righthand cartwheels with lefthand handstands

[lilgymmom]

my dd is doing right hand cartwheels but lefty handstands. she is level 3 and her coach told us that at the meets she has to stick to one side. the goal is to switch her handstand to righthand just like her cartwheels.

i try to encourage her at home to practice and she does. but, when i ask her to do her routine for me, she automatically chooses the lefty handstand.

the tricky part is, i think she's been doing the wrong side for a while and its going to be hard for her to switch. i can tell that she really has to think about doing a right hand stand.

anyone ever had this happen?? any suggestions?

 

[gymdog]

It happens. They do pick it up as habit. When she works on the routine, she can slip a scrunchie over the ankle of the right foot; scrunchie foot always goes first on everything.

 

[CreateMagic]

That's definitely a hard habit to break. I like the scrunchie idea. At my gym, we stamp the "ready foot" of our newer rec kids to help remind them of which one to use.

 

[sheplaysinthechalk]

there was a girl on my dd's team that did this. Roundoff with the right leg, cartwheel right, but did front and back walkovers, kick overs, nandstands, etc with the left leg...


The coaches fixed it by using the scrunchie method...(only they used athletic tape) and it was corrected in no time. I'm pretty sure that they defined her "righty" because of the righty run roundoff...

This particular girl still has trouble doing the front walkover, but that's it. With my little knowledge of the technicality of gymnastics, I assume that the most important thing is that she is consistently using the correct foot - and not that she can't do the front walkover. The front walkover will come in time.

 

[Saturate15]

When I was little, I was doing cartwheels righty, pretty much everything righty. Well, one day at practice (take in mine, I was probably 6 years old) we had to show our coaches both cartwheels, right & left. Well, my left blew my right out of the water. So they switched me to left to do round-offs, ect.. It's worked out pretty well, even though I think I can do a roundoff with my right.. but when it came time to do back walk-overs.. I was stuck righty. I had them on the beam righty, and then as a 6 I had to change it so my beam routine was correct.. I still can't do a back walkover on beam now.. but on floor I can do back walkovers with both legs. ha. I can also twist both directions.. My left leg used to have so much more strength over my right, until I had surgery. Now it's just a little stronger because as I've gotten older I've learned to even out skills and not support just one leg.

 

[pink ranger]

I wish I could do cartwheels/handstands with my left hand/side. Than again, I hardly ever practice switching yet (I want to perfect it first in general before I try that).

 

[ShootingStaRr]

i have a similar problem to this but its with split leaps and jumps.
i leap on floor on both legs, and split change right-left & then when im on beam its right leg.
when i split jump on floor its right leg and on beam its left leg.
on beam my left leg is dominant but on floor its both.
my coach tried to change it but it never worked, so she gave up on trying.

the scrunchie idea is a good idea! also get her to work on both legs of those skills so she will get comfortable with the both, and slowly get her to use only side.
i dont think it matters too much that shes handstands and cartwheels on different legs, its just a preference.

most skills in gymnastics need to be learnt with both legs, because when you start getting into higher levels you start connecting skill together and gymnasts have trouble because they learnt one skill one leg and the other on the other leg. the most common is cartwheel backwards walk over!

 

[gymdog]

Well that's because a right cartwheel ends with the left leg in front. I'm not sure all skills have to be learned on each leg, merely a consistent leg, although I do eventually have kids do cartwheels on both sides just for even strengthening or whatever and all and if we're doing lines, just to have everyone face one way then the other way and everyone gets their good side. For stuff they step into, usually I just keep the one leg. You could do cartwheel swing through BWO if you really wanted to use to the other leg first in the BWO though. For the USAG compulsory routines, things need to be on a consistent side so I wouldn't mess with it until optionals when I feel they should have the ability to learn the BWO on the other side if it really comes to that. There are many connections that use a consistent foot though and I tend to prefer those as progressions anyway. It's okay to change feet for coordination and awareness purposes but I think they really need to have a defined sense of which foot they're using consistently first, otherwise they're going to be hurdling on a different foot. I've seen some kids where they can do RO equally but most have a better side. When I have kids doing CW one ways and HS with the other foot, I change everything to the CW side.

 

[GymnastRaeRae87]

my best friend is the same way. she does one skill righty then next lefty. she is rec and it isn't a problem, on beam she had to learn how to do a few skills on the different leg, but nothing too diffucult and the others were no problem to switch.

that scrunchie idea is REALLY smart by the way!