Parents 5 yr old: switching legs

[flipnastic]

My daughter is in a level to class. She is five, and I have noticed recently that although her cart wheel leg is her right leg, she is learning several skills leading with her left leg. For example, backbend kick over is it, leaps, jumping onto the springboard and her Mill Circle are all practiced with her left leg.

Would y'all recommend talking to her coach? Waiting for her coach to notice and correcting it? Or, just leaving it as is?

 

[sce]

It's worth asking the teacher about.

 

[gymdog]

Not necessarily uncommon. What leg does she do a handstand with? I usually try to get them to do their handstand and cartwheel on the same leg. The other things I'm not as concerned about, with a preference for them to do their walkovers with the best split leg leading (i.e. Best split is right split, should do right leg walkover).

 

[flipnastic]

Not necessarily uncommon. What leg does she do a handstand with? I usually try to get them to do their handstand and cartwheel on the same leg. The other things I'm not as concerned about, with a preference for them to do their walkovers with the best split leg leading (i.e. Best split is right split, should do right leg walkover).

Oh good! She is consistent with using her right leg with a cart wheels, roundoff's and handstands. And, she leads with her right leg when doing a back walk over, just not a backbend kick over. Will it screw her up using her left leg to jump onto the springboard later when she is doing half on's? I know that is so far in the future, if she even achieves that… But, I wanted to be addressed if it's better fixed now without overstepping boundaries with the coach

 

[l.c.o]

Well, my DD used to be completely ambidextrous which was a nightmare in gymnastics, lol. Once they caught that she was using both sides equally, they made a point to have her stick to what they deemed was her "better" side.

Cartwheels had been hilarious as she'd just randomly choose starting/ending legs (like she'd sometimes lunge with left foot forward and somehow also try to then land on left foot first).

Conveniently, her school did the same with writing, etc, at the same time (which I was unhappy about, but whatever).

She pretty much does everything "right handed" these days. I do think that, gymnastics-wise, moving to having one dominant side did help her "quality" of movement over time. With attention from coaches, she was able to "correct" her ambidexterity and she went from looking like newborn Bambi to looking like the beginnings of a gymnast pretty quickly.

Those who know better than me: When it comes to competing, does it matter that they remain dominant on one side on floor in compulsories? I thought yes, but maybe I'm remembering that wrong.

FWIW, my son is right-handed in all of life but gymnastics, where he's a lefty. He's learned himself to check with coaches that he's using the correct hands/legs for a lefty, especially as when they're young, as coaches often ask which hand they write with in determining how to teach the skills. Perhaps your DD could just ask if she's doing it right for a righty (or whatever)? That way you don't have to get involved. Otherwise, I usually assume that if it isn't sometching being corrected that it's not something coaches are concerned with yet.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

Oh man....I had a whole thread on this. Puma Jr starts her L4 routine righty, about 40 seconds in switches to lefty, then does the final tumbling pass righty. I don't think it's wrong to ask about it, but I'd trust in how they want to handle it. In my daughter's case, I know they would have fixed it if they caught it earlier (we switched gyms about nine months ago), but now they think it's better to leave it. Risk vs benefit. The experts here think it either won't be noticed or be a minimal deduction. It won't matter when she gets to optionals. Good luck!!

 

[gymdog]

Oh good! She is consistent with using her right leg with a cart wheels, roundoff's and handstands. And, she leads with her right leg when doing a back walk over, just not a backbend kick over. Will it screw her up using her left leg to jump onto the springboard later when she is doing half on's? I know that is so far in the future, if she even achieves that… But, I wanted to be addressed if it's better fixed now without overstepping boundaries with the coach

Hm. My guess is then that it will just get better with maturity and she'll probably end up a righty on everything. It doesn't really matter what foot you hurdle with versus which way you twist on a roundoff entry vault, but someone who hurdles righty for floor would typically hurdle with their right leg on vault (this means leaping off the left leg with the right foot in front before the feet close).

 

[Deleted member 18037]

At 5 it's not unusual to to be ambi. And at 5 it's supposed to fun. If and when it needs addressing, it will get addressed.

 

[skschlag]

I am not a coach, just a parent of an older, upper level boy but I wish I had noticed or someone had noticed at 5 or 6, that he used different legs for different things. I am not even totally sure anymore what he has trouble with. There are some thing that he just can't do because he ends on the wrong leg. It messed with his scale in Level 5/6. It messes with some tumbling passes. Now he can adapt and make things work. But it does have its challenges....

It is worth asking about...they might have a plan in place, they might not. D's coach did spend a summer when he was 9 and we realized it, trying to change his front handspring. but no luck. So they just work around it now.

 

[strawberries]

It's pretty common for kids to kick over w/ the wrong leg b/c their strong leg wants to do the work of kicking off the floor, leaving their bad leg in front.

Please have your dd let the coaches know. It is a huge pain to correct later.

 

[gymdog]

Sometimes it's just an idiosyncrasy though. Usually the kids who do it on the kickover will start to correct it with the back walkover as soon as they gain enough strength and balance. And from what the OP posted it sounds like her daughter is already doing this. My guess is she ends up a righty on everything.

The kids who truly do things on different legs, like a cartwheel and handstand, can sometimes change it but in my experience frequently continue to have some problems/confusion on certain skills whether you change things or not. I have to assume this is because they have either partial or full ambidexterity. This is pretty rare though. Most people develop a dominant side through the preschool years. The exception being that some people are dominantly one side but do a cartwheel/roundoff on the other. I've found this is usually because that is the way they want to twist.

 

[gymdog]

Also, it's not uncommon at all for sidedness to not correlate to handedness. There are a lot more left sided people in gymnastics than left handed people. In my experience the children who continue to switch between things like cartwheels and handstands (which it doesn't sound like the OP's daughter will, to me) are usually lefties or settle on being lefties. Lefties usually exhibit more ambidexterity for whatever reason. When they're just all over the place then I'll usually stick them on their cartwheel or best split side (although in my experience a lot of these kids have right and left splits the same...there may be something to that because I think natural range of motion usually dictates how most people will want to attempt gymnastics).

I'm right handed and right sided and my left side is useless so I can't relate at all! I don't think I've ever done anything with my left side.

 

[GymCMLA]

this is interesting to me. My yDD is 4 and is left handed (writing, eating) but hasn't settled on a favorite leg in gym, she does everything both ways pretty equally.

 

[strawberries]

I've never seen any correlation with handedness and preferred side in gymnastics

 

[Moxiegrl83]

When my DD was 5, I think she spent most of pre-team with a piece of prewrap tied around her right ankle. It helped her remember, and also the coaches to pay attention when she switched legs. She's now 9 and competing Level 7 with no switching legs.

 

[dmbgymnast]

I was "taught" to be a righty, because that is the hand I wrote with, and it was easy for 5/6 year old me to remember that. Then, when I was 7/8, without real reason, (maybe a growth spurt?) I began switching to my left leg. My coaches took notice, and handstands looked equally "bad" (they had been fine before) on both sides. I remember saying that I wish I had a "middle leg" because nothing felt right with either leg, haha. I eventually became a full lefty convert, and I am a lefty in the gym today, despite still writing with my right hand. All in all, your daughter will be fine, she'll figure it out.