Women Legs Apart on Pretty Much... Everything?

[Vincati]

My DD is a L4 and her season is starting in a few months and her coaches are getting very annoyed with her legs being apart on everything. On floor her RO BHS is ok but her legs are apart. She says its too fast to apply corrections and she really wants a 9.5 this year and is positive to do that she needs a good RO BHS. On vault... not too bad. I don't think she needs very much help there, it is steadily improving. Beam doesn't need help with legs either, but is working on keeping her toes together on her dismount. Bars has the same issue as floor. On bars, she either applies the corrections and falls or has bent and apart legs and makes it. Thanks

 

[iwannacoach]

It sounds like she's gotten the wrong concept about how her body should move during a skill. The best example I can offer is her beam dismount. It doesn't make sense that she would move from a balanced handstand position, with her legs straight and together, into a falling turn......with her legs separating. Having your legs apart makes it harder to turn and control, as there are so many changing weight distributions......kinda like how do you plan for a movement that never happens the same way twice in a row.....

My thought is that kids make many of their mistakes in the pursuit of skills as they percieve them, and the corrections from the coach.......well they just get "spun" until the coach's ideas meld with their own. Your dd probably believes that since her feet are leading the way on the skill, that they must somehow be responsible for the turn, and is "reaching" around with one leg make that turn a success. I wonder what the coach has said about how to make turn happen???

She probably needs to learn that the movements on some skills are created by one end of the body while the other end just stays tight.....going along for the ride.

 

[sglemon]

The key to the backhandspring is the roundoff. How is she landing her roundoff? If she lands them feet apart, her BHS would be feet apart. That is only .1 deduction. Her coach need to break that skill down, along with the others, and work on the corrections from the beginning.

 

[Vincati]

Yes, her RO BHS is like that. Her RO lands with her feet apart.

 

[mayestra12]

My dd is also L4 and struggling with the same thing. I've seen some good ones out of her but most often legs are apart and she's had the skill since April. To be honest, she's never had a great round off. I can only hope her coaches are really working on it with her.

 

[Vincati]

My DD does better under pressure. At her best L3 meet, she did the best RO I've ever seen her do and got a 9.3 but never did the same RO again. But she wants a good consistant RO BHS with her legs together and she has had hers since April as well.

 

[BlairBob]

With some rope or theraband, tie her ankles together. Work on specific drills. They tend to hate this but it does work to some degree. They may need to be spotted and watched doing some drills (doesn't work for RO obviously). Good for backhandspring series.