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Amy Hartnell-Saunders

@coachamycontent

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🤸🏻‍♀️ Gymnastics & Cheerleading Coach
🌎 Educating coaches around the globe
🫶🏻 True coaches help develop more coaches
@iamamysaunders

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You always have a choice of how you view a situation

Mindset shifts like these take practice but can have a huge impact on your energy, presence and how the children in your classes experience you

Take ownership for your thoughts

Pick positive ones and say them out loud by @coachamycontent

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6 months ago

My longest visit to date working with the @olympiangymnastics team 🧡

Each day I lead a different developmental workshop for their team 👇🏻

Leadership workshop
Management workshop
Social media workshop

I visited a number of their venues to see the lesson plans we have been working on in action and record some staff training material

Finally, we continued our development of personalised staff training documentation

This team are working SO hard and it’s been lovely to get to know more of the coaching team this time around

I can’t wait to be back NEXT WEEK! along with my sister @coachlucycontent to continue this project taken in Olympian Gymnastics by @coachamycontent

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2 months ago

Why have one Coach Amy, when you can have two!?

Introducing my wonderful sister @coachlucycontent

Over the last few months, demand for coach education workshops has grown beyond anything I expected 🥹

Bringing Lucy on board means we can support more coaches, work with more clubs and help more gymnasts

We both share a passion for helping coaches bring energy to every session and deliver the high-quality coaching every gymnast deserves

Lucy has been coaching gymnastics since she was 13 and most recently has been in Australia helping @thegymnasticshub grow their recreational program

I’m so excited for this next chapter and even more excited about the impact we’ll be able to make together 🫶🏼 by @coachamycontent

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2 months ago

“I’m terrible with names” is not an excuse I’m willing to accept

I’m not saying it’s easy either

Learning names is a huge part of building relationships, managing classes and making children feel valued

Having spent 17 years coaching mainly recreational gymnastics and cheerleading

Coaching over 400 children a week for a number of years,

These are some of the systems I’ve used and taught others to help with name learning

✅ Look at the register before the class begins

✅ Ask children their names individually while they are working on skills

✅ If you know most of the group, ask everyone to introduce themselves and listen out for the names you don’t know

✅ Ask a gymnast their name and then learn something about them

✅ Keep asking children their names until you remember them

✅ Repeat their name lots of times when they first tell you

✅ Ask children how their name is spelt

✅ Give new children a name sticker for their first four weeks

✅ Club leaders should randomly spot-check coaches’ knowledge of names and praise those who make the effort to learn them

Learning names takes time and effort

But it is part of our responsibility as coaches

Let me know which of these you are going to try in the gym this week

Or have more tips? Share them below to help someone! by @coachamycontent

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3 hours ago

Junior coaches are still learning how to coach and it is unrealistic to expect them to manage everything at once

If they are explaining a circuit, they are already thinking about:

What to say, how loudly to speak, where to stand etc.

Adding behaviour management on top of that can be a lot

If you are coaching alongside them, or you are a leader floating around the gym, step in and help

If there is a child who finds it difficult to listen, I recommend sitting beside them

Help them focus by saying things like,

“Shall we watch?”

“Look, she has her arms straight.”

“Can you see what she is doing next?”

The child who finds it challenging to listen gets more support, the junior coach can concentrate on improving their delivery and the rest of the group can listen without constant interruption

Junior coaches develop best when we gradually increase what they are responsible for

It’s important we support them as much as possible in the early phases

Then, as their confidence and experience grow, they can take on more by @coachamycontent

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a day ago

🎉 Please join us in welcoming our newest FlipBiz Education Partners, @coachamycontent & @coachlucycontent - The “Coach Vibe Architects”!

You may already recognize these two from social media, where they help gymnastics programs, coaches, and staff from ALL OVER grow, learn, and improve their training!

Now, we’re bringing their knowledge and expertise directly to your FlipBiz portal! 🙌

Through educational courses and Locker Room videos, Amy and Lucy will share valuable tips, training techniques, and resources to help your staff continue learning and growing.

We’re so excited to have them joining the FlipBiz Education Partner family! 💙 by @coachamycontent

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2 days ago

Tutorial for one of my FAVOURITE warm-up games for recreational gymnastics because it’s simple, needs no equipment and you can teach lots of gymnastics shapes/preps at the same time!

The Bean Game 🤸‍♀️ FULL list of beans 🫘⬇️

🏃 Runner Bean
Run on the spot or run around the floor

⭐ Broad Bean
Stand in a star shape or side step/chasse round the floor

🦘 Jumping Bean
Jump on the spot or jump around the floor

🧵 String Bean
Walk on tiptoes with long, stretchy arms

🧊 Frozen Bean
Freeze still or hold a gymnastics shape of your choice

🫨 Jelly Bean
Run around wobbling your arms and legs

🇫🇷 French Bean
Stop and say “Ooh la la!”

🥔 Baked Bean
Sit in a tuck shape on the floor

🤪 Naughty Baked Bean
Rock and roll

🍞 Beans on Toast
Lie flat on your back in a star shape

🥫 Can of Beans
Everyone runs to the middle, we are now all inside ‘the can’

📡 Microwave Bean
Spin around three times, jump up and shout “PING!”

TIP: Don’t use all of these beans in one game… vary it each time

🎥 This video is a short clip from the full training video available inside the Coach Amy Community on Skool!

