Coaches Entry on FHS and roundoff

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I have a one girl (level 5 last year, moving up to level [STRIKE]6[/STRIKE] 5 this year) who consistently comes in too high on the entry to her front handsprings and roundoffs; she has too much air time between the feet coming off the floor and the hands touching down (ie "diving").

Any drills or other suggestions?

(I'll see if I can get a video up tomorrow, assuming it's alright with her parents)

 

[fuzi]

I have one of those too. Nothing I've tried yet has fixed it, so I'd love to hear what others have to say.

 

[iwannacoach]

Slow it all down for her by having her work into those skills from a power hurdle off a mat stack between 2 & 4 inches in height. She'll learn that long and low is the way to go. The bonus...... She'll also learn to be very efficient and will naturally find the correct positions/shapes because anything but the best positions make the skill really hard to do. give her a week of power hurdle fhs, power hurdle round-off, and power hurdle ro-bhs. Don't do regular run tumbles during this that week. By the end of the week she'll be on her way to tempo and pattern that should ballistic pattern make the correct hurdle happen whether she wants to or not.

With that in mind, and realizing her new efficiency, don't let her just take off and run into her tumbling the second week. keep her at 2 steps at first, because even with just two steps she's gonna have a faster block, snapdown, and transition into the next skill. Once she feel the power and speed, and realises that "it is on" she'll up her game and be ready for that speed. At that point you decide if you want her to run more steps, or to keep her at two steps to force those efficiencies, and work her up to a two step ro-bhs-bhs followed by some ro-bhs-bhs-back tuck, and then back down to ro-bhs-back tuck.

Have fun with it, and really harp a neutral head and slightly tucked under hips for the ro, and the fhs as you'd normally want it done.

 

[coachmolly]

For the fhs, I use this drill pretty frequently for kids who have trouble getting a grasp of the skill. Super basic, easy to set up and run, but pretty effective in my experiences. It encourages good shapes to complete the skill rather than speed or raw power.
Back To Basics Front Handspring Drill - YouTube

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Slow it all down for her by having her work into those skills from a power hurdle off a mat stack between 2 & 4 inches in height. She'll learn that long and low is the way to go. The bonus...... She'll also learn to be very efficient and will naturally find the correct positions/shapes because anything but the best positions make the skill really hard to do. give her a week of power hurdle fhs, power hurdle round-off, and power hurdle ro-bhs. Don't do regular run tumbles during this that week. By the end of the week she'll be on her way to tempo and pattern that should ballistic pattern make the correct hurdle happen whether she wants to or not.

She's been training the front handspring from a power hurdle off of a springboard for three weeks now, and still has the same problem.

 

[iwannacoach]

The springboard may be the problem because they are meant to help you go up, and that seems to be what she intends to use it for. That's part of the reason I suggested a fold up mat, the other part is that you don't want her to get enough energy from the hurdle to make the round-off an easy proposition.

I came by this drill entirely by accident. This all started because we had to share the floor ex with another group. So I set up a circuit of thee mats at one end of the mat, with three at the other end, and told the kids there would be no more running, and they could get all the energy they needed by working from a 4 inch stack mat. The mat height changed to six inches over the course of time, but pretty much they figured out how to properly work into and out of their round-offs to the extent there were kids doing ro-bhst-1/1 and ro-bhs-bhs-2/1. Once we got the entire mat to ourselves and could run again they maintained all of the disciplined, efficient positions and tumbled like crazy.

You could try it from the mat stack, or give her some object to hurdle past to encourage distance. Another usefull adaptation is to have her not hurdle at all.........

Use the same mat stack starting at two inches, and increase to a maximum of six as she gets used to things. Have her stand with her arms up and body in perfect handstand alingment. She shouild lift her "front leg" to horizontal, pause, and then let herself begin to fall forward. She should let the fall get about to the "scary point" and then transition into a round-off by placing her front foot and kick the back leg hard. This skill should be dominated by her back leg kicking up. Her next focus should be maintaining her handstand alingment, which will give her the best inverted posture possible to get the best block out of the inverted phase.

I never ask them to turn onto their hands because a turning effort is not required when the back leg kicks hard enough to initiate the turn for them, and because a turning action kills good posture, which in turn kills the block, and that means a snapdown that snaps down with the upper body dragging along for the ride. The second "half" of the roudoff turn comes from the block as the second hand comes to the floor, just like a tsukahara..... did you ever try to turn that last 1/4 turn for a tsuk, probably not for long.

