Women Beam progressions and struggles

[tumbling_lover09]

I currently have a gymnast who has been majorly struggling with her back handspring on beam. She is currently an xcel diamond and competes a cartwheel round off, so no worries about requirments, she just wants to keep progressing her skills. She often has setbacks on the back handspring, mainly struggles with hand placement and fear of her hands slipping. She’s been working on this for years, and it doesn’t seem to be progressing and she knows this and is frustrated. She has a very strong standing back tuck on floor, and has been working it on the wider floor beam, and I was wondering if we should encourage her to keep working and progressing with it, or if it’s necessary to have a back handspring before working on back tucks? Any feedback is appreciated! Also, is a back tuck on beam an allowable skill in diamond, or would she have to wait until she moves to sapphire to compete it?

 

[fuzi]

My take: a back handspring on beam is not a prerequisite for a back tuck on beam. I have plenty of gymnasts who, for assorted reasons, never seriously trained BHS on beam (shoulder flexibility, injury history, mental block) but could do a standing tuck with no issues.

Back tuck (“C” acro) is allowed in diamond. For sapphire, it will get +0.1 in bonus.