How much tumbling do you do each practice?

[juliasmom]

I'm just curious as to how much time is spent on just tumbling at each practice. My daughter has been struggling with fear of doing a round off back handspring back tuck for a couple of years now. It gets better, but then comes back again. Right now she is in one of her scared phases. If she doesn't have a spot, she balks. She can do the skill beautifully though when she's not scared. She says that they only do 3 of these passes each practice. They practice 3 days per week. Yes, they practice front tumbling and such, but only 3 passes where they do the round off back handspring back tuck. Is this normal? She is level 5. Most of the other level 5's can do this with no problem. I am no coach, and this may be normal. Just asking....

 

[Deleted member D3987]

this is a vestibular issue. yes, this is normal. this is one way to remedy the issue over time. and you don't say how old she is. i will assume under 12. in time, there is a better chance to none that her vestibular system will mature and she'll outgrow and thru the problem. patience will be your mantra.

 

[juliasmom]

So, it's okay that they only do 3 of these passes at each practice? For some reason, I keep thinking the more she does it, the better she will feel about it. I am not a gymnast or a coach though.

I am very patient. I want her to do gym for fun and exercise. She is the one who has an issue with patience. I keep telling her that she will get it in time. No worries....And, if not that's okay too. I've never even done a cartwheel and my life has turned out great. HA... I just wish she would listen.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yes, it's okay. read my post on the vestibular system and then explain it to your daughter in words she'll understand. it's more important that she understands that there is nothing 'wrong' with her more than how many passes she does a week. understand?

 

[juliasmom]

ok... Thanks... I will try to explain it to her as best I can. I forgot to mention her age. She is 9.

 

[kimskids]

My dd just turned 10 and has the same problem. She finally "got" her back tuck and then said she did not get to work it for a week or so and "lost" it. My thinking was the same as yours that the more they work it the more comfortable she would get with it. I must say I was a little annoyed that she did not get to work it at all right after getting it bc she was very upset to lose it so quickly! LOL! Thanks for keeping us in line with the patience issue Dunno!

 

[jsfofec]

There is a 9 year old at our gym with the same problem. She's an incredible tumbler, then suddenly she can't do a back tuck...sometimes she can't do a BHS. Put her on the tumble track and she can do a BHS double back into the pit, walk onto the floor and can't do a BHS. She's had the problem for a few months, but like dunno said, patience. The dad used to stress her out about it, but now he doesn't say a word, he leaves it up to her and her coach to deal with it.

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

If they're working on routines right now, they won't be doing a whole lot of upper-level tumbling. Right now my team is gearing up for state meets, so we have to stick two good passes of each pass that's in our routine, plus the passes we do to warm up and in our routines. We do two routines, with an extra dismount afterwards.

You want to be careful with doing a lot of tumbling, especially if she's having trouble with the pass. Sometimes working it too much can be worse than not doing it at all - you're training yourself to do it badly or to balk. Not to mention too many tumbling passes can be hell on your ankles and knees.

 

[MaryA]

Since she doesn't need this tumbling pass till level 6, I would say that the fact that she's working on it regularly, and that she has a good ROBHSBT with a light spot already is great! As hard as it is, try not to compare what she can and can't do to the other girls. They will all get things and lose things on a regular basis and mostly you just only notice when it's YOUR kid who is struggling.

 

[Coach_J]

You mentioned that your daughter has struggled with this skill for a few years. At age 9, that could simply be her gaining the strength she needs. I have often dealt with gymnasts feeling the "lost skill". Usually they haven't fully understood what they did to "gain" the skill in the first place and that will come with time. There can be many reasons why she didn't get the opportunity to practice the skill a lot right after doing it successfully but the fact that she did it once shows progress and I wouldn't worry. Typically if possible. I would like to tumble more than 3x per pass per practice. That does seem a little on the low side. Fear is the biggest roadblock in gymnastics in my opinion and each kid gets past their fears of different skills at their own pace. Its important that she stays encouraged and keeps trying. Best of luck.

 

[iwannacoach]

I call this Phantom Failure. I think in baseball it's called the yips.....

Just some insight by way of my own experience with one of my gymnasts. I had this kid that moved like silk...power combined with grace, joined by an acute awareness for time/space/and position. Normally this would lead to great things, and it did until she started doing more complex skills and would stop in the middle of an attempt and claim she just couldn't finish it.

One day I realized that she was the "best dresser" in the gym and was always color co-ordinated in every way possible. So I asked her how long it took to choose which clothes to wear for school and she replied "about 30 to 40 minutes". Wow!, this girl couldn't make up her mind about something as simple as which clothes to wear. This led me to suspect that her inability to decide, combined with a body awareness that allowed her to feel even the slightest deviation from what she had defined as perfection was causing these aborted attempts.

To overcome this I had to totally convince her that even her worst efforts would be safe 99.999% of the time, and if she would just complete the attempt she could learn how easily the skill could be performed. It didn't have to come close to perfection and that our "new perfection" would be to complete every skill no matter how "off" it felt. We started out small with some spotting and worked our way up to the most difficult skills and over time, with a ton of positive reinforcement, she was able to perform comfortably.

I'm not saying this is the case with every Phantom Failure but it is an illustration of how complex this issue can be. And I'm sorry if the word failure isn't pc but I started calling it that so long ago that I can't stop and in that way I'm a failure too.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

i'm curious...what kind of "complex skills"?

 

[iwannacoach]

I didn't mean like double backs or lay-outs on beam, but just the graduation from the basics to the next step. I guess the best example would be bhs series on beam. She'd do a pretty decent bhs and just stop...couldn't/would't move into the next one. Or going from just casting to hs to learning how to pirrouette. Floor pirrouettes were amazing, cast hs was great, but put her on just the floor bar to do a pirrouette and she would change her hand and just bail out half way through the pirrouette when all else looked good to go. It really drove me crazy as there seemed to be no reason for her to stop and was in no real fall risk created by finishing the skill. It wasn't until I talked to her about being a perfectionist, with a hyper-sensitive spatial awareness, who also had a hard time making up her mind in even the most simple situations, that she progressed through these skills into intermediate level skills. sorry if I confused you with the "more complex" label when what I was trying to say is more complex movements for her.