Joint exercise units are prohibited during the corona pandemic. Three instructors from SV Fellbach, TSV Schmiden and TV Oeffingen talk about their experiences during this unusual time.
Fellbach – Sometimes Tatjana Rosenkranz, 25, has busy five-year-olds in her course for one hour, but then does exercises on and with the chair with a 95-year-old in the next unit. “But it is precisely this variety that is fun,” says Tatjana Rosenkranz, who works as a sports and gymnastics teacher for TV Oeffingen. In normal times it is accompanied by an extensive program. In this corona pandemic, on the other hand, it is much less fun. And this is mainly due to the fact that contact with the course participants was either limited to a minimum or is currently not allowed at all. Since this week online courses have been taking place; these are led by Sebastian Laessing, the trainee Nick König and Tatjana Rosenkranz. “I miss the children, I miss the whole life around them,” says the 25-year-old who lives in Schorndorf.
Tatjana Rosenkranz has been in the children’s sports department of the TVOe since 2018, where she is responsible for gymnastics. In ordinary times she leads three groups: students from the first and second grades, from the third and fourth grades, and students aged ten and over. Since there are often up to 25 children in a group, Tatjana Rosenkranz has the support of assistants who complete a voluntary social year. For the very little ones, an exercise unit mainly consists of playful elements. A sport-specific warm-up training and exercises on the various devices such as box or balance beam follow. In addition to the lessons in the club’s own fitness and health center OeFit – which were only permitted as individual training until the official regulation in mid-December of the previous year – Tatjana Rosenkranz also runs a cooperation with three kindergartens; in the adjoining sports halls she builds landscapes for movement. At the Gustav-Stresemann-Gymnasium she also offers childcare in cooperation with the teacher Christiane Geiger-Wernert.
In November 2019, at that time the coronavirus was still unknown in Oeffingen, Tatjana Rosenkranz was also present at the TVOe’s children’s sports festival. The trainers demonstrate something with their respective group. The event should take place again this fall. The head of department, Ingrid Schreiner, also hopes that she is very impressed with the work of her employee: “She is very committed, very open-minded and brings great ideas.” The online courses arose from the latest idea. These take place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. A guide to morning exercise, so to speak. “We hope that we can offer personal training again soon, but until then we are looking forward to numerous participants on the Internet,” says Tatjana Rosenkranz, who did gymnastics as a child. On the horse. Vaulting was her passion. Her daily program still includes a trip to Esslingen, where she visits Vrodo, Quentin and the Dutch woman Guufje. Her three horses, with whom she can spend an hour each day.
Tatjana Rosenkranz feels at home at the TVOe; because everything is “so super familiar,” as she says. And because the training is so varied. With busy five-year-olds and aged 95-year-olds.
Christian Ellinger sees an opportunity in this corona crisis for the judoka of SV Fellbach
2020 was a good year for Christian Ellinger. His daughter Liah Sophie was born in May and he has been able to spend a lot of time with her and his family in Schnait’s town in recent months. This week he also learned that the judo section in the Budo department of SV Fellbach only had four fewer members compared to last year. He’s positive about this number, and above all he attributes it to the good work of the coaching team. One of these judo trainers is called Christian Ellinger. But self-praise is alien to the 35-year-old, rather he emphasizes the good cooperation of the leadership quartet, which also includes Jeanette Miethke, Silvana Bürkle and Marc Wirths. But if you take a closer look, the upswing in judoka at SV Fellbach has been closely linked to Christian Ellinger since the beginning of this millennium.
In 2002 he founded a performance group. “We took everyone in, who wanted to play judo,” says Christian Ellinger. It was intended as additional training and it grew steadily. After a break due to his studies, Christian Ellinger returned with new ideas, the bonsai judo group for the five to seven year olds was extremely successful. Another goal was the annual training of trainers who should then take on responsibility at an early stage. An example: Tamara Heimsch.
