Young students of the Alina Kabaeva Sky Grace Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy have started practicing with the ribbon during special physical training sessions.
Anna Ustsova, the 1996 European champion and the Academy coach, explained why pre-juniors are now paying great attention to practicing with a new apparatus.
“We began to take the ribbon more often, because according to the Sky Grace, they should already know how to do it at a young age. We hold special physical training and teach the simplest things. For now, the ribbon doesn’t listen to them too well. It gets stuck to the body, wraps around the arms, and the neck. But that’s okay, because every day it gets better and better! The more often we do it, the better it will turn out.”
The professional also noted that young gymnasts would have their first performance with the ribbon soon.
“We are already slowly putting together this program. We started working on it. We had this with the jump rope, with the emphasis on the jump rope. The next step is the ribbon!”
Gymnasts are performing with five objects in the all-around under the Sky Grace rules: the rope, the hoop, the ball, the clubs, and the ribbon.