Hello
I for one think that dive roll is probably the best! progression for young gymnasts for the handspring. The problem is that the drive roll is taught wrong in the first place, and actually a lot of the fault is that gymnasts take the meaning 'dive' wayyyy to literaly and throw themselves forward.
Also a problem is that L4 vault is to low. It should be the same height as the table vault that they will need to vault over. Most gymnasts as just to tall for a 36-38in mat to vault on.. But this can be compensated for if they can do a proper diveroll
There is a considerable difference between dive roll for floor and vault. On floor its nice to see a nice high long dive roll, but for vault the purpose of the dive roll is to:
1- Teach take-off that takes off as vertical as possibe that is why the progession before hand should a AWESOME! straight jump onto 60cm at least.
2- Heel drive...you can teach the gymnat this action correctly of the board with the added safety that the gymnast doesn't have to try and flip it like a layout. Its just safer and easier, but for any gymnast move onto teaching them a layout as fast as you can (safely, and as they are ready to move on).
3- Arm action. Underam is best in my opinion. The dive roll should have a underarm action with the arm going no higher then forehead height.
To really teach the gymnast a nice dive roll you have to really make them do it over something that is their head height at least (with them standing on the board). But you need to be carefull to make sure that the other side is soft and safe, and be ready to spot it. Because i can almost guarantee you that they will not have the heal drive, and will try and lean over it, and forget to heel drive at all...but here is where you have to coach it, and get craetive to understand. If you ahve a pit that can work
A good idea is to also try and get them diveroll (to stop in a handstand) onto aa surface above head hight so that they are trying to take of as vertical as possible while heel driving upto handstand.Until they have the power and speed to actualy be able to execute the form its silly to expect them to do it. That is why i like using trampolines (mini ones) or reallllly springy springboards, or tumble track to make up for the their weakness in the legs.
But in short if the dive roll is taught right with the purpose of teach it a progression to the layout, and as handspring vault then it will work much much better, and you will soon see its benefit.
The boys program in NZ has it right in my opinion, and i think the US has a similar progression.
1- Straight Jump on 30cm (which i think is to low, but for little guys its ok, but it should be 60cm if you ask me)
2- Dive roll (as i said with purpose being height, rotation, not length (but in NZ they sepup the mats of weird and it turn into length...so guess the idea is right but the teaching and execution is poor
3- Front tuck
4- Layout
5- Handspring.