First FIG Academy in Sports Aerobics

1st Aerobic Academy
in August in Eaubonne

This coming August in Eaubonne (near Paris), Aerobic Gymnastics will become the second FIG discipline after Artistic Gymnastics to conduct an FIG Academy. In order to prepare for that first Academy, the Aerobic Gymnastics Working Group spent a week in early April to assure that all of the content and material will be finalized and ready. The meeting was held at the Centre Departmental de Formation et D’Animation Sportives (CDFAS) in Eaubonne which will also be the location ...

... for the technical and theory lectures and housing for the Academy in August. The Aerobics Academy Working Group consists of:

- Ron Weese (Sport Theory Professor),
- Holly Abraham,
- John Atkinson (President of the Aerobic Gymnastics TC),
- Valerie Grandjean,
- Hardy Fink (Director of FIG Education and Academy Programs),
- Maria Fumea (world’s most successful Aerobics coach from Romania), and
- Slava Corn (Vice-president of FIG and Executive Committee member resp. for Academies).

The Aerobics Academy >> Level 1 will serve to educate Aerobic Gymnastics coaches by offering 33 hours of lectures on the most contemporary and relevant knowledge. There will be ten 90-minute theory lectures (2 Anatomy, 1 Biomechanics, 4 Training Theory, 1 Age Group Issues, and 2 Psychology). These will be interspersed among twelve technical lectures on all aspects of preparing Aerobic gymnasts. The week long course will include continuous evaluation as well as theory and technical assessments at the end. There is no doubt that those who complete the Academy will have their Aerobics coaching knowledge and expertise improved massively.

The Aerobics Working Group was essentially sequestered in the meeting room but did have one opportunity to visit the French Gymnastics Federation Offices at the kind invitation of President Jacques Rey and to see the Cirque de Soleil performance of Saltimbanco and then meet and dine with the performers – many of them known by the Working Group members – afterwards.
The FIG has provided enormous human and financial resources to provide a high quality and highly focused coaches’ education program for Aerobic Gymnastics. The FIG hopes that that effort will be reciprocated by the interest and participation of all invited federations at the Academy in Eaubonne on August 19-25.
Source: FIG; Hardy Fink

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