Help with cleaning up skills

[GetaGrip]

Hey Chalkbucket,

I've just completed my first level 7 meet, and now I realized that my best friend score is 8.8. Just kidding. But seriously, I get that score way too much. Too help boost my scores, I was wondering if you could tell me how to clean up these few skills:

Bars-
-How to cast to 45 above horizontal with a hollow body and tight legs/toes

-How to consistently clear-hip to 45 with legs together

-How to kip with straight legs


Beam-
-How to do a 180 split jump with pointed toes and straight legs also w/ both legs at even height (I'm flexible enough to do hit at least 180)

-How to break the significant amount of wobbles I get when competing from fear


Floor-
-How to keep my legs together in my round off and back handspring

-How to have an even switch leap

-How to stick tumbling!!!


Vault-
-How to stick

-How to block high


If you can answer ANY of these questions I will thank you so much!!! This is what I need to be a serious contender in states competitions!

~Lauren

 

[coachmolly]

I think my response is the obvious, just keep working on all of those things. There really is no magical way to fix everything immediately. It just takes lots of work and a decision to really concentrate on doing your skills with good form. Really concentrate on all the little things, even during basic skills, until it becomes second nature. It's hard to tell what you really need to work on without seeing the actual skills, but here are a few common problems or drills to work on that could potentially help.

Vault:
Handstand blocks

Bars:
Work on keeping your shoulders over the bar for casts and squeezing through the middle.
For clear hips, make sure you are aggressively dropping your shoulders back into the clear hip and rotating your hands properly. There have been some good videos posted on clear hip drills posted lately, do a search for them here or on youtube and that will provide you with a good visual.

Beam:
Split jumps- practice. Work them on the trampoline, the floor, hang from a high bar and lift your legs to split. It's a little bit different than splits on the floor as this requires active flexibility rather than static. If you have a thera band measured for you you could also use that.
Tammy Biggs has a ton of drills for improving active flexibility, leaps, and jumps on the Gymnastics Minute youtube channel. A lot of them are listed at this think (ones with flexibility, thera band, balistic kicking, etc. in titles).
Fear issues- practice for this one as well. Pressure routines in the gym, lots of reps of all of the skills.

Floor:
Getting feet together- you just need to keep thinking about it until you get it. Usually, if I remind a gymnast enough to get their feet together it doesn't take too long to fix the problem. Unless, of course, there is another problem going on with the skills. Work a lot on body awareness and where you are putting your body.

 

[CoachTodd]

Hey Chalkbucket,



Vault-
-How to stick

-How to block high...

~Lauren

Don't think about blocking. This usually make folks hit the table while getting ready to block instead of while extending into the table.
Hit the board with your arms reasonably low and your feet in front of you. i.e. Try to push the board forward.
After you punch the board, bring your arms to your ears and squeeze. The block will happen on its own.

 

[GetaGrip]

Don't think about blocking. This usually make folks hit the table while getting ready to block instead of while extending into the table.
Hit the board with your arms reasonably low and your feet in front of you. i.e. Try to push the board forward.
After you punch the board, bring your arms to your ears and squeeze. The block will happen on its own.

I'd like to learn how to block rather high because I was perfectly hollow at my last meet and I blocked by handstand, but not as high I wished. Does my vaulting on a high vault height give me disadvantages block wise? (I vault on 125, and I'm 4'9")

Thanks

-Lauren

 

[CoachTodd]

I'd like to learn how to block rather high because I was perfectly hollow at my last meet and I blocked by handstand, but not as high I wished. Does my vaulting on a high vault height give me disadvantages block wise? (I vault on 125, and I'm 4'9")

Thanks

-Lauren

The height of your block depends on the angle and speed of your entry. From what I've seen with the kids I work with, your height to table height ratio should be fine. You may want to check the distance of the board from the table if you don't think you are getting sufficient block. The further away the board is, the more time you have to slow down during the preflight. This takes away from the block.
Most of the vaulters I've worked with or seen at meets that have a great deal of power have the springboard 2 feet from the table or closer. Given your height, I'd try 1'6" and see how that works. You will have to get used to going from board to table almost instantly. This usually takes some adjusting if you are used to the board being further away.

Here is a link to a video of one of my strongest vaulters. You'll not that there is almost no preflight at all.
You may have to slow it down to see. Her board is about 1'9" from the table and she's about 5'2". Table is on 6
YouTube - Front handspring Vault

 

[GetaGrip]

Wow! That vault was definitely something! I have no idea how far away the board is from the vault, but it's not very far.
I guess one of my problems for vault is that I have quite a big preflight before I touch the vault, so it doesn't help me block very high.
Probably one of the only deductions I'm getting on vault is from my block height (9.35 at the last w/ out a stick).
I'd just really like to eliminate that as well.
Thanks!

