Women Question on Cast Straddle Handstand

[Daffodil]

My daughter seems to be having difficulty keeping her one leg straight on a cast straddle handstand on bars. Does anyone know why this might happen? It is always her left leg. She thinks it is straight but it is consistently bent when she casts and moves to the straddle (looks like a frog almost). Any suggestions on how to help her fix this?

 

[kassgymnast_]

work on drills. work on pointing toes. at my gym, we do this: we bounce into a straddle on trampoline, and press handstand. it had actually helped us get our legs straighter. But mostly work on pointing toes because it has a more likely chance in straightening the leg.

 

[Daffodil]

Thank you kassgymnast_. She is working on the straddle presses on the tumble track. I will mention the toes to her.

 

[kassgymnast_]

you're welcome, and if that doesn't work, you may want to work on just cast handstands without the straddle. They are much more difficult though.

 

[ayyyrial]

You can do drills for this on the floor or floor bar as well. Standing in a pike with her hands on the floor/floor bar, jump to straddle, and then jump so her feet are a little bit off the ground in a straddle. Then go straight from pike to straddle in the air. Keep the feet not very far off the ground so she's not worrying about height, just making sure to feel that her legs are pushing all the way straight. Eventually she can try to jump all the way to handstand.

Another thing that is great for this is spotted straddle cast handstands with a coach (obviously not something you can do on your own) but it can help to eliminate things like fears and the desire to compromise form to get all the way up since the coach is helping a bit.