The Star :: Friday, August 22, 2008

THE compulsory artistic gymnastic session as part of the physical education programme for primary school pupils at the Sri Kuala Lumpur in Subang Jaya has paid dividends.

About 800 pupils from Year One to Year Five are undergoing the elementary training session conducted by the Total Gymnastique at least once a week.

The centre’s chief coach, Mike Ng, said the initiative had created a broader base of promising gymnasts at the grassroots. 

 
Total domination: Sabrina extending her command in the girls’ special group category

Recently, 96 pupils featured in three categories - Year One, Year Two-Three and Year Four-Five - in the school’s fourth inter-house competition.

“Other primary schools should follow Sri Kuala Lumpur’s effort and allow their pupils to improve their physical fitness and pick up the slick acrobatic skills at a very young age. For the past four years, we have been hosting the internal annual meet for the trainees to gauge their progress against their peers and about 100 competitors are in the fray for each season,” Ng added.

Each of the four houses - Red, Green, Blue and Yellow - fielded four gymnasts to vie for honours in each category.

The three disciplines for the boys included floor exercise, vault and parallel bars while the girls had to execute their routines in the floor exercise, vault and balance beam.

For the beginners in Year One, they are required to perform the basic routines equivalent to Level One classification by the Malaysian Gymnastics Federation (MGF).The newcomers have just started training at the beginning of the year. Despite working out for only once a week, they have coped well to master the moves within a short period.

“We will increase the difficulty for them to move up to another level. The parallel bar is the toughest event for the boys because they need to support their body weight in performing the pendulum swings.

“It is also an uphill task for the girls to combine skills and balance on the balance beam,” said Ng.

Faisal Mohd of Red emerged as the best new kid on the block for clinching the individual overall title in the boys’ Year One section.

Ng acknowledged that Faisal was an emerging talent based on his good work rate in training.

“He is very diligent with the strength-conditioning training. In addition, he is also very flexible,” Ng added.

From the recent evaluation, four boys and four girls were also picked to compete in the Under-10 age-group of the Selangor Schools Sports Council (MSSS) Mini Olympics.

This year, two gymnasts - Nur Sabrina Mohammad and Chong Shin Yee - from the school have earned the places to represent MSSS at the Malaysia Schools Sports Council (MSSM) meet.

The duo also dominated the girls’ special category section to finish ahead of three other competitors at the recent meet.

 
Flexibility: A competitor performing a back arch in the floor exercise.

Sabrina made a clean sweep in all three events to clinch the overall title while Chong took the second spot.

“We had only three participants in the boys’ special group. From our experience, the girls are showing better commitment to do well and progress to the next stage.

“In contrast, the boys are easily distracted and they are more interested in taking part in other sports that offer them a lot of fun,” said Ng.