A Kyle Shewfelt Gymnastics Festival Farewell…for now...

Dear friends,

It is with great difficulty that I must inform you that the Kyle Shewfelt Gymnastics Festival (KSGF) is on hiatus for the foreseeable future... 

As you may or may not know, I am opening my own gymnastics facility in South Calgary this Fall called Kyle Shewfelt Gymnastics. The University of Calgary Gymnastics Centre feels, quite understandably, that this presents a conflict of interest as they were the host club of KSGF. I have been respectfully asked by The U of C Administration, UnoCalGym Parents Association and the U of C Gymnastics Centre coaching team to step away from their annual event and I accept those wishes. 

When I agreed to help build the Festival, it was never with the benefit of just one club in mind. For me, it was always about the bigger picture. My vision was to help create an event that provided a platform for us all to share in a celebration of gymnastics. It was my hope that the Festival could continue on in partnership with the U of C as host club and beneficiary despite my new venture, but unfortunately this is just not able to happen. 

Shortly after my Olympic dream came true in Athens, I realized that the value in the accomplishment would best be found by using it as a platform to give back. It’s my privilege and purpose to serve my community. For me, this was at the root of the Festival. I agreed to lend my name, time and energy to the U of C’s annual gymnastics event because I saw its potential to make an impact.

I am so very proud of what the Festival became in just 3 short years. The event gave thousands of participants a space where they could show off their hard work and have some fun. It raised more than $15,000 for Right To Play. It redefined what an invitational gymnastics competition in Canada could be. And there were hundreds of incredible people behind the scenes who helped it get to that point...

Thank you to the sponsors and media partners. Your support truly brought the event to a higher level.

Thank you to Right To Play. It was a pleasure to be aligned with an organization that cares so much.

Thank you to all of the volunteers, especially the meet directors and team leads. Your dedication of time and energy was inspiring. Without you, the event could not have happened. 

Thank you to the U of C, UnoCalGym Parents Association and U of C Gymnastics coaching team. I appreciate you giving me a stage to share my passion for gymnastics. 

Most importantly, Thank You to the supporters, athletes, coaches and judges. Thank you for choosing to come to the KSGF. Thank you for embracing the concept.  Thank you for bringing your best.

It is with a very heavy heart that I say farewell for now. Who knows what the future holds – I envision the KSGF taking on a new life somehow, somewhere, sometime. When that happens, I would love for you all to join once again. 

In the meantime, I look forward to staying connected. As a gymnastics family, let’s continue to collaborate and showcase our great sport. I encourage you to support the U of C’s new annual gymnastics event as they move forward. I know I’ll be there cheering on our great athletes.  

Thanks for the memories. KSGF Rocked!

Kyle 

Gym Revolution Video Challenge

Attention all Canadian Gymnastics Lovers: The Gym Revolution Video Challenge is officially open!!! Check out the video above and visit www.nationalgymnasticsweek.com for more info on how to enter. 




I'm excited to see what kind of videos roll in!

The beginning of the road - CTV Olympics

Preparation. Preparation. Preparation.


Today, the journey began for my role as analyst for the 2012 London Olympic Games with CTV Olympics.


Rod Black and I had our first "rehearsal" today and it went pretty well. I wanted to nail it out of the park, but I left with a lot of really constructive things to work on. I am so excited about the next 8 months of prep and I realized today that I have a lot of work to do in order to get to where I want to be.

courtesy of @carolynwaldoCTV

This process is eerily comparable to the prep that I went through as an athlete. I found myself visualizing being in the O2 arena with the 10,000 people in the audience. I could feel the tension and the storyline's unfolding. I also felt thankful that we still have 8 months to go before the big show…


I don't want to just be a commentator. I want to bring excellence to the role. I want to have the viewers at home feel like they are out there on the floor with the athletes. I want them to have the butterflies and I want them to completely understand the sacrifice and dedication it took to get there. My role as an analyst is to explain the WHY's and the HOW's. Simple, right? Well, not so much…


But this is where my focus needs to be. And it's great to have a focal point.


Over the course of the next 8 months, I am going to be vigilantly watching hours and hours of gymnastics on VHS, DVD and youtube. I'll be playing with language. I am going to listen to the best of the best (any recommendations?) and see what they say. I am going to be constantly recording myself while explaining WHY an iron cross is difficult. I am going to make lists and lists of flavourful adjectives that describe certain characteristics of skills and routines. I have a goal of never being tongue tied…I want to be so 'ready' that I don't have to try.


In Athens and Beijing, I remember stepping on to the floor feeling like I couldn't have anything more to be more prepared. I want to feel this same way in London - I'll just be on the other side of the camera.


