Greg Roe

Gregory Vladimir Roe (born May 17, 1990) is widely known as the developer of Freestyle Trampoline which is a new branch of acrobatics in which the athletes take a leading role in their training and competitive structure compared to the coaching-centred approach that has traditionally been the prevailing narrative in acrobatics for its entire history. Canadian acrobatic specialist, coach, social media influencer and athlete who has won several national gold medals in the gymnastics and trampoline disciplines. Greg is well known in the acrobatic industry for his daring skills and stunts on social media. He has appeared on numerous television shows including America's Got Talent (2015),[1][2] Discovery Channel, Daily Planet,[3] and Das Supertalent (Germany),[4] showcasing his unique acrobatic talents. He currently is co-founder of the Freestyle Trampoline Association and works on many acrobatic based projects around the world.

Early life

Vladimir Demidov was born on May 17, 1990 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, (now Moscow, Russia). Roe spent the first five years of his life in an orphanage until he was adopted by a Canadian family. Maureen and Randy Roe, from Brampton, Ontario, Canada, welcomed Roe into their home along with their son, Douglas. Roe embraced his new Canadian culture but would keep his Russian name as a middle name, becoming Gregory Vladimir Roe.

The orphanage has had lasting effects on Roe's mentality and how he views the world. The orphanage was rough on him and he took that rough mentality to Canada and struggled to fit in. He was regularly disciplined at school and got into physical altercations often. Diagnosed with ADHD, Roe found it hard to keep focused on one thing and was kicked out of his first gymnastics class by Alex Bard, former Gymnastics Women's National coach, and was told he would never make it in the sport. As he gradually became socially developed Roe would learn to use sport as an aggression relieving mechanism as well as a focusing agent for what would become his future lifelong passion.

Education

Greg Roe found his calling in college in the fitness industry and began to dive into the literature. He attended Humber College (North Campus) in Etobicoke, Toronto from 2009 to 2010. Roe then applied to University of Guelph-Humber’s Kinesiology program (2011–2013) to obtain his Bachelor's degree. His trampoline career was taking off at the same time and he was named to Team Canada in 2010.

During his last year at university, Roe interned at the Canadian Sport Centre Ontario (CSCO) where he would test Olympic athletes from across Canada. He later worked at CSCO as a fitness tester and worked with different teams on a contract basis.

Along with his Kinesiology background, Roe is certified by the National Canadian Coaching Program for Level 2 Gymnastics, Level 3 Trampoline Coach, Weightlifting, and International Society for the Advancement of anthropometry Level 1. Greg is also CanFit Pro Certified and has a valid CPR and Risk management Certification.

By far, Roe's experience traveling has given him insights into different cultures' views on the sport that has shown to be a crucial element in the educational process. He takes these experiences and utilizes them to be able to see from many different points of view which is crucial in coaching any athlete.

Career

Gymnastics

His second gym, after the incident with the former head coach, Gymnastics Giants, closed when Roe was 11 years old and he moved to Bramalea Gymnastics under head coaches Doron Kernerman and Titus Ruddock.  He was eventually awarded the top male athlete at Bramalea and began winning medals at competitions once he began to focus more on his training.

Bramalea Gymnastics eventually closed due to lack of funding and Greg was forced to move to another gym. This time when he went back to Gymnastics Mississauga with Alex Bard and this time he was accepted because he was now highly focused. Roe then began working with Men's coaches Chris Foo and Gary Isaacs. He won a gold medal at the Canadian Nationals on the Parallel bars in 2007 in Level 6 Open National Level.

Roe began training for Junior and senior National competitions but decided the strict environment did not give him the freedom to train the way he wanted.  He then made the decision to move out of the gymnastics program and into trampoline in 2008. From there he began competing in trampoline full-time and excelled with his gymnastics background.

Trampoline

After leaving gymnastics in 2008, Roe quickly adapted to the sport of trampoline. During his gymnastics career he had attended SkyRiders Trampoline facility in Richmond Hill Ontario, just north of Toronto. He trained only once a week as a recreational athlete to complement his gymnastics training.

Once Roe began to compete in trampoline, he quickly moved through the levels, winning Canadian Nationals in his first year at the Junior National Level. He earned his way onto Team Canada, head coached by Olympic coach Dave Ross only two years later and was consistently placing top three nationally. In 2010 he began to compete internationally, representing Canada at several World Cup competitions.

He was named Senior National Synchronized Champion along with teammate Sebastien St-Germain in 2013.[5] He also received a Highest Difficulty Award at the Aalsmeer Flower Cup in The Netherlands in March 2011.[5]

Though Roe was quickly proving he could be a strong contender on the world stage, teammates and coaches note that "Greg never really liked to compete, he just put up with it so he could bounce on the giant supertramp." Roe's true passion was inventing new skills and experimenting with new skills and coaching philosophies that were highly outside the norm and often looked down upon by his teammates, coaches and the wider industry. Roe, having an independent attitude from birth, saw no real issues with these struggles but eventually, his independent attitude mixed with his natural aggression caused him to get into political conflicts with his federation.

At the same time, Roe was utilizing social media and was quickly becoming world-renowned for his online videos through Facebook and Instagram. His online status really took off with the release of a trampoline video on YouTube shot by famous Youtuber and movie director Devin Supertramp. It was the first video of a traditional trampoline athlete receiving international recognition through an online platform and really paved the way for Roe's career as a social media influencer.

Around this time in 2013–2014, Roe was officially kicked off of Team Canada because they felt he did not fit the culture of Team Canada. After receiving an official letter from Dave Ross, Roe looked at the situation as an opportunity to reinvent the sport in his own image and went on to create Freestyle Trampoline as a new community and sport.

