Front twisting now more confused than ever! Help!

[gymcoach34]

How is your back twisting? Can you do a back 1 and a half? If so, a back one and a half has a front full at the end. You should be twisting your front full the same way you twist in the back one and a half. If you dont youre gonna have problems!

I spend a lot of time on the pike front 1/2, then adding the other 1/2. You probably should back up to that and relearn everything. Be patient and work lots on the 1/2 twisting-it helps!

The guy in the video is twisting left-watch his belly-it keeps moving in the same direction.

 

[twisting007bigflip]

...try delaying your twist. I watched your youtube video - you are twisting your front full just like you would a roundoff...a "Lefty" roundoff is actually twisting to the right. I know, hella confusing!!! The reason is that you are in a backward position to start with when flipping forward as opposed to flipping backward.

Stand up, point your left foot out, arms up. Now, very slowly lean forward as if you were going to roundoff, only don't quite touch your hands on the floor. Notice that your right shoulder will start moving backwards - this indicates a twist to the right.

Now lay flat on the floor, on your back. If you were going to twist a back full, you would roll to the left. Try that a few times. Then do the same thing only starting on your belly. So you would lay on your belly and roll onto your back.

You can also practice twisting to the left in a handstand.

When you start to delay your twist forward....try a front tuck and then bounce a 1/2 turn. when you get good at that, try front tuck and 1/4 turn right before your feet land. then add 1/4 turns until you can front full...

sorry if this is all more confusing, but hope it helps at least a little...

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

First and most important thing to understand: your roundoff direction and your twist direction are completely and totally unrelated. There is absolutely zero connection between the two skills.

 

[gymdog]

I RO right/twist left. It's fine if everything doesn't go the same direction, although I generally feel that the back and right twist direction should be consistent. I really don't know of many successful twisters who twist different directions front and back which seems reasonable to me. Most often there's an issue of confusion with front twisting that comes from twisting too early. Do a front pike and when you feel the snap open, twist a half. If you twist left back (and feel comfortable with that) this should really probably go to the left. Make it a snap open full. It's much harder to twist opposite directions using this technique than trying to learn from a "barani technique" which often leads to confusion. I learned a pike open full (and could even pike open rudi at one point) and then changed all that over to an earlier twist in a layout.

 

[CoachGoofy]

You do T&T right?

So you've done about a billion baranis, presumably with the set-position-kickout-twist feel?

Do you twist those to the left? (it should absolutely in no way feel like a roundoff).

Going from a strong barani to a front full isn't terribly difficult. Going from a nohanded roundoff to a front full is, though.

 

[ryantroop]

First and most important thing to understand: your roundoff direction and your twist direction are completely and totally unrelated. There is absolutely zero connection between the two skills.

It.. sorta matters... Especially when working skills like a Kaz or twisting directly from a round-off on floor..or more importantly stepping out from a twist... but that's a bit out of scope for this discussion...

 

[gymdog]

Pike it. You're picking up more rotation with the tuck. Ideally you should be able to do it from the the tuck but I think the pike is easier to learn from (you just have to open and not kick out).

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

It.. sorta matters... Especially when working skills like a Kaz or twisting directly from a round-off on floor..or more importantly stepping out from a twist... but that's a bit out of scope for this discussion...

What I mean is that your roundoff direction does not determine your twisting direction or vice-versa. Understanding the relation between the two is important for twisting vaults and twisting skills to stepout, but as far as determining your twist direction when you are first learning to twist, your roundoff should, in my opinion, not play any part in the process.

 

[CoachGoofy]

Coach Goofy, Guess what? When I was in artistic gymnastics as a child my coach was teaching me barainis off the beam, she kept trying to explain how to do them with no luck. She finally told me it is just a roundoff with no hands, that is how I have always done them. I joined T&T and for months my coaches watched my roundoff with no hands and said nothing. Finally one day the coach was like erm it is a front tuck with a kickout at 12oclock and then a half twist, which is how I do them now at least on double mini, I still tend to fall back to old habits on tramp as I feel like I don't have enough time to do all that for whatever reason. Anyways I now do them off double mini, my coach has me do a tuck open half then jump half turn, and a layout half but when she tells me to do the full I am told I twist left then twist back to the right. I am not afraid of the skill and I have my back full but not a 1 and a half. It is the most frustrating thing ever. I was told I need a rudi (1 and a half front) and a double back for next year if I want to move up. The double back is doable, just don't want to be held up for this stupid front twisting. I will try some of your suggestions today and see how it goes.

Split it mentally from that thing you did off the beam if you can. Front kickout, half turn, jump half turn.

Front kickout, half turn, keep going, jump and finish.

Front kickout, pull your half turn a little harder, oh hey there's a full.

The rudi will need to be laid out ish to work and spin just before 12:00 but don't even think about that just yet. Get your brain spinning past 180 all the same way.