Today, this incredible role I have with CTV Olympics started to feel a little more real. I have a lot of work to do. But with that being said, I am so psyched about doing it!


Next stop: London. I'll be there in January for the final Olympic qualifier (Go Canada Go!). I apologize in advance to the person who has to sit next to me in the stands. They'll be getting a running commentary of the event whether they like it or not!

Rewind: A problem with ARTISTIC Gymnastics

With the current code of points demanding crazy amounts of difficulty, the gymnasts on floor exercise are now packing in 6 tumbling passes in 1:10 and they have no time (or energy for that matter) to show any sort of artistry or style. 

Thomas Gonzales from Chile is an exception. At the recent 2011 Pan Am Games, his floor routine really caught my eye (the moustache should probably go though…):

I loved this routine because he pays attention to the little details. He holds his chin up, his arms moves purposefully, there are little subtleties in his routine that make you want to press rewind. In fact, I did rewind this video multiple times after every pass because I felt compelled to analyze it more closely. This routine is awesome and I strongly believe that there needs to be some sort of way to reward a gymnast for their style other than just with youtube hits ;) 

Now, for a comparison, take a look at this routine from the 2008 Olympic Champion, Zou Kai:

Sure, he can tumble like the wind, but a cardboard box has more style. His head is down, his arms are lazy and he looks like he's going for a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon in between passes. There is no ownership of innovation and no attempt to be eye catching - it's a stock routine that gets great results because he has a higher difficulty score than everyone else (of note, Zou was 2nd at Worlds and Thomas was 6th). And, to me, it's boring and I have no desire to watch it again after it's done. Don't get me wrong, I think Zou is an amazing athlete, but I'm also a purest who believes that style should be equally, if not more important, than the big tricks. His gymnastics is not the gymnastics that I fell in love with. I wouldn't want to go back into the gym after watching Worlds on TV and pretend that I was Zou Kai - I would want to learn the cool corner part that Thomas Gonzales did and add it into MY routine.

I am becoming very frustrated with the lack of artistry in gymnastics these days! It's not called Extreme Gymnastics…it's called ARTISTIC gymnastics and the art of the sport is being lost.

A while back, I made a proposal to one of the FIG men's technical committee members to restrict the number of passes on men's floor exercise to 5 and to add 10 extra seconds to the length of a routine in order to encourage time for a little bit of artistry. I believe that this could make a huge difference in preserving the "artistic" part of the sport. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to hear back…

All I know is that something needs to change and it needs to change fast. Routines like the one from Thomas Gonzales should become the norm and not the other way around. Artistic Gymnastics needs to start encouraging artistry again. It's a core value in the sport (it's in the NAME for goodness sake!) and having fans wanting to press rewind is how we keep the sport alive and vibrant. We have to think of the next generation who are watching at home and we have the responsibility to show them that attention to detail, artistry, innovation and uniqueness are as important as learning the big skills. A jump full turn with elegance and control is much more impressive than a full-twisting 1 3/4 roll out (and the former is something you can try to do in your living room - a place where many gymnastic dreams are initially discovered!)

So, what's your thoughts? Do you have any suggestions on how to bring back the "artistic" in artistic gymnastics? Which routine do you feel more compelled to watch and which one would you rewind and watch again? 

I'm going to London with CTV!

I can remember being 10 years old in the summer of 1992 and watching my friend Jennifer Wood compete in the Barcelona Olympic Games. My memory vividly recalls me being glued to the TV screen watching in awe and imagining what that experience would have been like. I lived every moment of those Games vicariously through CTV's coverage with Larissa Lowing and Suneel Joshi being the commentary team. 


I can also remember the thought crossing my mind, "I would love to commentate at the Olympics one day"…


Well folks, I have some very exciting news!


Drum roll please…


I am officially going to be a part of CTV's Broadcast team for the London 2012 Olympic Games!!! I am so excited!


It's my hope that I can bring the stories to life and make viewers feel like they are right there in the gym. I want to educate Canadians on the sport of gymnastics and highlight all of the incredible athletes. I want to help viewers get a true sense of the pressure, the joy and the excitement of competition - all from the comfort of their local bars and living rooms. I want to help all of the young gymnasts in our country fall desperately in love with the Olympic Games. I want them to be obsessed with gymnastics and to know all of their favourite gymnasts names. Most importantly, I want them to lay in their beds at night after watching the coverage and dream of what it might be like to be an Olympian!


I will specifically be covering the Men's Artistic, Women's Artistic and Trampoline competitions. I will also be playing a role in the Opening Ceremonies coverage and of course, I will be blogging, tweeting and facebooking through out the Games for CTVOlympics.ca. 


