WAG Unexpected twisting?

[Natasha]

L8 gymnast just last week started doing a full on floor when she intends to do a layout. She was able to fix it for a couple of days and did it fine and then in the meet ended up doing two passes with a full instead of a full and a layout. (Which was a problem as she then did not have 3 different saltos.) She says she just can't control if she twists or not. Curious as to what causes this and what techniques you use to resolve it?

 

[iwannacoach]

Sometimes kids don't do the skill mentally and /or purposefully, and that leave room for whoopsies somewhere in the pathway from the brain to the muscles.

Call it a lack of concentration gone wild (a theory here) caused by having a lot of recently added skills, or even just the big one. She failed to create the forces that create a layout, and the most dominate energy in her brain took over, and that dominate energy was the full.

So that sets her up with a fear she has no ability to control what happens when she takes off, and when she tumbles the thought in her head is all about the full......like don't let it twist, hope I don't twist, how do I know if I'm gonna twist or not.

This is not an easy Jeannie to put back in the bottle for some kids. About the best thing you can do is make it as much of a non-issue....and let her coach take care of the "franken twist" they both created.

 

[gymdog]

It's a common vestibular problem caused when somehow she cannot orient herself any more visually/spatially. There can be different causes and some are hard to correct since the vestibular system is sensitive. Anyway, it would probably help for her to be spotted on layouts and do just the layout (such as on a trampoline, with no roundoff back handspring). These things would give her extra information to orient herself with.

There could be psychological causes, but the "inappropriate/perceived twist" is such a common one when it comes to a vestibular issue. It just takes patience to work through and may or may not reappear.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

L8 gymnast just last week started doing a full on floor when she intends to do a layout. She was able to fix it for a couple of days and did it fine and then in the meet ended up doing two passes with a full instead of a full and a layout. (Which was a problem as she then did not have 3 different saltos.) She says she just can't control if she twists or not. Curious as to what causes this and what techniques you use to resolve it?

it's vestibular. tell her to be patient and it will come back to normal eventually. and great post Gymdog. you gets it.

 

[Muddlethru]

it's vestibular. tell her to be patient and it will come back to normal eventually. and great post Gymdog. you gets it.

My daughter had this problem in the early part of L8. She was doing fulls a year before for TOPS testing. Then when she needed it at L8, all of a sudden she could not do it. So the coached removed it and put whips and pikes instead. Then middle of L8, she started twisting accidentally when she was suppose to do whips and layouts. By the end of the season, she was doing fulls when she needed it and layouts when she had to. She did outgrow the confusion and actually won floor in the L8 Regional meet. She was falling on her butt almost every other meet. Just as dunno and gymdog states, it is vestibular and they do outgrow it.

 

[Ingwe]

My Dd is on a "break" from front twisting because she was twisting accidentally when she trying to do her FLO/FLO pass. It started at the end of the summer. Her whole floor routine had to be revamped to accommodate her "twisties" (as she calls them lol) She hasn't even tried front twisting in months now or FLO/FLO's.

She told me the other day that she thinks that she is ready to add the FLO/FLO back into her routine and be able to do it without twisting. It's taken awhile for her to 'get over it"

 

[Natasha]

Thanks for the responses and the feedback. The coach changed her passes for the meet this weekend to avoid the back layout as she was getting stressed about the upcoming meet again. It just seemed odd to all of a sudden start happening as one day she just all of a sudden out of the blue could not back tumble without twisting. She has not added any new floor skills this season at all as she was out with an ankle injury in the fall. While she did not compete her full in competition last year, she did it at nearly every practice. I had just never heard of this happening before and was curious about it.

 

[Clover]

No answers on the cause, but I wanted to let you know it must not be that uncommon. My daughter also went through the phase where she would twist on every layout. I think it is fixed (but wouldn't be surprised if it came back). She just took a break from both for a while and then reintroduced the layout. For her it is just uptraining skills (not competing them yet), so it was easier to take a break from them.