Blasted Fly Away

[duganjorb]

My DD is having a very difficult time in recapturing her flyaway. It's been almost a year since she's done one and sometimes I think the coach will give up on her. She gets frustrated because her other L6 and L7 skills are progressing nicely on everything else. She's had a growth spurt of over 3" and is now 5'1" and I'm sure that's had an impact on her "orientation" for lack of a better word. She seems to get closer and closer to completely rotating and I tell her not to worry about it, she'll "get it". I always thought that the kip was one of the hardest skills to master, but I've changed my opinion. Has anyone else experienced this issue with themselves or their DD?

 

[peace.love.gymnast]

I think this is pretty common with gymnastics. Everyone has a skill or two that's a little harder than most to get. Just keep being positive and encouraging with her to help lower her frustration...frustration only makes the situation worse. She WILL get it...don't worry too much about it.

 

[LittleLady]

This is just a suggestion as to why her rotation may be short. When I was learning flyaways, my coach made sure that I was pulling the bar away behind my head before releasing to rotate. It seems sometimes I would tend to pull the bar forward which not only impedes the rotation but will also bring you closer to the bar, which can be mentally unsettling. You want distance away from the bar when doing a flyaway. It's the opposite type of arm action from a Giant. Some gymnasts pull their arms forward before letting go thinking it will help their rotation, but it actually accomplishes just the opposite. Without seeing her do the flyaway, it's tough to judge what she's doing wrong, so like I said, it's just a suggestion. I do hope she gets it soon!

 

[GasnGoMum]

It's difficult when gymnasts go through growth spurts...our DD has gone through this every summer for the past two years. She has grown 12" in the past two summers alone (now 5'3"!). Each time she has gone through an "adjustment period" for bars, as well as beam. It will take a bit of time, but she will regain her skills. A lot of it is retraining your body to rotate with these extra inches that weren't there before. I wish both of you good luck!

 

[angelturbo]

My daughter is having the same problems. It's been lingering for a couple of months. About 4 months ago she was doing giant to layout fly away on the pit bar and released too late because she was trying to pick up speed on her giants and hit the top of the bar with both her shins. She was horrified by this accident and has been extremely nervous ever since. One meet she will do her giant fly away and then the next meet she won't.

She is so upset and frustrated because she wants to do the giant fly away. She hates the fact that it kills her all around score. It's hard to tell which is more upsetting for her. Her alternate bar routine is kip cast handstand, low bar giant, low bar giant, kip squat on, jump to high bar, cast handstand, clear hip circle, under swing, tuck fly away.

For her to be stuck on something this long is not like her and I just don't know what to do or say to her. Her coach and I have discussed it many times. Her coaches are working with her and encouraging her.

She tries to explain it to me. She's reverted back to just tap swings to tuck flyaway, but you can just tell the timing is off. Any ideas or suggestions? She is level 7 and 10 years old.

 

[gymjourneymom]

I totally feel for you & your DD!!! She must be so frustrated. My DD is L7 also & lost her fly away recently, for a few weeks & she was just a mess. She had to scratch bars at one meet(b/c of the lost fly-away), after coming in 1st at the meet prior. I got her some privates with a coach that works really well with DD. She was very supportive, encouraging & most importantly DD trusts this coaches spotting skills. That was the key for my DD & she was able to get it back after only 3 privates. Good luck! I know how you must feel!

 

[LittleLady]

angelturbo,
I feel for her! The same thing happened to me. I was trying so hard to show my coach that I was ready to learn a double tuck flyaway since I had a very high layout flyaway. Having already learned Giants, I made the mistake of holding on too long on the flyaway and "pulled" the bar towards me instead of pushing it away behind my head which gives you distance from the bar and aids rotation on a salto. I came crashing down onto the bar from way above it and scraped both my shins and fell head first into the pit. I was so traumatized by this that it took me months to get just a tucked flyaway again! A flyaway properly done is the opposite arm action of a Giant. My coach drilled that into my brain after my accident! I had to go months just doing tap swings and opening (push the bar behind my head) and land on my back in the pit before I had the guts to actually let go and do the tuck salto. This was a lesson hard learned. I finally got my layout flyaway back after much work and mental discipline. Gymnastics is a tough sport. I hope your DD will understand what went wrong and overcomes the fear.

 

[gymfan4ever95]

I have the same problem!!
i used to have it really good ( i am a level 6) and then i didn't do them for a few weeks because i was doing other skills on bars.
now, i don't have the right timing anymore and let go of the bar WAY to early.
is that what is happening to your dd?
i am doing them into the pit now so i can "experiment" with when i should let go.
maybe your dd should try that.

 

[duganjorb]

It's all mental. Since my original post my DD has done about three flyaways out of countless tries. They are slow and low, but she isn't landing on her neck in the pit any more so it's progress. Her coach has been very patient and has figured out she's tapping so high that her back is arched thereby making it very difficult to to pull her legs in quickly enough to get rotation. He told her not to tap but to go into the swing almost in a pike position. This has helped. She'll probably go into Prep-op gold or Platnium so she doesn't have to worry too much about getting it. Funny thing is she was on a swing set swinging in a seat and just flipped herself right over almost in a layout position and landed it.