Are you moving up to L9 next year?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

So my front twisting saga contiunes. I just don't get which way to turn my coach says I start out left then turn back. This is a video of it back in Dec. although it is pretty much the same now YouTube - Front full twisting layout attemp on trampoline

I do everything left, cartwheels, roundoff's, back twisitng, jump turns so I figure I must twist left for front twists, right? Going to the right doesn't seem natural to me at all. But then I saw this video today and now I am even more lost YouTube - thegymnasticminute's Channel

In the beginning of the video he looks like he is twisting to the left in the front half, but when he does the half jump half turn and the full he looks to me like he is twisting to the right. I really have to get this figured out as I now need rudi to move up. Drills, comments, suggestions all welcome as this has been frustrating me and my coaches for months.

as i told you then, do it from a knee drop. when you round off you will put both hands down. when you 1/2 out to complete a full leave your left hand back on the tramp bed and come out with your right arm forward and landing on the seat of your pants. it works and works quickly to help you orientate what you need to do. then you can progress from you feet. it really is quite simple.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

as i told you then, do it from a knee drop. when you round off you will put both hands down. when you 1/2 out to complete a full leave your left hand back on the tramp bed and come out with your right arm forward and landing on the seat of your pants. it works and works quickly to help you orientate what you need to do. then you can progress from you feet. it really is quite simple.

sorry...i no longer see an edit button.

anyway, if you insist on twisting to the left going forward you will not be able to accomplish this task when doing a left barani. a left barani twists to the right which has already been explained to you by a few people.

so, you will have to have someone stand to your left side on the floor. you execute a pike front then turn to the left towards the person that is standing to your left. if you see each other when you complete your 1/2 twist then you will be on to what you need to do. if you don't see that person? start over again.

by the way, the edit button has returned!

 

[Stretchsportguy]

You are doing a quarter in quarter out . In effect, not twisting at all. The cause is your orientation is to spot in front of you and not lose sight of the mat. This is not how a flip works...For example, in a back flip you do not see where you are going at the beginning. On the way over you eventually see where you are headed. The opposite is true of a front flip.
In a front flip you do see where you are going at the beginning. But on the way over you lose sight of where you are headed. The problem of orientation on your full twisting front flip is that you are forcing your head to look at where you are headed.
By doing this you are twisting back in the opposite direction that you started the full thereby cancelling it out. Additionally, you have virtually no head turning motion. Traditionally at some point in the flip, your head should turn in the direction that you are twisting.
You say that you are a left twister. Yet you are starting this flip like a left roundoff which is a right twist if you go in that direction for a twisting front. You must decide which way you want to twist a front flip. If you want to use your left roundoff style then you will be doing a right twisting full.
To get you out of this cycle that you are stuck in, I would have you change to a left twisting full. If you prefer to stick to the roundoff entry you are doing then I would switch you to train an overhead wrap. It is entirely different from what you are doing. Instead of allowing your right arm to cross in front of your belly, keep it over your head and cup your hand behind your head with your elbow sticking up.
Turn your chin to the right toward that elbow as your hand goes behind your head. At the same time that you are doing that, take the other arm and bring it to about belly button level in a dance partner position like holding someone's lower back with your hand. Then wrap that arm in tight against you touching the left hand to your right shoulder.
Start the flip with both arms up. One arm tucks behind the head and the other does the wrapping. Unlike a front flip without twisting, you will be able to watch and see the mat spin in a circle as you do the full.
Later, you can go back to the double arm wrap by not putting the right hand behind your head. You may prefer to let both arms go to chest level together in a bear hug position before you wrap to the right. I suggest a low to high wrap with the arms. Like a figure 8 as you bring them from up to low front to high right for the wrap.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

perfect technique for a full twisting one and one half dive in to water.

 

[Stretchsportguy]

During a non-twisting regular front flip you lose sight of where you are going. This changes when you add a twist. At the moment you would normally lose sight of the floor you instead are able to see the floor in a twisting front flip at the 1/4 to 1/2 turning point of the twist. This is due to the changing direction of your body and hence head. You are then facing a position at the 1/4 to 1/2 twist moment in the air able to continue to see the ground and actually see where you are going and where you want to land. However, after the 1/2 way point of the twist many people tip their head back or simply relax it and lose sight of where they are going to land. The result is to fall back on the landing. Or if the flip is over-rotating then they shoot forward on the landing because the head was back and again lost sight of where they were going. Hence the over-rotation is a surprise and uncontrollable with the head back or delayed. The key to landing twisting flips both forward and back is knowing where you are in the air at all times. If your head is delayed or back at the end of the full twisting front then obviously you can't and don't know where you are at the end. The way to improve on this is to look in or see your feet and hence the wall out in front of you before you land. Your twist should spin rapidly enough so as to finish the full before your feet land. After you look in at the end of the full twist and see where you are going and where you are in the air, then you can look straight forward to land upright and in a natural standing position. Some people like to spot to the front on the take-off and re-spot to the front before they land. In this variation of technique the head is back at the beginning but finishes looking in at the end.

 

[Stretchsportguy]

Late twisting in order to trigger the sensation that teaches you to twist a front flip has a major disadvantage...no time for the landing. A delayed initiation of twisting means that before you can spot to the front before you land, your feet have already touched the mat. The consequence is shooting forward if you are over-rotated and falling back if you are under-rotated. Rule of thumb is that by the time your feet are off the mat at the beginning, your upper torso should be a minimum of 1/4 turned with the arms lowered down in the vertical plane to shape a letter "T" with your arms and body. Some people like to keep the over-head arm (left arm for a left twisting front full) high at the 1/4 twist phase and the other arm gets pulled toward the right hip to set up for the wrap. A left twister such as yourself might be told as a cue to drop the right arm but keep the left one up to initiate the twist. The wrap would commence with the right arm sweeping across the front of your stomach to meet the left arm which is brought in to be clamped over and wrapped by the "cranked-in" right arm. You need time to set for the landing which means finishing the full before your feet touch the mat and already looking in to see where you are.

 

[Stretchsportguy]

I want to add and insist that late twisting is dangerous. Many coaches suggest late twisting to their athletes as a way of touching off the learning curve. However, the risk is significant due to the possibility of twisting a knee. It is a common injury on skills that twist before you land on your feet. If ligaments are involved then the knee injury can be catastrophic. Please beware anytime you see anyone late twisting and possibly stiff legging their landings...