I am totally psyched to be a part of the CTV Olympics Team! This is definitely a dream come true!


KS

Flashback

Today I drove 4.5 hours from Calgary to Tawatinaw. 



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I'm here to do some mentoring with the Canadian men's gymnastics team…and perhaps to do a little spying for a big announcement that will be made tomorrow;) Stay tuned!


On my drive here, I had some major flashbacks. 


The song Ghetto Superstar brings me right back to the summer of 1998. I was the first of my friends to get my drivers licence and naturally I would pick everyone up on a Saturday night. We'd just cruise around Calgary and laugh our faces off. Six of us would pile into my dad's 1992 periwinkle blue Plymouth Acclaim and blast this song with our arms waving out the window - not a care in the world. That was a magnificent summer and hearing the song today transplanted me right back into that moment.

Smell often induces a flashback moment for me as well. Today I rolled down my window somewhere between Red Deer and Edmonton and I could smell the fresh canola fields. This instantly brought my brain back to being 6 years old and having my summer vacations in Manitoba. I can vividly remember driving to the Shewfelt Farm outside of Basswood and sitting on my Uncle Nelson's lap. He would let me take the steering wheel and drive his truck on the highway and it was the best feeling in the world! The windows were always down, the air was thick and hot, the wind would be blowing and you could smell canola for miles and miles. Ah….


Finally, I had a crazy flashback to 2008. My teammate and friend, Grant Golding, and I drove to Edmonton together for one of our final training camps before the Beijing Games. I could remember the feelings of anticipation and the conversations that Grant and I had almost to the word. We talked about what was going to happen after the Olympics and where life would take us. It's funny to look back on that now because Grant knew he was going to join Cirque and I knew that I wanted to continue speaking and get more involved in broadcasting. I guess the fact that I was driving to a gymnastics training camp today, something I haven't done in quite a while, fuelled this little tid bit of nostalgia. Still, it was weird. It felt like I was on my way to actually train at camp and I had forgotten my grips…but then I had a huge sigh of relief when I realized that I don't have to do a single routine! Not even a backflip if I don't want to:) I'm just here to inspire excellence and to help the team reach their ultimate potential at the Worlds Championships and Olympic Qualifier in October.


It's funny how a smell, a song or even driving a familiar route can immerse you right back into your past. They say that memories can last a lifetime - I sure hope they're right!

New Wheels - Courtesy of Kendra Ohama

I would like to send out a huge thanks to Kendra Ohama for lending me her extra chair for the next while. Kendra is a Canadian Paralympic athlete with wheelchair Basketball.

I sincerely appreciate Kendra's generosity and kindness. She is an extremely talented athlete (did you know that she can go down stairs in her chair? She was willing to teach me how, but I didn't feel like cracking my head open!) and a pretty incredible person.

This whole experience has given me a much greater appreciation and respect for those who have to live life everyday with a disability. I am not even going to pretend that I truly understand what that life is like, but I have been faced with many situations where I get super frustrated and upset because the disabled access simply sucks. Bathrooms, buses, airplanes, restaurants...life is definitely more challenging when you have limited access. Meeting with Kendra yesterday gave me a new outlook though. Kendra has an amazing energy and you can tell that she faces everyday with total optimism. She really does see things with a pro-active perspective. I guess you have to when you are always faced with situations where your problem solving skills need to be sharp. She inspired me!

Good Luck Kendra (and to all of your teammates as well!) in the upcoming year! Thanks again for the lender and I'll see you in Beijing!

6 am

There is something pretty surreal about getting up at 6am on a Saturday morning and driving to the gym when no one else is on the road. I guess it puts you in a weird state of mind because you know that most others in the city are sleeping in...or maybe just going to bed!

I have always been hugely inspired by and maybe a little envious of those who can wake up early and get an ambitious start on their day.

I have never been the type who likes waking up at the crack of dawn and going to the gym. This is maybe because our primary training has always been in the afternoon and morning training was just a wake up and warm up type of regime.

Not anymore though. Not for the past 2 months. Right after we received our draw for Worlds and learned that we would be competing in the 5th subdivision, first thing in the morning on the second day of men's qualification, we immediately changed our routine and started making the first training (8-10:30) the time when we do routines and get the bulk of our work done. I must say that I have adapted pretty well, but there are still the days when I feel a little sorry for myself and my body that I have to pound and swing just after the sun comes out!