The whole idea is she'll have to use her forward energy provided by the fall, and she'll have to fall as far as is reasonable with no jump. So no jump means no "rearing back" during the hurdle.... well heck, she won't have a hurdle to rear back in anyway. If you have her drill this long enough before returning to a hurdle start, her muscle memory and newfound appreciation of the the skill's nuances should be enough to keep the new, good habits in place.

You might give this a try with the entire group, as some are going to catch on better than the rest, and inspire the others to "get it." Please do remember to keep them from running a full out run immediately after the drill, and have them work from a two step run for a pass or two, and increse their steps to the normal run over the course of three or four passes.

Let me know, if you use the drill, how things turn out.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I'll give it a try

 

[iwannacoach]

I'm honored.......

 

[BlairBob]

Nice drill. I was thinking of taking it back to basics. From a step/lunge and seeing what her basics look like. Given that she is a L5, they may or may not be that great.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Ok, I was in a rush earlier, so now to give a more complete response:

The springboard may be the problem because they are meant to help you go up, and that seems to be what she intends to use it for. That's part of the reason I suggested a fold up mat, the other part is that you don't want her to get enough energy from the hurdle to make the round-off an easy proposition.

I came by this drill entirely by accident. This all started because we had to share the floor ex with another group. So I set up a circuit of thee mats at one end of the mat, with three at the other end, and told the kids there would be no more running, and they could get all the energy they needed by working from a 4 inch stack mat. The mat height changed to six inches over the course of time, but pretty much they figured out how to properly work into and out of their round-offs to the extent there were kids doing ro-bhst-1/1 and ro-bhs-bhs-2/1. Once we got the entire mat to ourselves and could run again they maintained all of the disciplined, efficient positions and tumbled like crazy.

You could try it from the mat stack, or give her some object to hurdle past to encourage distance. Another usefull adaptation is to have her not hurdle at all.........

Use the same mat stack starting at two inches, and increase to a maximum of six as she gets used to things. Have her stand with her arms up and body in perfect handstand alingment. She shouild lift her "front leg" to horizontal, pause, and then let herself begin to fall forward. She should let the fall get about to the "scary point" and then transition into a round-off by placing her front foot and kick the back leg hard. This skill should be dominated by her back leg kicking up. Her next focus should be maintaining her handstand alingment, which will give her the best inverted posture possible to get the best block out of the inverted phase.

Got a video of this? That would be really helpful.

I never ask them to turn onto their hands because a turning effort is not required when the back leg kicks hard enough to initiate the turn for them, and because a turning action kills good posture, which in turn kills the block, and that means a snapdown that snaps down with the upper body dragging along for the ride. The second "half" of the roudoff turn comes from the block as the second hand comes to the floor, just like a tsukahara..... did you ever try to turn that last 1/4 turn for a tsuk, probably not for long.

Ooh, this is intriguing. I might have to come back to this tomorrow when I'm a bit more awake.

The whole idea is she'll have to use her forward energy provided by the fall, and she'll have to fall as far as is reasonable with no jump. So no jump means no "rearing back" during the hurdle.... well heck, she won't have a hurdle to rear back in anyway. If you have her drill this long enough before returning to a hurdle start, her muscle memory and newfound appreciation of the the skill's nuances should be enough to keep the new, good habits in place.

Tangent here: by "rearing back during the hurdle," are you talking about keeping the chest vertical and chin up as opposed to pushing more forward during the hurdle? I ask because until very recently, I've favored an emphasis on a hollow chest and a more "forward" reach during the hurdle, but lately I've been experimenting with more of an open-chest hurdle with the arms reaching upward, and had some decent results.

You might give this a try with the entire group, as some are going to catch on better than the rest, and inspire the others to "get it." Please do remember to keep them from running a full out run immediately after the drill, and have them work from a two step run for a pass or two, and increse their steps to the normal run over the course of three or four passes.

Let me know, if you use the drill, how things turn out.

Definitely will.

 

[iwannacoach]

Got a video of this? That would be really helpful.

I wish I had one to share, but I don't. You could wait until I get into a gym and have a chance to do some video if you rally had to have one. That could take a week or two to come about, so you may do better waiting for the next flock of cows to fly by.

