Dunno- 5 year olds and dive rolls

[iwannacoach]

Nothing should make a child go higher or farther than their abilities, technique, and ambition will carry them. Mental abilities are lumped right in there with "abilities", and I've never seen a note pinned to a leotard descibing the mental abilities of a child.

 

[Sarah'sMom]

No! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^bad idea...very bad idea.

Dunno,
Is that bad in general for kids or just for 5 year olds? Also, is the level 3 vault ok, or is it just better to avoid that level altogether?

 

[Kiwi]

Interesting thread. At our gym the rec kids do small dive rolls sometimes, but never on the floor, only onto big soft mats, and not jumping over things, and there is no real flight. It's more of a forward roll with a little jump into it. They might use a springboard, but they hardly get any spring out of it. To me this is a long way from a dive roll with flight on the floor.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Dunno,
Is that bad in general for kids or just for 5 year olds? Also, is the level 3 vault ok, or is it just better to avoid that level altogether?

bad in general.

 

[ollieblueeyes]

Interesting discussion. I just realized that my girls never learned the LVL 3 vault. They have been doing LVL 4 vault since they started Development. I always wondered why my LVL 2/3 girl was doing LVL 4 vault. Good to think the coaches are making decisions that are safety oriented.

 

[Esoteric]

Our developmental level girls (1-3) do a jump on spring board onto the resi-pit mat, kick to handstand, and fall to flat back. No dive rolls are taught in the gym until the end of a successful level 4 season. As a parent, I have a new appreciation for this.

 

[curlymomof3]

Something interesting to add to this discussion. Dd, Level 3, competed her last 2 meets with the dive roll for the vault. She came home from practice last night excited because she "gets" to do the Level 4 vault from now on. Apparently, they don't want the girls to do the dive roll for the vault anymore. The coach was not aware of this at the last meet until the judges mentioned it.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

aware of what? can you clarify please??

 

[curlymomof3]

At the first meet, the Level 3's were supposed to compete with the dive roll vault. Apparently, at the second meet, they were supposed to do the handstand flat back and are to do that one from now on. The coach was not aware of the change until after the girls competed with the dive roll. Interestingly enough, my Dd originally learned the handstand flat back vault and then switched to the diveroll vault right before competitive season. So now she has to go back to the one she originally learned with states 2 weeks away.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

better now than later....

 

[CoachGoofy]

I'm guessing from what I'm reading here that it's not such a great idea to hold a foam noodle up in the air and having kids dive over it into a dive roll....

This is a fun game to play with team level ish kids.
For begintermediate kids it's terrifying. Noooo.

 

[Quadqueen]

At the first meet, the Level 3's were supposed to compete with the dive roll vault. Apparently, at the second meet, they were supposed to do the handstand flat back and are to do that one from now on. The coach was not aware of the change until after the girls competed with the dive roll. Interestingly enough, my Dd originally learned the handstand flat back vault and then switched to the diveroll vault right before competitive season. So now she has to go back to the one she originally learned with states 2 weeks away.

Interesting. DD's level 3 coach used to have the girls do the level 4 vault (this was two years ago). I don't think her concern was safety....she just didn't like the vault and said it made it very difficult to transition the girls to the handstand flat back/fall flat.

The girls did the handstand flat back at several meets as level 3s, then at one meet, one of the judges got confused and frustrated because our team wasn't doing what we were supposed to be doing (apparently, the coach had not cleared it with that judge at the meet!). DD was waiting to vault and the judge/coach conference went on for more than 10 minutes. Our L3 girls had never attempted the L3 vault in practice, and no idea what the judges were looking for, etc. The judge told our coach we had to compete it. He let the girls try one for warm up, and then compete. They all did fine (not really great scores!) but it was very strange!!!

 

[Kiwi]

it made it very difficult to transition the girls to the handstand flat back/fall flat.

This reminds me of when my DD was demonstrating at a coaching basic skills course. The instructor wanted her to demonstrate a dive roll but she couldn't do it, she just kept doing handstand flat-backs because that's all she'd ever trained!

 

[cbone]

Is the danger in this skill a matter of age, skill or both? Please expand!

 

[iwannacoach]

It's a head first landing onto (usually) a very soft mat, which will soften the impact in many cases if done incorrectly. The problem with the skill is that even a soft safety mat won't make it safe for those unlucky enough to leave the tops of their head sticking out to be landed on and exposing themselves to injury ranging from a mild neck sprain, to compressed vertabrae or worse. To top that off, there's the risk off a child "collapsing" during the roll-out phase resulting in knees impacting their face..... Did anybody say dental insurance?......IMO the risk increases as the demographic age decreases in both frequency due to cognitive abilities and skeletal immaturity.

Considering these issues, and the risk of catastrophic injury lurking in the back ground, this skill is an ill advised selection for children under the age of seven, and should only be included in the skill selection of more mature and properly prepared gymnasts. The popularity of the skill, sadly, is that it requires so little training and ability to attempt, that many instructors and a few coaches will use it as a "fun" way of learning how to run and "punch" for a forward take-off. I wouldn't say it's an immediate sign of a program's or instructor's lack of gymnastics savvy, but would keep an eye on the activity if I, as a coach, were to walk into a facility and see them being done by any age gymnast who looked un-prepared for this skill.

I'll admit to an unfavorable bias toward this skill, because I fail to see it's value as a means of teaching kids how to hurdle and punch. There you go! It's safe in some instances, and not in others. It has little utility as a teaching tool for beginning to low-intermediate gymnasts, so I'm giving it a

.

 

[Sarah'sMom]

My daughter did knee herself in the forehead once with a dive roll. I asked how that was possible here and a coach drew a picture.

Link Removed

 

[emorymom]

Here a lot of the gyms compete the lower levels, compete AAU in the lower levels and iin my state the handstand flatback vault starts in L2. My daughter has found this to be very challenging.