WAG Front twisting question

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littlegirlsdream

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DD back twisting..(fulls and doubles) with both arms straight down by hip she twists towards. She does this very well. However when doing front twisting she has trouble not twisting right off the floor and she doesn't twist nearly as fast. Another gymnast told her to keep one arm up and pull the other towards the shoulder she is twisting towards. This did seem to help her not to twist right off the floor. However, will this method of twisting ultimately limit her or in the long run make it harder to do doubles?
 
once u get to the bigger twists and combos, it will be harder. If she is twisting right of the ground it WILL effect how she twists later on.
My advice is to work on setting up, meaning jumping upwards before bringing your arm around the body which will effectively twist you if you set up enough.
Good luck
 
Thank you for the reply. My question is more about the arm placement. She k owns she needs to not twist off the floor but is leaving one arm up in the twist a good solution to this or more a short cut that will lead to difficulty later? I hope that makes sense.
 
Thank you for the reply. My question is more about the arm placement. She k owns she needs to not twist off the floor but is leaving one arm up in the twist a good solution to this or more a short cut that will lead to difficulty later? I hope that makes sense.

This should really be left to her coach. Whatever technical issues she may be having should be resolved by a coach who's watching her perform the skill. Furthermore, whatever anyone tells you here may conflict with her floor coach's plans for moving forward. Even within the same gym, coaches may have very different ideas about appropriate twisting progressions and corrections.
 
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Profmom I agree with you. In this instance there isn't a coach present. It was an assignment and the advice was a purposed change by a fellow gymnast. The coach is temporarily unavailable. So I was curious how others taught it (mostly arm position) and the benefits of dif ways. My official advice to her was wait and ask your coach when he returns and in the mean time don't change how you were doing it. But I was curious.
 
Front and back twisting are the same thing...only differentiated by the take off direction.

I do not teach either with an arm above the head.
 
Twisting direction should always be the same, whether forward or backward. That means that if a gymnast twists left during a backward flip, but twists right during a forward flip, they will be at a disadvantage if they ever reach advanced tumbling skills, like when twisting through double flips.

One important thing to note is that the arm that is dropped and pulled first to initiate the twist is different between backward and forward twisting. For example, an athlete that twists left should drop the left arm first during a back full, but during a front full they should drop their right arm first. Both will result in a left twist.
 
I find a lot of gymnasts struggling to front twist. I teach 1 arm up and 1 arm down and tell the gymnast to smell there arm pit.
 

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