Tangent here: by "rearing back during the hurdle," are you talking about keeping the chest vertical and chin up as opposed to pushing more forward during the hurdle? I ask because until very recently, I've favored an emphasis on a hollow chest and a more "forward" reach during the hurdle, but lately I've been experimenting with more of an open-chest hurdle with the arms reaching upward, and had some decent results.

That's what I'm talking about. I like the idea of moving forward with just enough height to create a slight drop onto the floor out of the hurdle, and a slight lean that has a sense of balance to it, to help the upper body topple to inverted as the front foot trips and accelerates the rotation that began when the kick leg first hit the floor after the hurdle. I think you're talking about opening the chest angle to create a resisting balance that can be tripped more effectively.

I don't think it's a bad technique, but it does present some issues, especially for beginners, like how far to open the chest angle, when to snap from the open bow to the hollow bow, and the depth of the hollow bow position. It amounts to adding variables to a child's technique, or so I think, and while I have a ton of respect for your average hard working gymnast's intellect, I don't think there's many who can keep those positions consistent.... nor understand the importance of doing so.

Ah, but I *do* digress.......

 

[iwannacoach]

Got a video of this? That would be really helpful.

I wish I had one to share, but I don't. You could wait until I get into a gym and have a chance to do some video if you rally had to have one. That could take a week or two to come about, so you may do better waiting for the next flock of cows to fly by.

Tangent here: by "rearing back during the hurdle," are you talking about keeping the chest vertical and chin up as opposed to pushing more forward during the hurdle? I ask because until very recently, I've favored an emphasis on a hollow chest and a more "forward" reach during the hurdle, but lately I've been experimenting with more of an open-chest hurdle with the arms reaching upward, and had some decent results.

That's what I'm talking about. I like the idea of moving forward with just enough height to create a slight drop onto the floor out of the hurdle, and a slight lean that has a sense of balance to it, to help the upper body topple to inverted as the front foot trips and accelerates the rotation that began when the kick leg first hit the floor after the hurdle. I think you're talking about opening the chest angle to create a resisting balance that can be tripped more effectively.

I don't think it's a bad technique, but it does present some issues, especially for beginners, like how far to open the chest angle, when to snap from the open bow to the hollow bow, and the depth of the hollow bow position. It amounts to adding variables to a child's technique, or so I think, and while I have a ton of respect for your average hard working gymnast's intellect, I don't think there's many who can keep those positions consistent.... nor understand the importance of doing so.

Ah, but I *do* digress.......

 

[CoachTodd]

I focus on anything that gets them to stop putting the hands down and focus more on getting the back leg up. It does seem to be the case that when they add more run, they start to dive more.

 

[coachmolly]

Love these ideas! The girls I work with are largely self taught or got their basics from cheer gyms, so I'm always looking for new ways to drill round offs to correct some of the deeply ingrained terrible habits (hurdle straight up in the air, no reach with hands, piking down instead of an actual repulsion from hands to feet). I feel like IWC's drill would help iron out several of those problems but "forcing" correct positions. Thanks to everyone who has contributed! And GT for asking, this has been great!

 

[Deleted member D3987]

to simplify things just a bit Geoff, just raise the floor up to their hands. when the panel mats get about knee high, there is no way to kick earlier because the feet are down. it's a slow process peeling the panels down again, but it will work and it takes some time.

in my experience, the kids that do this most are those with knees that do not straighten (hypo) and poor shoulder flexibility requiring them to put their hands outside their shoulders and they even turn their hands sideways a bit. and then they force their head forward to facilitate rotation. obviously, none of the above is correct.

so additionally you may want to add kick to handstand front limber where they front walk over 1 leg all the way to the floor and then put down the 2nd leg. don't bring them down together.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Dunno (or anybody else):

What in your opinion is the ideal hand position in a front handspring? I've generally favored hands turned slightly in (for a softer block) in back handsprings and slightly out (for a stronger, faster block) in front handsprings.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

slightly turned out and fingers spread as far as possible.

 

[stargazer]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but would working round-offs and handsprings up and off a large wedge mat help? My teammates and I have done that drill and it really forced us to reach long and low with our arms, and I imagine it would help with driving the legs as well because you have to work harder to get up the incline.