Drills for beginning pommel horse?

[hakunamatata]

Alright guys, so I teach a level 4 girls class, but a little boy was put into my class this year because our gym unfortunately doesn't offer any higher level classes for boys. I know nothing about pommel horse, only that I want to try to accommodate the little boy and give him something to work on while we're on beam. If he decides he wants to move on to another gym, I want to make sure he's not completely unprepared. We have two pommel trainers, one the dome-type thing and the other with the pommels on it. The other day I had him do some supports, but that gets boring fast. Can anyone give me some suggestions for simple drills I can try with him? Maybe link me to videos you've found helpful?

Thank you!

 

[profmom]

What you have is a mushroom, and it's the apparatus on which boys learn to do the circles that they will eventually put on a pommel horse. If you google mushroom drills, you'll probably pull up a million things. Be forewarned -- the ability to do circles on a mushroom takes a good deal of time, patience, and practice to acquire!

In watching the beginner boys at our gym, it seems like most of them with at least a little upper body strength can get up into support on a pommel horse (holding the pommels with their hands) and start working on swinging their legs up and down. I'm not a coach, so hopefully one of them will chime in, but you could probably do worse than starting with Gymnastics Pommel Horse Drills and Skills Page - Tips, drills, techniques for Pommel Horse. Learn swing technique, circles, flairs, scissors.

Another good thing for beginner boys to learn, once they've got decent headstands, is the press headstand. If he moves on, having a good press headstand is good preparation for learning press handstands.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Work lots of leg swings, this will lead to many other skills on pommel. When he swings make sure his knee's are straight and toes are points, the swing does not come from lifting kegs but swinging (a pendulum action). Legs should be separated the whole swing and at the highest point of the swing the bottom foot should be higher than the bottom of the pommel and the top foot near the ear.

The leg that goes up should be turned out.mhand should be in the centre of the handles, head should stay facing forwards and still.

 

[BlairBob]

the first thing I do teach boys on Pommel is how to lean from side to side in support. Then swing their entire body side to side by leaning in the shoulders from side to side..

I skip teaching a front or backwards straddle swing and go right to swinging in the stride position. It's a pain in the butt at first. They can practice stride position holds with one leg horizontal to the side. Difficult.

I find once they figure out and are strong enough to swing this way in stride position on both sides, it's pretty easy to swing in front support with straddle swings. Otherwise, they just get a tick-tock swing.

Backward support straddle swing is a pain. Best leave it till after the stride swing. Teach it this way, get into back support, belly out. Learn how to lean side to side in shoulders. Then learn how to swing side to side in legs and hips. Important cue is to stay arched, hold the pommels in the front and pull the feet under the bottom of the horse while in support.

As for mushroom. Start with just walks an inch at a time around the mushroom while staying faced in one direction. I prefer parallel bar support circles (get in support on PB, circle hips around mushroom or blocks) and ring hip circles (hang from rings, swing hips in circles [ also good to teach straddle swings on ] ) to teach circles initially besides a bucket circle rig on the mushroom.

You can teach the initial swing past the 1st hand on mushroom as a started. Focus only on that.

Mushroom Circle Progressions - YouTube basic circle guide

GymnasticBodies.com - Bucket Circles/for building dynamic shoulder girdle support strength - YouTube bucket circle

Pommel Horse Single Leg Work and Circle Development - Yoichi Tomita - YouTube stride swing

 

[hakunamatata]

Awesome. I'll try these out. Thank you everyone for the advice! I needed it.