The coach is placing a self stick velcro beam thing on the floor and telling her to put her left hand on the right side of the line and her right hand on the left side of the line. She is now ding this and its working for her. She seems to have more power with this move. I think she is missing the arm pop. She is trying so many different things and is getting better but if it was me I think my head would explode, so I'm trying to break them down at home to have her do the changes 1 at a time so she commits them to memory. But I don't completely understand what the snap down is, or where the pop happens. I can see something is missing in the RO but can't nail down what. She gets some spring at the end but not as much as the other girls. She is staying tight at the end and seems to have tight sholders and goes right over her head now but she doesn't bounce like an eraser off her sholders is she suposed to have a bounce there too? And can someone tell me what a handstand snap is? If this will help her we'll give it a try. She really wants to make the team at the new gym but the coach says she wont unless she can fix this skill up to competition quality( understandably ). The coach explains the changes she is trying to have my dd change and we do them except the pop because I can't eplain them to my dd if I don't understand. I liked the eraser thing it made it really easy to understand, now I just need to know where it goes and how to get it .
I assume that she's a lefty cartwheel? (first hand down is left? left lunge?)
As I mentioned in the previous post, I indicated the better hand position. Furthermore, the more in line the hands can be, the easier it will be to develop a RO on beam since they have to be in a straight line with one another.
The biggest thing with developing the RO is to put the gymnast into situations where they can successfully perform the skill and achieve the right shapes/positions. During the beginning stages of development, it is best to have them working downhill in some capacity - down an incline mat, off the floor into a loose foam/resi pit, etc. This allows them to build the motor coordination of the skill properly. As they become stronger, the skill can gradually be moved to a level surface and even working uphill (onto panel mats, etc.) for development of the Yurchenko vault.
The RO is probably the hardest skill to teach properly. There are very few good RO in the entire world in my opinion. And, it's so critical to back tumbling. While I'm on my soapbox, one of the worst things that coaches can do is to teach kids with a mediocre RO to perform RO Back Tucks with no back handspring in the middle. Since they have a mediocre RO, doing this will cause more harm than good when they decide to put the BHS in there, their block angle from the RO will not be consistent.
Back to the point at hand, without seeing the RO, I cannot offer much advice. As stated previously, there could be numerous things going on. However, most of the RO issues that I've encountered occur because of problems with the entry - head sticking out, turning too much and/or too early, not enough of a lunge, too much leaning/piking at the hips as the gymnast reaches for the floor while the back leg is not kicking over fast enough, bringing the legs together too early, etc. That's a common misnomer - when is she being told to bring the legs together?
Quite honestly, the best thing that she can probably do is to not do round-offs as much - spend time on performing cartwheel step-ins, side cartwheels, etc. and make sure that the alignment is proper as well as develop the appropriate strength to be able to generate the necessary velocity of the kicking leg. Also, developing a good front handspring will have a huge impact on the strength of the RO itself.
So, if you can get a video, that would be a big help. Also, keep in mind that there's no magical fix. It is a process!!!! Furthermore, the RO, BHS, and RO BHS can ALWAYS be improved upon. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I once read an article about how Liukin spent a minimum of a total of at least a couple hours per week trying to improve his RO BHS even after he had already competed the triple back.
) She quit for 6 months then we found a new place and she wanted to give it another try. The only thing is, turns out she picked up lots of bad habits at the first place and the new caoch dropped her back down to level 1 to relearn everything. She has since moved back to level 3 (it took 4 months) but the coach says she can't move back to team until she has all the level 4 skills at competion quality. (She been working hard to get to that point) The problem she is having is getting a good rebound on her ro and bhs the coach says she needs more pop. Where does the pop come from? Do you bend your arms slightly to push off? My daughter is very much a physicall learner and its hard for her to feel this. Any advice would be great.
