WAG KIP timing

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AusDad

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I'm trying to help my 7yr old with her kip. Individually she has the components looking good and has great strength, but when she puts it all together, just can't get the timing. I've searched through and had her watch countless YouTube videos, but it's just not improving. From my limited knowledge, it seems to be from when the legs come back to the bar that it loses its flow and she's then not transferring enough power to lift. Any tips or other videos I might have missed? She's doing the main drills like 'pulling on pants' straight leg and V's, etc.
 
She sounds keen. It is super normal for girls to spend a fair bit of time at that ‘nearly got it’ stage. My daughter spent a year at it and managed to get her kip just in the nick of time before she first needed to compete it.

And on that note, it is a level five skill in Australia. She won’t need it for a while yet, so there’s no rush.
 
I would leave it to her coaches to help her get the skill. Watching too many videos could be info overload with too many different ideas and could cause more stress on her.
 
I would leave it to her coaches to help her get the skill. Watching too many videos could be info overload with too many different ideas and could cause more stress on her.
I definitely agree, though we have a bar at home and she keeps practicing it herself. I don't want to tell her to stop, so have been trying to get her to focus on the individual elements of a kip and working on those.
 
I agree you should let her coach teach the kip-and a proper kip can take time, LOTS of time!

This is a great video showing some drills that lead up to the kip(if the base strength is missing, the kip will never come). I think for at home, I would pay more attention to the conditioning side than the actual kip, waaaaaay too easy for a 'layman' to work in a bad habit or 2 that will take far longer to correct, whereas if you just build the strength, then the coach will have an easier time teaching the proper kip-free of bad habits :-)



We actually have no real equipment at home(just a panel mat-used for stretching, picnics, and star gazing more than actual gymnastics-lol), we are finally getting a beam at Christmas with the coaches blessing, however we were told at home equipment leads to improper form and bad habits more often than not(and home bars are no good after level 3/4).

However, you need to do what you feel is best. Maybe ask your daughter's coach for some advice on this??
 
I'd have to see a video to be sure, but the most common problems are initiating too early and gripping too tightly.

A kip is an optical illusion: it looks like it happens in the front of the swing, but it actually happens on the way back. She should extend the glide until she reaches the peak of her front swing and stalls out at the top. Right when she stops swinging forward and pauses at the top, that's when the toes should come to the bar.

As for the grip, it's very common to grip too tightly and have the wrists get stuck under the bar. This creates the illusion that the gymnast is pushing away from the bar at the end of the kip. Ideally she should have a fairly relaxed grip, and this will cause the correct regress to happen more or less automatically
 

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