This is an old video that was once available for viewing on the British Gymnastics website:
I'm glad it's reposted to the British YouTube channel.
Coach Wade once mentioned (might have been in a clinic) not to be overly concerned with kids piking down if the goal is to connect a ro bh when they are not physically strong enough to actually snap off their hands and get the chest up (where most coaches seem to place emphasis).
I think the tendency of some coaches is to expect kids to connect a RO BH when they aren't physically positioned/ready for it. What usually happens is a gymnast who has a weak round-off tries to go immediately into the backhandspring when the chest is still down and the feet are landing behind the hips. The result is undercutting with knees buckling forward past the toes, head throwing back and chest out early.
Similarly, beginners are often made to do handstand snap-ups and told to keep the ears covered. The problem is with lack of physical preparation, gymnasts will not be able to keep the ears covered AND get turned upright correctly. The coach in this case is placing emphasis on desired outcome rather than adapting the technique to accommodate the reality of the gymnast's present physical strength. I think the emphasis should be on "
direction of arm-push" as it relates to where the gymnast's body is when getting off the hands. Weak gymnasts who are told to keep the ears covered at all times end up pulling their arms off the mat/block/floor as they fall/pike down to their feet, resulting in throwing the chest out in order to also stand upright fast.
As crazy as it sounded to me at the time (which made me doubt if I heard him right), Wade seemed to encourage allowing kids to pike down in a round-off with the goal in mind of having the novice gymnast end up with the hips behind the feet and the chest staying in as long as possible (discourages throwing the head back and arching too much and too early rather than just stretching).
Coach Ben seems to be of a similar approach:
A reminder of
Wade's method of teaching the round-off and backhandspring.
Wade tells me that he teaches both pike down and chest up for two different purposes.
He teaches chest down first (piked-hollow) to place the focus on the beginning phase of a round-off- the strong lunge, staying square long, 1/4 turn, hand placement/direction...
After that is "mastered", the next phase is then learning to push off the hands.
Cartwheel step-ins with the 3s:
All other problems aside, what I liked here was that these level 3s were starting to delay their backhandspring until they felt off-balanced. Our focus that day was to lengthen the backhandspring:
