Coaches Kips

[WavyNavy8]

This is only my second year coaching USAG 4. So forgive me.

I have gymnast who will NOT do a straight arm Kip for me. Mom says she’s done it at clinics and other coaches in the gym who have worked with her in privates and semi privates, said she’s been very close

For me it’s consistently the belly drag. Since July.

What am I doing wrong?
What am I saying wrong?

I give all the corrections and she’ll just look at me and smile and walk away. I’ve been tried to ask her to repeat what I said and she will, but won’t implement it.

 

[jgymnastics!]

I’m both a gymnast and coach (head of my gyms preteam). The best technique for getting a kid to straight arm kip is drill, just saying corrections out loud rarely have an impact in my experience. A combination of Forster bar drills, spotting kips and the sit up drill on a bar (pushing off a mat) for the end of the kip is what I found to work best.

 

[supernicegymmom]

It’s best you maybe try spotting her for a few kips very heavily so she can do it with straight arms easily, every turn in bars spot her less and less until she can finally do it by herself. This may work for you because I also used to have a level 3 like this when I used to coach. Hope this helps!

 

[ryanolympian]

Talking and explaining the kip never really worked for me either. It is really just pulling on the pants upside down, but strength and timing are the key- like trying to teach timing in hip-hop. I don’t spot heavy but a well timed spot to show the movement corrects their movements. I hold their feet in one hand in the low bar swing and use the other hand in the small of their back to assist them with timing. If they bend their arms, or can’t keep form, then they won’t make it. The repetition teaches them because this technique makes it easier on them to just keep form. As long as their strength base has been conditioned, the kip technique will come quickly. But they have to learn the timing, and we can only teach that through doing it with them.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

This is only my second year coaching USAG 4. So forgive me.

I have gymnast who will NOT do a straight arm Kip for me. Mom says she’s done it at clinics and other coaches in the gym who have worked with her in privates and semi privates, said she’s been very close

For me it’s consistently the belly drag. Since July.

What am I doing wrong?
What am I saying wrong?

I give all the corrections and she’ll just look at me and smile and walk away. I’ve been tried to ask her to repeat what I said and she will, but won’t implement it.

Short answer:
Can't be sure without seeing a video, but from your description I'd probably focus on hitting full extension at the top of the glide and waiting to hit the peak of the swing before bringing the toes in, and also tell her to relax her grip.

Long answer:
I like to look at a kip in 5 parts:

1) The glide (if it's on low bar) and hollow swing (if it's on high bar).
2) Extension at the end of the forward swing
3) Toes to the bar
4) Push the bar down, sit up to cast-loading position
5) Cast

Each of these parts has certain key features, and can be broken down further. Here are some of the main areas of focus:

1) On the glide, we want to maintain tension in the abs, head between the arms. If they're on the low bar, they'll pike or straddle for a glide; if they're on the high bar, just maintaining a hollow is fine. This is primarily a strength check; if they struggle with this, get them doing some sort of hollow body holds for strength and body tension.

2) THE EXTENSION OF THE FORWARD SWING IS CRUCIAL, COUNTERINTUITIVE, AND IMO OFTEN-NEGLECTED. The gymnast should extend the hips to a more-or less straight position as she reaches the top of the forward swing, and there should be a visible moment where she comes to a complete stop at full extension at the top of the swing. Athletes almost always rush this step, and I think it's one of the most important steps to building an efficient kip. Full hip extension in the moment when the swing stops at the top, head between the arms, mild hollow in the chest/abs.

3) The toes come to the bar as the the body swings back. Full extension at the top of the front swing, full toes-to-bar as they pass backwards through vertical. Biggest thing to watch for is patience; the toes should not start coming towards the bar until AFTER the stop at the top of the front swing.

4) This phase is often described as "pull your pants up." And that works, but I don't usually phrase it that way, because I think that you should always think about pushing the bar, never pulling it (except in a pullover). Rather, what I like to tell athletes is that they should push the bar towards the floor while sitting up to a pike. I don't.... necessarily think it's realistic to expect completely locked arms on this phase. Even when watching the absolute best of the best bar workers, you'll usually see a slight arm bend on this phase; what is important is that they keep downward pressure on the bar.
Now, very often an athlete will appear to push herself away from the bar during this phase and be unable to complete the kip. However, this "push away" is an illusion; what's actually happening is that the athletes tend to grip the bar too tightly. Because of this, the wrists get stuck on the bottom of the bar, making it almost impossible for the shoulders to get over top of the bar; when the shoulders get stuck behind the bar, it creates the illusion that the athlete is pushing herself away from the bar.
Sometimes -- and I have a hunch this may be the case with your athlete -- athletes who grip the bar too tightly will compensate by bending their arms more, which results in the bar getting stuck higher up on the body, resulting in the "belly drag" you mentioned.
Absolutely crucial: this phase should finish in a piked position with both the shoulders and feet in front of the bar.

5) Cast. I prefer to treat kipcast as one skill. Once you're past compulsories, you will never do one without the other, so it makes no sense to consider them two separate skills. I am not currently in any sort of bars lead position, but last time I was, I made a point of telling all my rising level 4 girls that kipcast is one skill, and a kip without a cast is an incomplete skill.

Hope this helps!