Tips for anyone ready to work bhs on beam......
Do the progressions your coaches have shown you, and try to concentrate on doing each movement as close to perfection as you can. Work faster, and try to do as many of each exercise as possible in the amount of time set aside for that task. If you can do 3 repetitions of a drill in a minute, try to increase as soon as you can wrap your mind around it. If you can get into the range of 4 repetitions in 30 seconds, or 7 in a minute, you'll be better able to shut out every distraction, and concentrate on what needs to be done.
If you've graduated from the earliest progressions and are working them on the floor beam, do them with as little fuss possible without spending the agonizing 15 to 45 seconds in the ready position. It's a waste of time, and considering the number of weeks or months you've been preparing, pretty silly to think that those extra seconds are going to somehow prepare you to do the back handspring at that moment. If those extra seconds were worthwhile, your coaches would have taught you to spend 15-45 seconds before every skill attempt you've ever done. So just get up on the beam, raise your arms while taking a breath, exhale, and go. You don't need any more time than that to do the backhandspring you've practiced hundreds, if not thousands of times.
As soon as you can do one and remain composed, immediately do another, and keep doing them immediately one after the other as long as you feel composed and able to repeat them in rapid fashion. Try to get three done in a turn that lasts about 20-25 seconds, and increase that number when you feel ready. Remember to stop as soon as you get any sense of stress or fatigue. You'll end up doing a lot more each day by doing them in batches of 3-5 in time spans of 20 to 35 seconds, and probably get nearly twice the numbers most kids get in the same amount of time.
That's a big deal because you'll be way more prepared than anybody else, and probably be ready to move to a medium/low beam before your coach realizes, so that just makes you more prepared than the coach figures. That's a pretty big deal because you may even get to the point where you're thinking it's silly to keep doing them on the floor beam, and want to move up on your own. I'd say to keep them on the floor beam for about another 60 -75 repetitions if your coach will allow it, because when you move to a low/medium beam it's much better to be thinking "at last" instead of "whoa, I'm not sure I'm ready.
Convince yourself, or let the facts convince you, that this is an easy skill learned by countless thousands over the past few years. Think about how long you've had a back handspring on the floor, and how long you've done them easily on the floor line. Really, you could probably do them while half asleep.... with your eyes closed.
Most important of all is to understand that your body and brain have worked together for a very long time to learn the back handspring you're doing with such ease on the floor line. Keep them easy when you do them on the beam. They're great just the way they are, so do the "easy one" when you get on the beam, instead of some crazy "Frankenspring" you whipped together to make it safer (yeah right) and easier. Nothing, but the ones you've practiced, will be safer and easier.
So there's six tips you can work with under your coaches eye. There are others, but only one of them is really more important than the rest....... that being the understanding that your coach wants you to learn according to your abilities, cares about you and keeping you safe, and understands their role includes a responsibility keep you safely working progressions until you're ready for the next step.