If you enjoyed this tutorial and would like access to more warm-up ideas and training resources, you can join my Skool community with myself and @gymnasticsgeoff by following the link in my bio 🔗

Thank you to my demonstrators for having a bit of fun playing the role of the gymnasts and featuring in this video 🫶🏼

@coachlucycontent
@coachlukecontent
@gymnasticsgeoff

#Gymnastics #GymnasticsCoaching #WarmUpGames taken in Silvermere Gymnastics by @coachamycontent

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3 days ago

Some coaches don’t demonstrate at all and some do but with half effort

The issue here is that young children are very visual learners

So not only are demonstrations SO important, but exaggerating can be incredibly useful to helping them understand FASTER

Stretch EXTRA tall

Landing STILL and hold it for longer than they naturally would

Make the movement obvious

Even if it feels slightly over the top, it gives children a much clearer picture of what you want

This is something children’s TV presenters do

They exaggerate their faces, their movements and how exciting something is!

They have been trained to captivate children… so we could certainly learn from their approach

If you give a demonstration 60% of your effort… that is what the children will reflect or probably even worse since they are learning

I believe coaches should always be modelling the effort and energy they want to see in their gymnasts

The more you put in

The more you AND YOUR GYMNASTS will get out by @coachamycontent

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4 days ago

Part two from this brilliant discussion around the worlds we use in our corrections

Words that make sense to us as coaches or ex-gymnasts can mean absolutely nothing to a five year old who has just started gymnastics

‘Ribs in’
‘Tight’
‘Block’
‘Round your shoulders’

We use these phrases all the time

But children are not born knowing what they mean

If you want straighter legs, explain it in multiple ways:

Push your knees down
Make your leg muscles hard
Push your knees back
Make your legs as straight as possible

Show them what it looks like

Say the same correction in different ways until you find the version that clicks

The best coaches don’t continually repeat gymnastics terminology

They find language that the child in front of them actually understands

If they don’t understand the correction, it’s not their fault, it’s yours

You need to find a way to help it make sense to them! taken in Gymstars Gymnastics Academy by @coachamycontent

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5 days ago

The final week in the UK for me for a little while jam-packed with coach education workshops, workouts and reel filming

Some huge milestones to remember

First ever triple workshop weekend, would not have been possible without @jacktillett driving me and the team 🫶🏼

First ever bespoke cheerleading tumbling workshop delivered as a trio

@coachlucycontent’s first ever solo workshop (she was incredible!!) supported by one of our oldest friends @7ash.leigh

First round of content filmed for an online education platform… coming soon 👀🇺🇸

Second round of @tumbltrak content filmed 🤸🏻‍♀️

Filming with @shuffleupgames who have released two new products, congratulations Gemma 🥳

Plenty of content captured at @gymstarsgymnasticsacademy 🩷

Who new coaching children cartwheels could turn into something so special

Now in Barcelona for a bit of a rest from a summer of workshops, time to edit hundreds of videos

Let’s GO

Grateful every day by @coachamycontent

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6 days ago

One of my fave ways to help children understand the end of a forward walkover

A really common error is dropping the arms as they try to stand up

This group preparation lets you isolate that exact part of the skill before moving onto the circuit

Start with:

🤸 Kneel with both knees apart
🤸 Feet touching the wall behind
🤸 Arms straight by the ears
🤸 Look at the hands
🤸 Bend backwards and tap the wall
🤸 Return to upright without dropping the arms

Once they can do that confidently, you can gradually make it harder:

1️⃣ Bring the knees closer together

2️⃣ Move further away from the wall so they have to reach lower

3️⃣ For very flexible athletes, progress towards reaching all the way to the floor

4️⃣ Try it from one knee, with the other leg in front, to mimic the forward walkover action even more closely

That final version requires much more coordination and stability, so I would always build towards it rather than starting there

I love using group preparations like this because you can coach the whole group at the same time

You can give everyone the same technical focus, prepare their mindset for the skill and correct some of the basics before they even reach the circuit

The better the preparation, the better the skills look during the circuit by @coachamycontent

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7 days ago

NEW 👀 The Lesson Plan Series 📝 Basic recreational plans for:

✅ Forward rolls
✅ Forward roll to straddle stand
✅ Handstand forward roll
✅ Introducing front somersaults

Each lesson begins with a group preparation - this is where the whole class works through an activity together before moving onto the circuit

I really like doing this because it gets everyone thinking about the skill together

You can introduce shapes, preparations and key coaching points as a group before children go onto the equipment

This can save you repeating the same basic correction at every station

🗣️ The coach then explains the circuit

The children then move into groups and stay on one station for repeated turns until the coach calls ‘FREEZE!’ and rotates them

I prefer this to children continuously travelling around a circuit

Staying on one activity gives them time to practice, receive feedback then have another go and immediately try to apply that correction

There is also usually less queuing and less time spent moving between activities

Of course, lesson plans can never be completely rigid

Recreational classes contain a huge range of abilities, so activities will need to be made easier or harder for the gymnast in front of you

And if your rotations are shorter than around 15 minutes, I would consider using three stations rather than four

Quality repetitions are more important than trying to squeeze too much into a short amount of time

I would love to know if this style of post is useful when it comes to recreational planning

Drop me a comment if you would like me to create more 💬 by @coachamycontent

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8 days ago