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Training, Saturday, February 11, Competition, Sunday, February 12, 2012
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Welcome to the KMC Trampoline Team

Looks Like Yet Another Winning Season:

Welcome to the KMC Trampoline Team web site!

It looks like our great performance from last year is repeating itself. We just returned from the 2011 State Meet, and every one of our athletes qualified for Nationals. We go on to Regionals able to do our best without the worry of qualifying scores hanging over our heads.

Who we are and What we do:

We are a USA Gymnastics (USAG) member club, and we compete in USAG sanctioned Trampoline & Tumbling (TT) events in Region 6, which includes Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and in the USAG TT National Meet. We specialize in Trampoline and Double Mini-Trampoline. We also have some interest in Power Tumbling, but we are not yet equipped to train on that event at above an intermediate level. We train at the KMC Dance and Gymnastics center in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

Our motto is "Born to Bounce." Our current crop of athletes ranges in age from 6 to 17. We generally recruit from our trampoline classes, but take on others, especially those who want to compete in gymnastics, but are daunted by the rigors of artistic gymnastics. This includes some who started gymnastics at a later age than most, and kids whose air sense reaches beyond their upper body strength. We also take on dual citizens: our season does not overlap completely with artistic gymnastics, so kids who want to extend the competition season, and develop their air sense are also welcome. Our sport has been described as an extreme sport, and can be a controlled outlet for sensation seekers. If any of this describes you or your kids, come and visit us for a workout.

History

Competitive trampoline is not new. NCAA had varsity trampoline competition until 1969 as part of gymnastics. Starting in the early 1970s, it fell out of favor in the US, and remained exiled for a couple of decades, although high-schools in a few states (e.g. Illinois, Minnesota, Texas) kept it a while longer. Meanwhile, Europe kept the competition going, developed sensible competition rules and learned a lot about technique. Trampoline made a resurgence in the US in the 1990s, under the auspices of the International Trampoline Federation (FIT) and the American Trampoline and Tumbling Association (ATTA). Events were power tumbling, double mini-trampoline, and trampoline. Trampoline became an Olympic sport in 2000. (Australia added it). As part of that move, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) absorbed the FIT, and USAG absorbed the ATTA.

What's Trampoline Competition Like?

Trampoline is unusual in that it puts girls and boys on an equal footing. They compete using the same rules and same compulsory routines, often in the same meets. Technically, boys will only be competing with other boys, same for girls, but it really wouldn't make that much difference if they did compete with each other. Brute strength doesn't get you much. For development and competition purposes, there are 10 levels, just like girl's and boy's artistic gymnastics, although nobody competes less than level 4. Most kids start at level 5. Up through level 7, it is all compulsory routines. Levels 8, 9, and 10 do optionals and compulsories, and get a combined score. All routines have 10 skills, and the higher the level, the more rotating you will see. Level 5 compulsory routine has only two rotation skills, while the level 10 compulsory has nearly all rotation skills. Scoring in trampoline accentuates the effect of form and technique over difficulty. More often than not, the athlete who does simpler skills with precision will beat the one who adds difficulty but looks bad.

Training is not as brutal as artistic gymnastics. Men don't go past their 20s in artistic gymnastics (internationally), but men in their 40s have made the trampoline national team (and it did not look far-fetched).

There is a week-long national meet in June, and Trampoline is exceptional in USAG in that it has national competition for the lower levels. The first 3 days of Nationals are for the optional levels 8-10, and the last 3 days are for the compulsory only levels 5-7. It does make sense. The numbers are still small regionally, and some combinations of age group and level are very small. The kid who has been winning in his or her age-group by default most of the year finally gets some competition at regionals and nationals.

What Does KMC Offer?

This is the 15th year for KMC Trampoline. KMC had a very good trampoline team for its first 11 years, with its share of national champions, under the direction of Don Furrer. Don had to give up the team in 2007 because of other pressing needs in the gym. Paul Wileyto took over, and tried running it as a class, but he soon realized that competition provided the motivation to improve. And so, the KMC trampoline team was reborn in 2008. The parents group pulled itself back together with mostly new people, and we ran one of the best meets of the season at home through sheer will, and the help of a lady who knows how to organize stuff (Super-Mom Beverly K.). In June of 2009, we took 6 of our kids to Nationals in San Jose, including 3 boys who were in their first year of trampoline competition.

In 2010, the National Championship was in our own backyard (Virginia Beach). Our goal was to get everyone qualified to go. We succeeded in qualifying every one of our athletes, and came back from nationals with a couple of National Champions. Special congratulations go to Joseph Kozlowski, National Champion on Trampoline, level 10, boys, age 11-12, and to Max Boddorff, National Champion on Double-Mini Trampoline, level 7, boys age 15+. We had a number of other kids place high, and overall, our team got more than its share of time on the awards stand. (See Results)

Watch Joe's Championship Performance here.

We began the 2010-2011 season as big as we have ever been, with 21 athletes on the team, and a pre-team group as well. We also have our second ever elite trampolinist, Joseph Kozlowski (The first was Steve Kydd, under Don's direction).

Unlike many coaches and programs, we like parental involvement. This is a bit odd, but we are following the little-league model for coaching. Paul does not do this for a living and has limited time, and trampoline coaches are hard to find, so we have been training members from the parents group to coach. Marie Caron, a team parent, had some gymnastics background coming in, and Matt Leonard was a former member of the team in its prior incarnation. Both have gotten their professional memberships, taken coaching training, and having those extra eyes and hands in the gym makes it all work. The big surprise has been Beverly K., who started out as a team parent, but has been very consistent in taking every bit of coaching training that she can. She had a very big hand in our team's great performance at nationals, and will probably end up taking on the role of elite coach (she has the temperament for it). In addition, we encourage parents who have been watching this competition for a while to take the courses and exams, and become certified to judge. Trampoline and tumbling is in need of judges, and it is far easier than judging artistic gymnastics.