Recently, however, the department has also lost some athletes and assistants because they moved away for work or because of their studies. Joshua Miethke, for example, or Paul Bobert, Mark Dietrich and Franziska Heimsch. “The situation was difficult even before the pandemic, and then there was Corona,” says Christian Ellinger, who works as a teacher at the Rumold Realschule in Kernen. Youth tournaments were gradually canceled. But as a result, those responsible around the department head Martina Bobert launched a judo safari for the children, based on the popular sports campaign of the German Judo Association (DJB). The participants were able to collect points at home for various tasks and receive a corresponding judo badge at the end.
Training went well over the summer months, but then the lockdown came in November and since then the training sessions have been limited to online. “It is important that we do something at all. We constantly have to reinvent ourselves and we mustn’t complain, “says Christian Ellinger, who also sees an opportunity in this Corona crisis:” We could move closer together as an association and try to put this service concept aside, not just the child in training submit.”
Christian Ellinger himself started judo at SV Fellbach when he was eight. His coach at the time was called Rupert Lautenschlager, whom he was already assisting five years later as an assistant coach. More than 50 children attended the judo courses at that time. “Those were different times, they ran into us,” says the 35-year-old. At the age of 14 he was a youth spokesman, and a little later the upswing began among the competitive athletes of the Fellbach judo department. With the 1992 vintage, which included Mark Dietrich, Marc Wirths, Raphael Plato and Sven Heinle. Christian Ellinger also laid the foundations for their success with his commitment to SV Fellbach.
Nick Lauer-Benkenstein, who looks after the young athletes at TSV Schmiden, currently has no contact with the children.
Kurt Lauer from LAZ Ludwigsburg won the title at the German U-18 championships for athletes in Heilbronn last September. In 5: 57.84 minutes he was the fastest over the 2000 meter distance with obstacles. That made his uncle Nick Lauer-Benkenstein happy too. The 45-year-old lives in Schmiden and works as a youth trainer in the athletics department of TSV Schmiden. He came to athletics very late, and it was more of a coincidence. He had the first contact with Susanne Widmann-Klein when she was still working as a supervisor in Oeffingen. Later, those responsible at TSV Schmiden, with which Susanne Widmann-Klein is involved today, were desperately looking for trainers. Nick Lauer-Benkenstein soon took over his new role. He looks after the 40 or so children between the ages of five and ten. The interest of the young athletes in Schmiden is great, but he has no contact at the moment. Due to the corona pandemic, joint training units are prohibited. “The sports field is almost irreplaceable for us,” says Nick Lauer-Benkenstein.
In ordinary times, he sees his task in introducing the children to the sport in a playful way. The team league competition in the Rems-Murr district should also help. No individual athletes are rated here, it is designed as a team sport. Up to twelve children form a team that competes in the sprint over 30 or 40 meters and the long throw. Tennis balls or bicycle tires are thrown here. The nine-year-old Yannis Lauer is also part of the young training group at TSV Schmiden. His son is probably the main reason why Nick Lauer-Benkenstein started as a supervisor around three years ago.
But last year almost nothing went according to plan. “It went very badly and it went very badly,” says Nick Lauer-Benkenstein. The first lockdown in spring 2020 was over. In June Nick Lauer-Benkenstein and his colleagues dared a new start. Initially, those responsible divided the training ground into different areas, but that didn’t really work. Also because the supervisors would have had to sort out some children for reasons of space. The hygiene concept was in place, but the discipline with small children is only partially compatible with it. They then trained outdoors until October, but the effects of the pandemic were already noticeable again. “Sometimes I was standing there all alone,” says the 45-year-old. As far as possible, he would like to continue when the authorities approve. “As long as I’m needed, I’ll stick with it.”
Nick Lauer-Benkenstein, now active in the real estate industry, grew up in Sangerhausen in Saxony-Anhalt. Already at the age of seven he was involved in sport, not in athletics, but in boxing, after he had also tried soccer and table tennis. The talented boxer was promoted and was later in the national team. Shortly after the fall of the Wall, he took part in the first all-German championships and took third place in his weight class. But a little later he stopped. There is still a German champion in the family: his nephew Kurt Lauer is the fastest over a 2000 meter obstacle.
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