Coaches Front handspring and strange technique

[gymisforeveryone]

Hi!

I recently started coaching a group of level D girls. They have one other coach too but we never coach together.

Girls have been doing front handsprings for years. Others can do them correctly but one of the girls came to me yesterday and said she struggled with them at last practice with another coach. She explained me that the other coach told her that her problem is that she jumps to her hands at the beginning of the skill. She showed me and I could see it too. We started to work with it and she did tons of front handsprings without any speed, from one step into the pit. She got it almost right from a step but kept telling me it feels so wrong and strange. I just told her not to care about the feeling. I'm pretty sure she has used the jump to hands technique for years so it's normal that it feels different to do it other way.

When she tried to do the skill from a short run she started jumping again. She was close to tears because of that. I think no one else has ever demanded her to change her technique.

Is there any drills or tips I can tell her to think about during the skill? I have never had a gymnast who does a front handspring that way but as a judge I have seen some at competitions. Her front handspring is "pretty" but I think that the jump at the beginning takes the power off and for her it's harder to add a front tuck to the front handspring.

Thanks!

 

[gymisforeveryone]

Sorry about double posting, but I found a video that shows how she does it:

Some Front Handspring Mistakes - YouTube

Her mistake is at 2.00 minutes.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

kids should learn a front handspring from a stand with a panel mat on the floor in front of their feet for their hands. this teaches them that they must keep their push foot on the ground long enough for their hands to go down on the floor. raising the floor with panel mats and doing this from a stand teaches them the rhythm and sequential progression of lunge, hands down, kick and then push off the front leg.

not kick, push and then hands down.

 

[wordsmith]

It's not an uncommon habit. Gymnasts told to reach their hands out in front who also straighten their front leg out too soon will tend to dive out onto their hands.

It may not be the desirable technique, but if she has sufficient turnover and rebound action out of her front handspring, she could still do a front tuck out of it. Think of it as similar to doing a flyspring/mounter (which does "dive" out onto the hands). The key is in blocking off the hands and having sufficiently heel drive turnover action.

 

[wordsmith]

kids should learn a front handspring from a stand

Yes!

Might also start from a lunge on one knee.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

Thank you guys! You helped me a lot. We will try that panel mat drill with her and I will make her think about hands-kick-push. I know she will feel frustrated when the other girls practice front layouts and front tucks from handspring and she has to go "back to basics" but I think this problem should be fixed.

When I watched a boy on the video doing it her way I started to think if it may partly be a flexibility issue? She has terrible splits to be honest and it doesn't make it any better that she's been sick and out of gymnastics for a while so she has lost her splits completely. I'm not sure if she had her splits before I started to coach them.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

it's just a learning pattern problem. and you must (not think) fix this problem. bad things happen coming out of this kind of front handspring. capiche?