Can you do a Handstand?

Can you do a handstand? Maybe not yet, but like all gymnastics skills, with a little practice, you’ll improve and be able to do it. Camps are the perfect place to try it, learn a few tips, and practice.

Here are a few tips to help you learn to do a perfect gymnastics handstand.

• First find a wall and use it to balance against. Stand back from the wall, plant your hands about a foot away, kick up, and lock your elbows.
• Your arms should cover your ears. Your legs should be straight and together, and your toes pointed towards the ceiling.
• Keep your stomach tight, and your back straight, not arched.
• Look down at your hands, but don’t stick your head out too far.

When you feel your balance improving, you can try your handstand without using the wall. Here is where it’s good to have a spotter help you balance by holding your legs once you kick up.

Doing a handstand is one of those great camp gymnastics skills that’s fun to learn, exciting to practice, and super cool once you can do it.

Tetherball Games Strategies

Do you have this in common with Napoleon Dynamite— being a tetherball champ? Sure you’ve played before at camp, and you know how to play tetherball, but maybe you need a few more strategies to really pump up your game. Here’s a couple of things to practice.

The most important strategy is mastering an extreme angle when serving. By hitting the ball sharply down, it can swing high over your opponent’s head. This is always a good tactic.

It’s also important to use both hands when playing tetherball. You can hit the ball more powerfully, but also add unexpected spins and hits by changing which hand hits the ball. You can surprise and confuse the other player with different fast/slow, open/closed, left/right hand maneuvers.

Equally important to mastering tetherball is being quick on your feet. Moving forward and backward quickly, and knowing when to move sideways. This not only makes it difficult for the other player to decide how to serve or hit the ball, it gives you a better chance to make defensive hits.

Of course, being a tetherball sports champ takes practice, but that’s what camp is for!

OK, do you have any other tetherball tips, strategies or tactics?

Riflery Camp for Girls

Hey what’s your score? When girls select riflery as one of their camp activities, they first learn the basics of shooting. After some practice, camp girls develop their marksmanship skills and begin to shoot more evenly. When they can consistently hit higher scores, they can pass through a series of NRA ratings and earn special “Light Rifle Qualification” awards.

On these official targets, a bullseye earns a score of 10. That means the ordinary round of five bullets can total 50 in all. One “course” is 20 shots (4 rounds of 5 bullets) for a total possible score of 200. So if, from the prone, or lying down, position, you can shoot two courses that score 100, that earns you the “Pro-Marksman” rating. If you improve and can shoot two courses of 125, you earn the “Marksman” rating. And it goes up from there: 3 courses of 150 earns “Marksman First Class,” 4 courses of 165 earns “Sharpshooter,” and 6 courses of 180 earns the “Expert” rating. Wow!  That sure would take a lot of practice!

Learn more about these ratings over at the NRA website.

Shooting Guns at Camp? Yikes!

Sometimes parents are a little surprised to learn that the girls at camp learn to shoot rifles. We’ll sometimes hear, “Are those real guns?” They sure are! While our youngest girls will use “youth” rifles, everyone shoots real .22 caliber guns. This means the bullets are small 22/100ths of an inch in diameter. We also use the lowest power .22 ammunition, the “short” rimfire version. These are the perfect choice for target shooting, particularly on our youth range (25 meters or about 27 feet to the target).

Shooting is of course completely controlled and supervised at camp. The guns and ammunition are always locked and stored separately. The riflery sport instructors are trained and NRA certified to operate a rifle range, and all of the campers are taught the proper safety protocols when they choose riflery for one of their activities. So yes, the guns and bullets are real, but we do everything we can to make sure it’s very safe.

Tennis Games at Camp

Tennis always seems to be a popular sports activity at Rockbrook. Sure there are lessons and chances to have an instructor teach you more about how to be a better tennis player. Sure we have little tournaments (both singles and doubles) now and then. We can always improve our tennis skills like that. But we also play plenty of games, activities that while involving tennis are designed to be as fun (and sometimes silly) as possible.

One is called “Around the World” and it involves a group of children dividing and lining up on opposite baselines.  A child from one side hits to the other side and after hitting, runs and gets in line on the other side.  It’s kind of a rotation of players as everyone runs to the right around the court.  The goal is to see how many people in a row can hit good shots back.  You can imagine; it’s lots of action and lots of fun!

A gym game we love

It looks like a crazy, intense game of Dodge Ball! All the balls, the teams, the people zooming around grabbing, ducking, weaving, jumping and of course laughing the whole time. Games and other activities like this are always fun down at the gym, and with a little creativity, it’s easy to think up variations (like these). Got your arm warmed up and ready for a game?

Camp Girls on the Run

Rockbrook has its own “Girls on the Run” program in the summer. If you’re not familiar with it, Girls on the Run is a national program (with individual local chapters) that helps girls “develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running.” Did you know that Charlotte, one of Rockbrook’s former directors, is one of the coaches for the Brevard GOTR program? Here’s an article about it. The article does an excellent job describing the program and the benefits it provides the girls who participate. You’ll see it’s a great thing to do!

Summer Camps Tennis Games

Tennis is one of the traditional sports we play at Rockbrook. It’s another summer camp activity that just fits perfectly. When you get out on a clay court surrounded by big trees (rather than a big slab of asphalt out in the wide open), get to goof around with your friends, and probably learn a little about playing better, it’s really great. Hey, I’ll meet you during free time before dinner and we’ll hit a few!