-Lauren

 

[dancesterx3]

Hey Chalkbucket,

I've just completed my first level 7 meet, and now I realized that my best friend score is 8.8. Just kidding. But seriously, I get that score way too much. Too help boost my scores, I was wondering if you could tell me how to clean up these few skills:

Bars-
-How to cast to 45 above horizontal with a hollow body and tight legs/toes

-How to consistently clear-hip to 45 with legs together

-How to kip with straight legs


Beam-
-How to do a 180 split jump with pointed toes and straight legs also w/ both legs at even height (I'm flexible enough to do hit at least 180)

-How to break the significant amount of wobbles I get when competing from fear


Floor-
-How to keep my legs together in my round off and back handspring

-How to have an even switch leap

-How to stick tumbling!!!


Vault-
-How to stick

-How to block high


If you can answer ANY of these questions I will thank you so much!!! This is what I need to be a serious contender in states competitions!

~Lauren

Hey Lauren, One thing I can say is that of all the events beam is DEFINITELY the scariest, I can feel you on your fear there, it was my fave even but that was cause I was so afraid of it. Sometimes I swore I could hear it laughing at me. But the best way to conquer your fear is to just do it over and over again, use a platform mat or a low beam with stacked mats, and just repeat the skills over and over again. Sometimes flexibility isn't the problem with hitting the split jumps sometimes it's strength. I was trying to explain that to my friend about toe touches in cheer it's not about how flexible your are in the straddle but how strong your legs and abs are to pull them up that high. One thing I did in both dance and gym was take those weights that strap around your ankles and do the leaps across the floor, you won't hit as high as you would if they weren't on, but when you take them off and do them you'll be amazed at the difference. Plus it builds the muscles in the legs and abs to help hit the split better on the beam.

To stick your tumbling passes, I suggest spotting the floor before you land just like you would in vault you wanna make sure you see where the floor is and just land it, you might take a step back or two but even Shawn Johnson didn't always land solid, also lift your chest up and spot something on the wall across from you or pretty much any spot as long as its not movie (like another person) you'll be less likely to fall forwards because you evenly distribute your weight through your legs and helps you from falling. Also something you just gotta do over and over again.

For a switch leap, it depends on which leg is lagging I will assume it's the back leg cause that seems to be a lot of girls problems, I see it a lot in my dance class, thats also another strength thing, I used the weights and put it on the leg that was lagging behind and worked on the leap across the floor. Also I did this thing where I went to the even bars (that the guys use) and I pushed myself above it, and worked on the physical motion of the leap, basically I'd swing my left leg forward and snap into a right front leap. Sometimes you don't always think about the motions of the leap or even if you are doing it right, so when you are just working the motions out you can see what is not going right. You can also use the bars with the weights on your legs to snap into a leap to work on strengthening the legs and abs.

sticking tumbling on vault is helpful if you spot. Depending on the skill your doing, if you over rotate or under rotate you'll must likely stumble. Make sure you are rotating completely if you are doung a yurchenko 1 and a half make sure you don't over rotate into a 1 and 3/4 because you land twisted and then fall over.

But to solve all of your problems the best answer I can give you is to just practice, you know what you are lacking in so make sure to focus on those things as much as possible. I know you'll get it and you'll be amazing! Keep us posted!

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

For your switch leap: it depends on which leg is lagging, of course. Try doing switch leaps in front of a mirror, if you have one at your gym, or have a parent videotape you doing a couple so you can identify when you're even and when you're tilted and learn to feel the right angle.

For your split jump: I like hanging splits from the bars: it's amazing how much I've been able to improve my active flexibility doing these. Also, I like split jumps on tramp, split kicks, and the hanging splits with ankle weights.

Bars: Your movement has to come from stomach muscles, not knee motion. I would do just one kip focusing on not bending the knee at all, even going back to a glide swing if you have to. Then you can add on a high cast, clear hip, kip, whatever, when you can do a straight-legged kip without thinking about it. It has to become a habit and you have to break the old one...

 

[GetaGrip]

Wow!!! Thank you so much for all of the feedback!

To start off, my front leg is the one that is lower in my switch leap. I can get 180, but i'm about 35 degrees tilted too...

On bars, I've been practicing shove drills (having a coach push my chest over the bar, and then I cast so that way I can get more hollow) and only concentrating on tightness.

For beam, I'm not as afraid of my skills, as I am of falling. I'm terrified of the fact that I can just step off of the beam at any moment with out being able to do anything about it.

And floor, my routine is great except for the fact that I can NOT keep my legs together to save my life...
Actually, I've had this problem since level 5, but the fact that really opened my eyes was level 6 states.
I would have gotten 1st place on floor, if I had a perfect back tumbling pass, but I didn't, and instead of getting a 9.5, I got an 8.6.
Yeah... I don't want to do that again...

-Lauren