Drills for Pirouettes

[kristilyn73]

DD just got a pirouette bar to help practice at home. She is doing her pirouettes in practice but just not consistently. She is particulartly struggling with gliding through her kip after her pirouette (she is tapping her feet and the ground)

I have never been one to have a home gym. Her coach does know we have the bar. He is suggesting doing handstands, turning the pirouette and then coming down. Does anyone have any other good drills she can do?


Thank you in advance!

 

[BlairBob]

Press to handstand. Handstand mastery.

Holding straddle L or L sit, pressing from there once you can balance it out.

Just about the only thing I'd reccomend at home since I can't honestly say you should start working Healy twirl or handstand to stomach or back at home ( since not really great padding at home, possible bad habits ).

 

[hammy]

If the bar is stable enough, she could work on kip cast away kips--with a cast handstand. During this skill sequence, the gymnast does a kip, cast handstand, then kips out of the handstand. The gymnast should bring their toes back towards the bar (such as they would do for a sole circle), followed by their glide for the kip--which extends out.

She could also just work doing cast handstand then bringing her feet back towards the bar.

 

[gymdog]

I think it's a floor bar.

 

[gymkat]

If it's a pirouette bar, then it's pretty much on the floor, right? I had the same problems with pirouettes, and there were a few things that helped:

First, I spent some time working on pirouetting on floor. I had issues with pirouetting with my head out, which gave me a shoulder angle and made it difficult to finish in HS. Eventually I was able to do a good pirouette and consistently finish in HS.

However, that's a lot harder to do on a bar. After I figured out how to keep my shoulders open while turning, I worked on pirouetting into a HS and then immediately breaking in my shoulder angle to kind of a planche. (Holding it is unnecessary; just get the idea of keeping the shoulders over the bar while coming down from the HS). You don't want your shoulders to be really far in front of the bar, but you should be able to slow down your swing a little bit.

After I could consistently finish pirouetting close to HS and go immediately from handstand-ish to a planche with a decent amount of control, I started doing pirouettes on the floor bar. The key for me was to learn how to finish close to a HS and stay over the bar.

 

[hammy]

For a floor bar--try working on pirouettes on the bar against the wall. You can also do them with the bar away from the wall then bring your toes back in towards the bar to work on bringing her feet back in to keep them up on her kip out.