Why we shouldn’t focus on Success

I have a very different definition of success. I have always believed in the oft quoted “Shoot first, what you hit, call the target” philosophy. As a coach, I have guided many athletes to great success by my definition and as defined by other people as well. I have always believed that if we focus…

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A Letter To My Coach: Mickey

J Orkowski Gymfinity

Hey Mick I just wanted to shoot you a note that says Thanks. You’ll never believe where I am. I am writing to you from my office at my own gym. I opened it in 1999, I think you were coaching in California then. It has grown each year and in 2014 we even expanded…

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Feelin pretty OK

Do you have a person (or people) who hold such respect from you that their words carry more weight? Like if they told you that you were “doin’ OK” that you would then feel like you were? I have several people like that. Some are from business, some are teachers, some are coaches, some are…

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Being Reasonably Fit

Being fit as a trend or short term is not healthy, in fact it’s just the opposite. We have to know the reason we maintain a healthy lifestyle. We should be able to have healthy pursuits in a way that our happiness is not impeded. This is exactly why “getting healthy” as a new year’s resolution never works; we obsessively push ourselves to be unhappy out of guilt and shame until we just give up and validate our poor self-image. Sounds odd for me to say, but sometimes chasing a healthy lifestyle is not what people need.

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Advice to the new Gymfinity parent

We want them to be able to not only do gymnastics but to understand gymnastics and how to think things through. Gymnastics is a great vehicle for understanding many broader concepts outside the skills they are taught.

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How we do things here.

A few weeks ago I was having a discussion with my team kids. We do a Word of the Week that focuses on character and motivation and the word was “Role Model”. I explained that it wasn’t the words that were important, it was the concept. The concept that, good or bad, other people are…

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So, you coach girls. Why?

Gymfinity Gymnasts

I have learned that boys tend to overestimate their skills, while girls tend to underestimate themselves. I have always fought for the underdog, and maybe it’s the “Yes, you can do it”-ness of coaching girls that fulfills me.

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Training Confident Kids (Part 2)

In the last post we covered how people can gain confidence by pushing the envelope of what is comfortable and what is a little out of the comfort box. Doing this frequently allows us to see things that would normally throw us into a fit of panic as only moderately stressful, and things that were…

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