A Leap Above Backyard Bouncing

"Just the feeling of flying, you know, being off your feet, you can't describe it, being upside down 30 feet off the ground," said 19-year-old Steven Gluckstein. He is a member of the U.S. National Trampoline Team and is currently ranked No.1 in the country. "A Leap Above Background Bouncing, Competitive Trampoline", produced by David Frank, Katie Thomas and Evelio Contreras, a video clip on "The New York Times" Web site, located in the sports section, October 2009. After learning about backpack journalism, which are the variety of tools available to the journalist in reporting today's news. It's surprising that a media professional today must possess a variety of skills, such as; photography, writing, stand-up television reporter and have some knowledge of cinematography, in order to be a journalist. The video pairs Gluckstein performing multiple routines with an audio of him explaining those different techniques. He spoke about his coach, 1996 World Champion in Women Trampoline, Tatiana Kovaleva, and how she asked him to be apart of her trampoline team that she was looking to launch some 10 years ago. Gluckstein said, "Trampoline consists of grace and extreme. It brings together gymnastics and diving, the skills are similar, we just land on our feet....most of the time." Competitive trampoline is composed of two routines, compulsory and optional. Compulsory which is the easier of the two, is judged out of 10 consecutive skills. While optional, are your 10 most difficult tricks all back-to-back, with the opportunity of getting difficulty bonus points added to your final score based on how many flips and twist are in the routine. Gluckstein met his synchro partner, Logan Dooley, in Canada at their first world cup. Both were accepted and nerves since it was their first big competition. Everyone noticed how identical they looked, and the world was bound to confuse them, so they decided to become a synchro pair. In synchronize trampoline the requirements and skill values are the same as for individual trampoline, but two athletes compete simultaneously. Each athlete gets a score, with a maximum of 10.0, which are then averaged and added together. Optional routines are also given a difficulty score. Gluckstein and Dooley believe that they are the only high-level synchronized trampoline team that does not regularly train together, since Gluckstein lives in New Jersey and Dooley lives in California. However, with the perfection they execute in their routines, no one would be able to tell.