Coaching

Roe began teaching at the age of 12 as a ‘Coach in Training’ (CIT) at Bramalea Gymnastics. He began to host coaching clinics and now trains athletes and other coaches around the world such as Cirque du Soleil performers, Lords of Gravity; a popular basketball dunk team in Hungary as well as many others. Roe is currently the head trampoline coach for Snowboard Germany's national Slopestyle and Half Pipe teams. He works with all three sectors of the industry; garden trampolines, trampoline parks and traditional trampoline.

in 2018 Roe created the very first Indonesian Trampoline Team for the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta. He continues to remotely train the team through online videos and webinars as they develop. He has worked with many of the Nitro Circus athletes who tour the world performing amazing stunts and utilize his 'out of the box' thinking to help with their extreme stunts, which is also his specialty.

Trampoline parks are a relatively new sector of the global acrobatic industry and Greg has been working with park managers and owners to help promote safety and education in trampoline parks. Parks are notoriously known for poor safety standards and where many traditional coaches have turned their back, Greg and his team have taken an active role with different brands and organizations to help provide education for this new sector.

His coaching philosophy is unique from other coaches in the industry. Traditional acrobatics is based on a linear 2-dimensional trial and error process guided by a coach. Greg believes that this creates athlete dependency and he has demonstrated that the athletes have very little ability to problem solve with novel situations with this top-down approach. Roe believes that by giving the athletes more control over their training with a no-hand spotting mentality, the athletes can learn to take control over their own training and thereby be more likely to properly self regulate in any situation whether a coach is present or not. He believes that as the industry expands into new markets of uneducated individuals performing acrobatics with no mandatory education, it is more important to train self-regulatory training plans.

Greg's unique 3-dimensional model of developing acrobatics looks at acrobatics as a metaphorical 'map' that needs to be loaded and athletes can 'load' the different parts of the map by doing many different types of skills going through many different axes. For him, an athlete gains spatial awareness by going through the movements and building neuronal circuits corresponding to each skill. He imagines every known skill being simply a string of different degrees of rotation within the body joints and around the different axes of the body. He teaches athletes to be able to 'build' their skills like a tower in any way they wish in a controlled manner by simply stacking the different degrees upon each other in different orders.

In his book "Coaching Creatures – The Unsolved Circuits," he describes the science and practical experience behind this 'build up' approach. It builds confidence in the athletes and gives them complete control over their training whether they are inside a controlled gym or outside in a foreign environment.

This hands-off approach is very popular with the new Freestyle Trampoline sector of the market which pride themselves in taking control over their own training. Greg simply teaches them how to control their training on their own terms in a safe way.

Business career

After leaving Team Canada Roe decided to study marketing and business development. Instead of going to school, he started traveling and gaining valuable practical experience by sitting down with many leaders in the industry and outside of it. He mixed his theoretical research education from University with his practical competitive experience and used business-minded individuals to help him learn how to package his unique coaching style and social media presence to be able to influence the industry on a global perspective.

In 2013 he partnered with Trish McGeer from inGear Productions and leading airbag manufacturer Bagjump Action Sports GmbH (Austria) and began a series of training clinics across Europe. He also performed at the Baltic Games in 2014 (Poland), Bravalla Festival(Sweden), on Das Supertalent (Germany) in 2014, and on America's Got Talent in 2015. He effectively became a social media influencer and was the first for his industry.

Greg used his influence to help brands reach their audience and to help spread education around the world to all three sectors of acrobatics and to other sports that utilize aerial movements such as Flyboarding and Wind Tunnel Flying.

Greg lives on the road traveling meeting up with different members of his team to work on different projects.

Freestyle Trampoline Association

In 2017 Greg and Trish created the first-ever official Freestyle Trampoline competition called the Garden Trampoline Games (GT Games). The event was a huge success with international media recognition and sparked the creation of Freestyle Trampoline as a new sport that was grown online according to the New York Times. Greg and Trish quickly created the Freestyle Trampoline Association (FTA) to govern these events worldwide and have operated for several years offering a new way to compete and train acrobatics for the new generation. The FTA has many partners around the world and has their own educational platform called the GRT Network and offer a certification for freestyle athletes and coaches to learn his 3-dimensional model of acrobatics. The FTA runs several series around the world for all different levels of athletes such as Freestyle Frenzy for the top athletes and Tramp Champ for the new athletes. The FTA is the first-ever association for these kinds of events and has been cited in media around the world for their innovation within a traditional industry.

Charity work

Roe has helped create a trampoline based charity named Seabound International[6] that provides trampolines and programs in Honduras. He also supports the U.S based charity Massive Amounts Of Good (MAOG).[7]

A Few Media Appearances

References
  1. America's Got Talent (June 30, 2015), Greg V Roe: Man Performs Amazing Twists During 18-Story Jump – America's Got Talent 2015, retrieved March 8, 2016
  2. Kennedy, John R. "Canada's Greg Roe jumps into next round of 'America's Got Talent'". Global News. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  3. "Daily Planet – We are totally amazed by Greg Roe... | Facebook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  4. Das Supertalent YouTube Channel (November 22, 2014), Supertalent 2014 Greg Roe 'Bag Jumper', retrieved March 8, 2016
  5. "Greg Roe Trampoline | LinkedIn". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  6. "Our Team". Seabound Trampoline International. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  7. "It's Showtime at AirTime Trampoline". PRWeb. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
  8. ENQUÊTE : LE PHÉNOMÈNE G-TRAMP ! (TRAMPOLINE FREESTYLE), retrieved October 31, 2019
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