Tips on doing better back hand springs

[mnwilson]

My daughter is a level 5 with a beautiful floor routine, EXCEPT her Back Hand Springs. She bends her knees and arms, and sometimes her feet are not quite together. Her coach does NOT want her to do additional practice (private lessons) on the skill b/c she is afraid it will burn her out, however, I am not seeing them get any better. She has developed some bad habits and they went uncorrected for so long. If anyone has any advice or tips, I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

 

[Valentin]

My advice is this.
1- Find a coach that is willing to spend A LOT of time hand spotting and doing specific drills for the BHS. The reason for this is because, fixing bad habbits takes about 6 times as long as to learn the thing correctly. Your daughter needs to go through the skill many hundred of times hand spotted or doing specific drills so that she can feel, and understand her mistakes.
She quite likely is not aware (aside from the coach or someone else telling her) that she is doing those things. The bent legs especially require this so that she can feel her legs, the skill goes fast! and its hard to feel what ones limbs are doing. I seriously suggest getting either private lessons or ask the coach nicely (i say this because after moving her to the US recently i am finding the coach/parent relationship, being a hardone to say the least) if she/he can add more drills to help you daughter practice fixing single mistakes (like doing standing BHS of a springboard to work on leg shape etc,).
that be my advice, because this will otherwise take much longer to fix (and it might eventually just as she gets stronger faster etc..)

 

[Deleted member D3987]

that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[GetaGrip]

In addition to what Valentin said, pushing off the ground harder in your round offs can push them over faster making the back handspring easier to complete. If you think about it, if your feet are in front of your when you punch off the floor, its much easier to go backwards then if your feet are behind you. By pushing off of your hands, you turn over more and your feet end up farther in front of you. This mostly helps out leg separation.