University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
Ask The Bruins - Dec. 2, 2010
December 02, 2010 | Gymnastics
Dec. 2, 2010
Due to an overwhelming response, UCLA Gymnastics head coach Valorie Kondos Field will be extending Ask The Bruins over the course of the season, and it will now be a weekly feature! A select amount of questions will be answered every Thursday.
To submit questions for future Q&As, CLICK HERE.
This week's questions/answers:
Megan (Glendale): Hi Miss Val, I'm a big fan of your choreography, and I'd like to know about any routines you're excited about this year, choreography-wise. Are there any that tell a story such as Anna Li's did last year?
Miss Val: Actually, I've enjoyed working on all of them. It's always fun for me to see if I can get gymnasts to move in ways they haven't moved before or to get them to really "listen" to their music and move because the music motivates the movement versus "I'm doing this move because Miss Val told me to." None of them tell a story like Anna's did, but all of them have a certain "character" to their choreography. I think the most different routine this year is Niki Tom's. She's an excellent dancer. Her routine has a 1940's feel to it, or something between a Doo Wop girl and Fred Astaire/Cyd Charisse type style. I'm also relieved that I was able to find music for Brittani McCullough that is able to stand up to last year's routine. Brittani's music is music I've used for a few different SeaWorld shows I choreographed in the last 10 years. It's one of my all time favorite pieces of music and Brittani just gets better and better. Thank you to all who sent me music suggestions for Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs. I received some great selections to choose from. I ended up using a piece that Rhonda Schwandt (former UCLA Bruin) sent me that she had edited for one of her athletes. The routine went together SO MUCH SMOOTHER than the Smooth Criminal routine. Whew.
Glendora: Is Miss Larson going to compete for UCLA in 2011? Thanks!
Miss Val: Mattie will defer college for two years. Hopefully, she will make the Olympic team, win a Gold medal (or several) and come to UCLA in Fall 2012. We will be hosting the National Championships that year. It would be an added bonus in so many ways to have her on our team besides the fact that I've waited since she was 9 years told to have her on our team.
Michael (New York): Who will likely be the AAers this season?
Which freshmen will be contributing on specific events? What VTs other than the FTY will we be seeing?
Miss Val: We've actually got quite a few AAers ready to compete all 4 events. Hopefully, everyone will stay healthy, and we'll have a nice dilemma on our hands. Samantha Peszek, Olivia Courtney, and Sydney Sawa will all contribute in the AA, and Kassidy Kozai will be able to fill in on bars, beam, and floor. She is a beautiful dancer. Vaults will stay pretty true to "college form" aka Yurchenko Full. Brittani will compete her Y 1 1/2, and Tauny Frattone will compete her half on, front pike off. We have quite a few athletes who have at least two different vaults, so our plan is to allow them to compete them during the season to prepare them for vault finals.
Matt Abularach (LA): Would you ever write book? If so, what would it be about?
Miss Val: I have been asked this many times in the past 5 or 6 years. My problem is two-fold: 1) I don't know what I have to say that hasn't already been said, and 2) the real interesting part of my journey with UCLA Gymnastics has everything to do with the opportunity I have in the position as Head Coach to affect the lives of our student-athletes, hopefully in a positive way. The stories of significant interest are not stories I imagine the student-athlete or her families would want shared in a book. So, that leaves me with - What do I have to say that hasn't already been said?
David (New York): Wondering how Vanessa Zamarripa is coming along with new skills/combinations for her elite routines? Can you share any of them? Also, is Kaelie Baer going to be back in action? Good luck this season!
Miss Val: Zam was doing really well and then over-rotated a Tkatchev and hyper-extended her elbow and sprained her ankle. She was out of training, only conditioning and stretching for over a month. She just started back training about 2 weeks ago. We'll be on track for college, but her Elite skills have had a setback.
Kaelie has had a run of bad luck with her ankle. She's just now started tumbling progressions again and is extremely motivated to compete this year. Thank you for the well-wishes; wishing you a fantastic season as well.
SuperFan#1 (Philadelphia, PA): In the past you've said that you sometimes choreograph outside of the UCLA team. What is the most unusual floor routine request you have ever had?
Miss Val: I don't really get unusual FX requests. I love being asked to help choreograph in genres that I know nothing about, like rhythmic gymnastics or drummers choreography for SeaWorld. I've also choreographed a flag routine, which was quite comical watching me try to twirl the flag around without injuring myself. My first Disney show I did was Fantasy Follies, which included most of the Disney characters. I got to put on the costumes so I could better figure out how they should move and what they could and couldn't do in the costumes. That was new and fun and actually rather difficult.
Jess (Orange County, CA): Noticed Imogen Cairns from GB was using a UCLA routine at Worlds! How did that come about? Are you doing any other elite routines? They need you!
Miss Val: Thank you. Imogen was visiting Shavahn Church a few years ago and saw our routines and loved Jordan Schwikert's. I told her she was welcome to use the choreography, and I'm glad she was able to keep it.
Canadian Fan (Vancouver, BC): Have talks with USAG about Zam re. national team & NCAA begun? Does it help to have male coaches who did elite & NCAA simultaneously in the discussion?
Miss Val: Chris Waller is our point person with USAG. It helps tremendously that both Chris and Jim Foody competed for our National Team for so many years. Chris was also a 1992 Olympian and went with Mohini Bhardwaj to the training camps and the Olympics in 2004. Chris and Marta Karolyi have a good relationship and consequently we've been able to have open dialogue with her about Vanessa and how we can allow her to compete in college and pursue her National Team dreams.
Erkki Corpuz, L.A.: Is the Gymnastics team and/or the Athletic Department planning on doing anything different to draw more fans to Pauley? You have the best team on campus, and I would love to see the girls get the support they deserve from the school and community.
Miss Val: I couldn't agree more, Erkki. I'm counting on you and 20 of your closest friends to be at our home opener, the PAC-10 Showcase, Sunday, Jan. 9th at 2 pm! Every year the athletic department and I work to figure out NEW ways to appeal to the LA area. We do the obvious each year, which includes taking members of our team for exhibitions and Q and A to local gyms, schools, and elderly homes. Our marketing department does a great job getting information into packets that are sent out from TicketMaster, local grocery stores, and Family monthly publications. The BEST thing we've recently implemented is last year we organized a Marketing Intern group. We have 8 UCLA students who contacted me and asked if they could help out with our program. With these 8 students, we established a group that meets each week and concentrates solely on our UCLA student body attendance. Last season, we increased our student attendance by approximately 800 students per meet. From what I understand, that is a huge number of students to get to a gymnastics event.
Ed (NYC): How do you instill certain values (like work ethic, etc.) into "older" athletes? It seems like that would be difficult to do in athletes that are already relatively set in their ways and nearing the end of their career.
Miss Val: Work ethic is not an issue with our athletes. The biggest issue we face each year, especially with freshmen, is getting them to compete to their full potential, and not compete "tight." All freshmen express the same thing, "Competing in college is a lot more stressful because they don't want to let their team down."
Players Mentioned
