The Balance by Aimee Boorman

[flappergirl]

A couple of thoughts on the book itself:

Thank you so much. I just retired and have to super careful about money, so I am on the fence about buying a new copy

 

[rlayt]

I just finished listening to it. I was amazed when Aimee talked about all the skills they trained. Some showed up in the next quad with Laurent and Cecile coaching. She was already training the YDP. They had trained the Biles dismount from beam. They trained the weiler full and submitted it in case she lost her balance and had to cover with another half rotation but she never lost her balance. It’s the Godwin now. In Paris Simone submitted the one and a half. The shap half which was inconsistent and hurt her shoulder which nagged her a lot then. The Fabrichnova.

They played with the Biles 2 on floor. The YDP and Yurchenko triple twist. They didn’t intend to make them competition ready for Rio because At the time there was no one touch warmup so it was too risky.

Simone had a triple twist and double arabian on floor., sometimes adding a full twist on the second flip when training on a rod floor but never on the hard floor.
Random things were played with like a double back on a beam pad.

They had a lot to choose from but had to use the ones Simone liked the most and could land the best. They would show up to the ranch with 7 or 8 tumbling passes and Marta would direct them to focus on only 4. The Landis brought some of those into her routines later. At that time they wanted to make the competition easy for Simone but her easy is still hard for everyone else. They wanted Simone to be comfortable over blowing everyone’s mind. With all the endorsements etc it was better to go with the route they used.

 

[rlayt]

• It's very obvious that her coaching style was delibrately developed, with choices she made from trainings, reactions to how she was coached, and things she saw that worked from her mother's parenting style. Because she made active choices on who she wanted to be as a coach, she's able to tell you more about why she believes in those approaches and give examples of what has and hasn't worked

She’s put a lot of thought into how she coaches and what’s best for the athlete hasn’t she.