Yup. Your stretched arms should lead the way; you can look at your hands all the time to make sure of this. Keep your abs tense and your hips "up". It helps to think of your hips and lower back pushing forward as your arms go back, so that you go down in a controlled manner and not just by...
I am one to fail often, sometimes causing big adrenaline rushes in my coach/team, sometimes not, but I've miraculously never hurt myself. There are the usual fails, such as front tucks with my head almost kissing the ground, me falling on my butt during warmup simply by doing round offs with...
Like so many others, not having started when I was younger. It's really not mine or anyone else's fault, as I always knew about gymnastics in general (and didn't care for it aside from watching it on TV), but didn't really know about tumbling, in particular - which is what I'm doing now -, until...