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I'm sorry if someone has already uploaded this here, but it's floating around Facebook and I thought I'd share it.
Jackie Bender was a Canadian gymnast/acrobat. I've pasted some interesting bits from an interview below.
EDIT! Oh yeah, SHE'S BURLY.
How did you learn the handstands?
In addition to the team coaches, we had a ‘handstand’ coach. His name was Vladimir Bereschnoy, he was from the USSR. Mr. ‘B’, as we called him, helped me to develop strength, flexibility and balance and taught me the foundation skills backward roll to headstand and 1-arm press to handstand.
Most of the skills were his ideas, drawn largely from circus performers. As I became more proficient in performing them, I added nuances to make them my own.
Did it take a long time for you to learn those original skills ?
It took a very long time to learn those skills. I spent the first two years of my gymnastics career developing the strength, flexibility and balance to be able to perform them.
For most of my career, I trained 5 days per week about 8 hours per day: 5 hours with the team and an additional 3 hours on handstand work alone. During the early ears, from age 6 until 12, I trained 6 days per week… one day per week was spent on handstand work alone.
What is the most difficult skill you performed ?
The 1-arm press to handstand was one of the most difficult skills to learn. It required a significant amount of strength and balance to perform well.
The backward roll to headstand was very simple and a lot fun! That is, once I had mastered the headstand. However, it was a challenge to perform with minimal leg and arm movement because I used my limbs to balance.
The handstands I performed with the extreme back bends were challenging for me because I did not have a naturally flexible back. I developed that flexibility through intense training.
In retrospect, I wish that I had ‘listened’ to my back, and reported my pain more often.
There were many original skills that I worked on but did not perform in competition. There is footage of most of them but they are not all included in the video that is now on YouTube.
Offhand, I can think of a couple:
1) free-headstand mount on the beam from the beat board without hands
2) 1-arm pike press to handstand (instead of straddle)
3)1-arm hops.
Also, I performed 1-arm press to handstand on both my left and right arms. When I was about 10 years old, I fractured the growth plate in my right elbow while doing a release move on the uneven bars. While I was recovering from that injury, I learned how to do a 1-arm press to handstand on my left arm. To build strength and master the skill, my coach encouraged me to do several press to handstands in a row.
My record was 67 press-to-handstands in a row. i.e, continuously. The men's coach at a gymnastics camp in the US challenged me to a press-to-handstand competition against the entire boys team!
I lost by 3 press-to-handstands. The entire boys team performed 70 press-to-handstands collectively and I did 67 in a row by myself. My record for 1-arm press-to-handstands was 7 on my right arm and 5 on my left arm.
You stopped competing in high level because of back injuries. Can you tell us more about that ?
I fractured one of my vertebrae when I was about 12 years old and struggled with back pain from that point onward. I retired at age 18 due to a degenerative disc condition. Health care professionals believe that my back injury was likely a consequence of the high impact nature of the sport.
I believe the skills I performed with extreme back bends contributed to my back injury. As I mentioned previously, I did not have a naturally flexible back. I developed that flexibility through intense training.
I wonder what she does these days.