I am proud of myself though because I have taken the high road and accepted (not like I had much of an option) the fact that I need to be energized and focused in the morning. I have been going to bed early (seriously, who goes to bed at 9pm?...me!) and I've been getting up ready to go. I have actually embraced the change, and I kind of like it now. I am able to get in to the gym, get my work done, leave and still have some time in the rest of the day to accomplish all of the other tasks that life throws my way. I guess that's the reward. When everyone else is just starting the grind, I am done with the hardest part of my day and I can just laugh at everyone else who still has major tasks to accomplish!

Maybe this draw was a blessing in disguise because it does cater to my work ethic. I am not one who likes to waste time and draw things out. I like to keep a fast pace and move from one event to another. "Get in, Get it done and get out!". That is one of the motto's I live by.

It's a pretty cool feeling when you have adopted a characteristic of a lifestyle you envy. For me, that is an early riser who embraces the day...even if everyone else is still in their cozy, warm beds catching up on sleep!


K.

Locking Doors

Many say that you should unlock every door that you possibly can in order to achieve success. I heard something different the other day and it has changed my whole way of thinking.

I was visiting my sport psychologist, Dr.Hap Davis, and we were talking about how things are going with 3 weeks left until Worlds. I told him that I am feeling good, training has been going pretty well...but there is one thing that I feel is missing. I have been having a lot of random thoughts lately. Before I go up to the highbar (I almost put bar here, but then I read it back and it seemed like I'm a booze hound!) or step onto the floor, I have been thinking about a lot of random things rather than my actual performance. I don't know why I do this and I don't even really know what the thoughts are...all I know is that they have nothing to do with what I am about to do and it freaks me out a little bit!

It might be because I am ready and I am trying to distract myself from the routine so that I can just let it happen in a 'zoned' state, but I don't think that's it. It might be because I am so afraid sometimes of making a mistake that I just want to think of everything and anything possible that will distract me from this negative self talk. It could be because I have been doing gymnastics for 19 years of my life and sometimes it is just impossible to get into an adrenaline rushed and painfully focused state...who knows. I could go analyze it at so many levels and I probably wouldn't figure it out completely. I don't really want to either...I just want to be able to concentrate on my performance and feel present and confident while doing so.

Here was Hap's theory:

He asked me if I ever drive away from my house, but turn around a couple of blocks away to make sure I put the garage door down...I hate to admit it, but I do this at least once a week (If not embarrassingly more!). He asked me if I ever drive to the gym, start walking away from my car, but then stop and turn around and walk back to my car to make sure I locked the door. I do that! I really really do...I think I might have a bit of OCD, maybe more than a little! I always have that little voice in the back of my head saying, "did you do this?". That voice is so annoying and I think I would call it "Self Doubt".

Hap said that I am probably doing the same thing with my gymnastics. Doubting myself and my ability to do something when I want to. He actually said that after 19 years as an athlete, one has to start being really creative in their ways of self-doubt because everyone has it and many have already exhausted most "normal" forms. My creative way is to completely stop trusting myself, think totally random thoughts and to start questioning things that I have been doing fine for the past 10 years. Not cool.

So here is the challenge:

I have to make a conscious effort everyday to get out of my car, shut my door, point my keys at the door, say to myself, "I am locking the door", push the button, and walk away knowing and trusting that my door is indeed locked. How do I know it is locked? Because I consciously locked it. Sounds easy enough.

Here is the comparison:

I have to treat my performances or turns in the gym like my car door. Before I go I have to make a conscious effort to be focused. No random thoughts. I have to say something positive to myself like, "I am going to do a great routine". This will make me present and give me some clarity right before I go. I have to trust myself and my declaration. I have to know that when I say I am going to do something good then I am going to put forth a great effort to do it good.


I applied this theory today at the gym. Before each turn I thought to myself, "Lock the door". I pictured the feeling I have when I have consciously locked the door and the trust I get from doing it and knowing that I have done it.

I had an amazing training and I haven't felt so present and strong in a long time. I have to be honest though...I still need a little bit of work on the whole locking my real car door thing. It has become such a horrible habit for me to be thinking about a thousand different things at once and forgetting to focus on the task at hand. I promise I am working on it and one of these days soon I am going to get through an entire day knowing that my crap won't get stolen from my car!


No more opening doors...it's all about truly knowing they are shut and LOCKED!

Bloggin' It!

Hello and welcome to my blog! It has been a long time coming, but finally here it is.

I thought it would be appropriate to start this as the one year count down to the 2008 Beijing Olympics begins.

My goal is to share my thoughts and my journey as the games approach. I want this to be more than a "Gymnastics Journal". I want to keep everyone informed of what's going on in my world, but I also want to share some of the more intriguing views, insights and perceptions that I am continually gaining from life.

I hope you come by often. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Kyle