Coaches spotting two skills in a row

[gymcoach20]

So I've been coaching for about 5 years, but only started coaching compulsory last year. I have been trying to be more hands on recently but I am struggling spotting level 3s possibly moving up on double back handsprings. Some of the girls in my group can barely do one back handspring by themselves and probably won't be moving up, but I am required to train these skills on tumble-track anyway. How can I move quickly enough to spot them on both skills? do i prioritize the second backhandspring and just guess where they will land for it? I usually spot these on my knees or else I will get kicked in the face.

 

[estamey21]

Are you asking how to spot two back handsprings in a row for kids who can’t do one back handspring? If so, I strongly recommend against this. In my opinion, a gymnast should not start working on connecting two back handsprings until they can do a standing back handspring rebound by themselves. Back handsprings are a fairly dangerous skill for beginner-level gymnasts, so you should invest a lot of time getting the first back handspring strong and consistent before adding more difficulty.

As far as spotting tumbling like a double back handsprings, I make sure the girls have measured their starting position and can prove to me that they are able land in a specific “spotting zone” (where I’m kneeling). Especially with round off back handsprings, it can be challenging for some gymnasts to land in the spotting zone. They run too far, their roundoff is crooked, etc. I don’t let gymnasts attempt a spotted tumbling pass until they can land in the spotting zone. If they can’t, that’s a sign that they aren’t ready to attempt a more dangerous tumbling pass.

A pro tip for younger gymnasts who struggle with measuring steps and predicting where they are going to land: set up a tumbling station with 2 or 3 panel mats as a runway connected to an 8-inch mat as the landing area. The panel mat runways forces them to travel a straight, fixed distance. They roundoff from the panel mat onto the 8-incher, at which point, they are in the spotting zone.

Hope this helps!

 

[sun]

Imo not worth it to spot the double... better to get the single backhandspring so quick that the double is easily achievable. Any big errors on 1 BHS will make the double terrible - and any small errors will make the double rough.

Since the best drill for learning a double back handspring is a single... take your time - do a million singles. At the minimum I'd be looking for a rebound after BHS #1 that travels backwards before considering the 2xBHS

 

[estamey21]

Ah yes, 1 to what @sun said. A second back handspring should be trivial to learn and require very little spot if the first back handspring is learned correctly. For our girls who train 6 hours a week, it takes about a whole season of drills to learn the back handspring. About half a season to learn the round off back handspring. And then one or two months to learn the second back handspring. Spots on the second back handspring are what I call “emotional support” spots, as most athletes don’t actually need the spot once they’ve learned a solid ROBHS.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

So, two answers:

First, learning to chasse alongside an athlete's tumbling while spotting is a very useful skill to develop, not just for multiple backhandsprings, but also just to give you the flexibility to spot an athlete who goes longer or shorter than expected on a pass. Technique-wise, it really is just a side chasse, albeit one that squats a bit lower. I recommend grabbing some more advanced athletes to practice with, and just try to chasse in parallel so they are always right in front of you.

That said, my preferred method of developing backhandsprings is to never spot past a single standing BHS. Rather than try to explain the method by text, here's a link to a clinic I did at woodward a few years back covering this exact thing:

 

[estamey21]

I have so much anxiety about spotting “in motion”

I wish I was skilled enough to spot any “edge case”. Maybe one day…

 

[sun]

When I do spotting in motion, I'll either do a silly little kneeling shuffle or I'll take slow, careful steps towards the spotting location. I worry that gymnasts alter their tumbling if they see their coach jumping around to get into position - I would if I was tumbling!

I have a question (@Geoffrey Taucer ?)- does anybody have tips or thoughts for spotting on trampoline? I've never done a "bouncing-with-the-gymnast" spot. I started by just bouncing with them while holding their mid-section until our rhythm was good, then had them do 3 bounces together to a back-drop position in the air (I'm holding them in midair), and we've done a few back tucks with this spot which were safe, but felt a bit messy. I basically just rotated them from their mid-section, switched my hands, then caught their mid-section again to stabilize the landing.

They don't really need the spot - but I'm thinking way down the line I might want to have this option when it comes to spotting double backs. Thoughts? We just put in a legit, full-sized trampoline

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

When I do spotting in motion, I'll either do a silly little kneeling shuffle or I'll take slow, careful steps towards the spotting location. I worry that gymnasts alter their tumbling if they see their coach jumping around to get into position - I would if I was tumbling!

I have a question (@Geoffrey Taucer ?)- does anybody have tips or thoughts for spotting on trampoline? I've never done a "bouncing-with-the-gymnast" spot. I started by just bouncing with them while holding their mid-section until our rhythm was good, then had them do 3 bounces together to a back-drop position in the air (I'm holding them in midair), and we've done a few back tucks with this spot which were safe, but felt a bit messy. I basically just rotated them from their mid-section, switched my hands, then caught their mid-section again to stabilize the landing.

They don't really need the spot - but I'm thinking way down the line I might want to have this option when it comes to spotting double backs. Thoughts? We just put in a legit, full-sized trampoline

I start like you, bouncing along side them while holding the mid section to keep us synchronized. With a bit of practice, you can have pretty decent control over their height by hitting the trampoline slightly after them to decrease their bounce, or slightly before to boost it (ie "double bounce"). I usually do the three-count and slightly boost their bounce on 3 as I bump their takeoff; this ensures I'll land before them, giving me the most stable position to spot the landing from, and I try to kill their bounce on landing as well.

That said, I prefer not to spot double backs on the trampoline if I can avoid it; seems to me there's just too much that can go wrong, both for me and for the athlete. Ideally, the only skills I'd want spot on a trampoline these days (if back problems weren't currently preventing me from spotting at all) would be some early back drop cleanup, set-to-tabletop for back salto prep, and early back tucks and layouts; anything past that, I'd rather develop without spotting if possible.

I prefer to have them learn double backs in a spotting belt and/or into the pit (usually with a block/mini tramp set up, so they can handstand, snapdown, double back) until we're both confident they know where they're at in the air and ready for the landing. Heavy focus on visual cues; they need to see the landing after the first flip and see it again after the second flip. On snapdwon double backs on mini tramp, I might give them a bump on takeoff if necessary. When they can consistently open at the correct time to land, and when they feel confident to try it, we throw a mat into the pit to land on (something thin and flimsy like a sting mat or a beat-up 4-incher is fine; it's less about actually standing up a landing than it is about being confident and consistent enough to prepare for the landing). Once that's good, we take it over to the trampoline and I slide a mat in under them.

This year I spent some time teaching my upper-level athletes to slide a mat for each other, and that's made things much easier. Outsourcing the mat slide to the athletes has allowed me to step back and properly watch the skill, which is a nice luxury to have. It also, somewhat counterintuitively, seems to help their confidence on the skill, as it leads them to develop it without ever feeling like they need a coach standing there to feel safe.

That said, all this relies on a pretty good setup (we have a pit, a resi, and a trampoline with a spotting belt over it), which not all gyms have. Between trampoline, spotting belt over trampoline, and pit, I think I'd insist on having access to a trampoline and at least one of the other two in order to train double backs -- to me it doesn't seem worth the risk otherwise.