and then on a journey to discover its cause. This then led him to health and fitness, where he has been able to help himself and others through movement coaching. He was eventually able to return to his sporting passion, Australian Rules Football, as a player and coach. He is now studying martial arts and finds it a fantastic way to learn and observe movement. Chaddy can apply science and intuition to movement and make it fun, and through this earned the 2017 Network FILEX Presenter of the year. His passion is to create health for others by helping coaches create long term results for their clients. What I love about this podcast is how it reinforces that we need to practice every day to improve, what we tell the body to do or not to do, is what it will get good at. So if you don’t move your body in the way you want it to, then guess what? It won’t move in the way you want it to! It may also motivate you not to only incorporate animal walks into your Tinies section, but look at ways you can include this type of practice into your warm-ups or strength and conditioning of your older sections.

As coaches, we all know the importance of engaging the younger generation in calisthenics and the benefits of starting kids early to learn and grow with the sport. Our Tinies and Tiny Tots are the future of calisthenics, so it is important for them to develop a love of the sport from an early age. The Tinies section, whilst one of the most rewarding sections to coach, can be one of the most challenging. Today we are fortunate to have with us Jeanne Sorich, Co-Principal of Jeadan Calisthenics. Jeanne coaches at Jeadan with her daughters, Lucinda and Kirrilly and has been coaching calisthenics from Tinies to Seniors for 40 years. Jeanne also has 40 years of experience as a kindergarten teacher, teaching three-year-old kindergarten for the past 26 years at Lauriston Girls’ School. Over the past 6 years, she has developed a ‘Calitots’ programme for children 2 years to 4 years of age, which focuses on developing body awareness, physical confidence, coordination, flexibility and most importantly fun. Jeaden Calisthenics, located in Clayton in Melbourne have competed in the Championship Section for 30 years and has enjoyed great success over the years. Jeaden won the overall top club at Royal South Street for 21 consecutive years, and in 2019 they were the winners of the Champion of Champions at Calisthenics Victoria State Titles. So without further ado, I would like to welcome Jeanne onto the podcast as we discuss all things Tinies and most importantly, the benefits of calisthenics for children in the kinder years.