When to twist during a layout

[ScottyG978]

Hey guys!! So I have a pretty annoying issue right now. I need a double full by june in order to try out for a cheerleading team. I can do a r/o hand full right now, and they're actually pretty easy and I don't find twisting particularly difficult. I've always been able to make the entire full, never had to do halves (I realize this may also be considered bad for skipping that step). So my main issue with the full is that everyone says I twist right off the ground. Now when I watch a video of myself doing it, It does look like I'm twisting directly into the layout and this makes me go lower and have to pike down at the end a bit. When I do the skill however, I distinctly pull my toes as I would a layout before I twist. My gymnastics friends say that I need to begin twisting at the very top of my layout, as in when I'm completely upside down. I can do this and have in the past. What I'm concerned about, is that whenever I see people twist, and doubles especially, they seem to look like they're twisting off the ground. I've never seen anybody pull a double twist in the second half of the flip alone. So my question is, how is it 'correct' to wait until you're upside down to do a full, but everyone I've seen do both fulls and doubles right from the start. I just don't want to get in a habit of throwing something incorrectly.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

you're not trained/educated to understand what you see. and because you haven't seen something is simply that. you haven't seen it.

bottom line, your feet should be at 11 and your shoulders at 5. this is a good angle for most generally speaking.

and surface twisting is something you want to avoid if you're not around trained coaches and you're going beyond 2 twists.

finally, provide some video and several of us here can help.

 

[ScottyG978]

You're right, I guess it's just not something I can pick up just by looking at the skill yet.. but hopefully that changes soon! I do have videos of my fulls before.. mind you, they weren't horrible, they were just not getting the height and rotation they needed to land completely standing up. However, at practice the past few days I've had a few gymnast friends of mine really help with the timing of my twists. Now, though it feels completely awkward, I apparently twist at a good time (like you said, with feet around 11).
What I was wondering though, is how I should pull my arms to maximize twisting speed. Currently I pull my arms directly to my right shoulder in order to twist, pulling my head with them. When I see alot of people twist, especially doubles (sorry i keep bringing them up, but as a cheerleader that is the primary goal of tumbling) pull their arms to the side very wide, like a bear hug, to initiate the twisting then continue to pull them in hard until they're against the body. So is it better to do the wide to close pull or simply pull directly to the shoulder? I've experimented with both on the floor just twisting in socks and the wide to close pull seems the most effective as I could easily twist 3 times without significantly slowing down.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yes. good method. wide to close. arms should be across lower chest for 1. the more twist the higher the arms should be.