While the NY Icons website remains under construction while being replaced, you can still access the NY Icons Parent Portal to enroll in tumbling classes by clicking here.
If you are trying to schedule a private lesson with Coach Matt, click here.
You may also choose to access both portals from the menu above.
Cheers,
Matt Faherty, NASM-CPT, YES
It’s been a while since I posted! I have (and still am) very busy with very exciting projects! But I figured I would share a very small portion of some of the work I’m doing.
Click here to get a full body dynamic warmup that will you take your practice to a new level! This easy-to-perform warm-up prepares your muscles for even the toughest training session! It can help alleviate some minor aches and pains that may usually occur during practice and will significantly reduce your risk of future injury.
For the best results, follow the directions carefully and focus on your form! The more effort you put in, the stronger you will become.
| You may have just received a lesson cancellation notice. If you did, don’t be alarmed! This does not affect any lessons you have scheduled this week! I only canceled the lessons between July 4th – July 12th, when I will be away working at Camp Woodward, training with some of the best cheerleaders and coaches from around the world! After July 12th, I will be available for a few weeks before I go back to Woodward on August 1st until the 23rd!
Be sure to book your lessons for when I am back home between camp sessions ASAP, as I’m sure my availability will fill up fast! However, if you already have a recurring appointment scheduled, you have no need to worry. your lesson will remain at their regular time! I can’t wait to come back from camp and share all the stories, drills, and coaching techniques that I will learn at camp! And, for those athletes who will be joining me at camp during those weeks, I can’t wait to work with you at Woodward’s AMAZING facility! Have a great 4th for July, Matt Faherty |
After a hard conditioning session, I often hear parents comment “Wow! You should give me a workout!” After hearing this enough, it got me thinking that if there is enough demand for it, I could begin offering personal training sessions for parents during slow times or daytime hours, when the gym is not in use. I created the poll below to see how much interest there really is for personal training for parents and adults. Take a few seconds to vote and submit your answers! Depending on the amount of responses I get, maybe parent training will become a reality!
Thanks,
Coach Matt Faherty
I am excited to announce two new ways to save when private booking lessons on CheerFullOut.com!
The first way to save is through promotions emailed out, and shared on social media. I am experimenting with pair of promotions that I will be running through the end of May. One promotion is a 50% discount on tumbling lessons booked by college cheerleaders and open team members. The other a $15 discount on half-hour and hour tumbling lessons for “tiny” and “mini” age (8 or younger) athletes. Depending on their popularity and success, I may continue the promotions beyond May, experiment with different promotions, or a combination of the two.
Click here for the College Cheer and Open Team Promotion!
Click here for the Tiny/Mini (8 and under) Promotion!
The second new way to save when booking private lessons is the “special offers” tab when you first arrive on the Cheer: Full-Out scheduling page.
So, what are special offers? — The Special Offers feature automatically finds unfilled or less popular time slots available in my schedule each week and offers them to you at a discounted rate! Special offers are booked and paid for completely online by credit card, making scheduling, saving, and paying for private lessons easier than ever!
Click here to see this weeks special offers!
These promotions offers are currently only valid when booking lessons with Matt Faherty. I will look into expanding them to other providers in the future.
Make it a great week!
-Matt Faherty
**As I mentioned in my previous post, this post is only part of a long article I’ve been working on. This is my first installment, “Part 1”. I plan on having 3-4 “Parts” in totality. Each “Part” will have between 3-5 “Posts.” My goal of release content in chunks, like this, is to get content out more frequently, instead of having my (ever growing) folder of unfinished articles become even larger!**
As a tumbling instructor, one of the most common questions I am asked by new athletes and parents is “How long will it take to learn this skill?” Unfortunately, this question is very difficult to answer. There are many factors to consider when determining the length of time required for an athlete to master a particular skill, and these factors vary greatly from one athlete to the next. The goals of this series of articles is to help athletes and parents better understand the process of learning and mastering a skill, as well as to provide some tips on how to accelerate this process.
— The points I make in this post will apply for all tumbling skills; but for simplicity’s sake, I will be using one the most commonly learned tumbling skills by cheerleaders — the back handspring. —
The most essential components of learning any new tumbling skill are physical in nature. In order to safely perform a back handspring independently, an athlete’s body needs to be prepared to produce, utilize, and sustain the high the amounts of force involved with the skill. Strength, flexibility, coordination, and physical development are all physical aspects that affect the learning of new tumbling skills. Overlooking any of these factors could result in injuries such as sprains, fractures, concussions, or worse! Think of these physical aspects as the foundation of a building. Without a good foundation, a building could collapse. In the same way, not being physically prepared for a skill is setting yourself up for failure and/or injury when learning how to tumble.
It’s no secret that tumblers need to have strong muscles. In a back handspring, strong, fast, legs produce the explosive jump needed to propel a tumbler up and back into an inverted handstand position; strong shoulders allow the tumbler to forcefully push into the floor “springing” them from their hands back to their feet, and a strong core is essential to keeping the body moving together seamlessly throughout the skill. But strong muscles are not only used to generate the force needed to get over in a back handspring. When landing, muscles act to decelerate, or slow down, the force produced during the skill in order to protect bones, ligaments, and other vital organs from trauma. Adequate strength is essential to tumbling because it necessary to perform skills, as well as land them safely.
I hoped you enjoyed this post! Keep checking back for Part 1: Post 2: Flexibility!
-Cheers
Matt Faherty
I realize my posts have gotten more and more infrequent. It’s not so much that I don’t have any content written to post, but rather I have a file on my computer filled with half-written articles, and articles I don’t think are ready for prime time.
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If you couldn’t tell, I’m a bit of a perfectionist.
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So in an attempt to combat my growing file of unfinished work, I’m going to attempt to break up some of the longer, not fully finished articles into a series of smaller, more easy to swallow, posts. The first series will involve the elements involved when learning a new tumbling skill.
Let me know what you think!
Cheers,
Matt Faherty
I will now be offering lessons at the Core Athletix Syracuse location on Saturday afternoons. To book a lesson with Matt in Syracuse CLICK HERE. Be sure to chose the provider with the Syracuse Icon!
Core Athletix Syracuse is located at:
6261East Taft Road
North Syracuse, N.Y., 13212
Make it a great week!
-Coach Matt
I am finally home from Camp Woodward! My lesson availability has been updated to reflect my fall schedule. Book your lesson today by clicking the “Book Lesson Now” tab on the top of the page!
I will be posting a write-up of all my camp adventures and what I learned in the near future!
-Coach Matt
Full-Out: Cheer and Fitness 