WAG Skills

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So I don’t really have regular practices because of joining team mid season and stuff, but there are some skills that I want for when I compete next season. I would like to know if you have any drills that I can do at home or at open gyms. I cant set up huge extravagant drills at open gym but can set up simple ones. Skills are

kip
flyaway

i Do have one of those round yoga bouncy balls
 
Please don't try to self-teach a flyaway. There are no simple self-teaching drills that I know of, and when that skill goes wrong it can go badly wrong.
As I've learned its dangerous even when a coach teaches it. I landed on my head - would've snapped my neck if the coach hadn't caught me. Definitely never doing that again. Cross-change flyaways for the win haha!
 
I was definitely not planning on self teaching it just trying to find Safe drills I can do to help get good form when a coach spots me and helps me learn it for real. Any variations besides flat back in the pit?
 
So I don’t really have regular practices because of joining team mid season and stuff, but there are some skills that I want for when I compete next season. I would like to know if you have any drills that I can do at home or at open gyms. I cant set up huge extravagant drills at open gym but can set up simple ones. Skills are

kip
flyaway

i Do have one of those round yoga bouncy balls
For kips, practice your pike stretches with tight legs and pointed toes, this will help keep you from developing a habit of bent legged kips (worst thing ever.) I you have a pvc pipe or something like that, you can practice the motion of a kip while in a pike, hold the pipe and slide it up your legs from you feet to you hips. This is what I did to learn the motion of a kip. For a flyaway a drill that helped me understand how it works is, lay flat on the ground with you arms up and pull your knees over your head, like a backward roll. This is the motion of a flyway and it will help you learn to not stick your head out while flipping. Hope this helps!
 
I was definitely not planning on self teaching it just trying to find Safe drills I can do to help get good form when a coach spots me and helps me learn it for real. Any variations besides flat back in the pit?
Honestly, I don't even like flat back in the pit. If you're coming off the bar and dropping flat to your back, then you're practicing coming off the bar with no rotation -- exactly the opposite of what you do for a flyaway.

If you want to improve your flyaway (or any skill, for that matter), the best way is to break it down into its components. And in the case of a flyaway, this is pretty easy, because it is composed of two very simple components: a tap swing and a back tuck. Both of which are comparatively easy to train on your own.

A tap swing is pretty self-explanatory, but try to really focus on feeling what the bar is doing while you swing. As you come down from the back swing and approach the bottom of the swing, and do the arch-snap through the bottom, really try to feel how the bar bends. You should feel it bending down and slightly back, and then feel how it slingshots you up towards the top of the front swing. Try to notice the exact moment of that slingshot effect; it should happen right as your toes are snapping up. That moment is where you will release the bar to do your flyaway.

The second part is a back tuck, which you should train on trampoline whenever you can. I recommend training it two ways: from your feet and from a back drop. In both, pay attention to what you see; you should see the wall in front of you, see your knees coming up over top, and see the floor before you land. Usually, I favor a fairly tight tuck, with the hands on the shins; however, for a flyaway I prefer an open tuck, with the arms out to the side. Think of it as an exaggerated candlestick position, but with the knees bent.
 
Although I've never done gymnastics, for flyaway timing, I think a good and v. safe "drill" would just be to go to the playground and get on a swing. As you are swinging, focus on exactly the moment you would want to jump off the swing to go as far and high as possible. It is relatively easy to feel when you aren't doing gymnastics and doing something you've known how to do forever. As Geoffrey says, you'll find that it is right as you snap your feet up and out away from you in the forward swing.

If you were to swing all the way to the top and let go (don't do it of course), you would just fall straight down on your bum with no momentum so clearly that is too late. If you let go before the feet snap up, you would just go low and straight forward and land on your bum/back so that wouldn't be right either. You can even swing with a hollow, arch, hollow motion to simulate being closer to a real tap swing.
 

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