Level 4 dismount spotting method

Old footage from 2011, Colorado Aerials- One method of spotting the level 4 dismount, if needed:

Round off turnover and developing a long backhandspring

Back handspring and round off drills for pike down technique

The pike down action has been somewhat controversial.

Last month, after posting a video clip taken by Irving Nochez onto my gym's FB page, I offered the following explanation, as I understand it:

Can anyone identify the clinician in the video clip? It looks to be Valeri Liukin; but I'm not 100% sure.
At any event, notice that the lecturer has the coach doing the traditional turnover with arms and chest up fast? Then has her do it without standing upright, but keeping the chest low, ending in a pike sit?
I've been asked a few times "Why are you teaching kids to pike down?" out of round-offs and backhandsprings. To save myself some time, here's a concise answer I gave in a comment on a previous video a while back ago:
"As a gymnast and as a coach, I was always told, "Arms by the ears; arms and chest up fast". The problem with young kids (or beginners) is that when they try and connect a RO and BHS without having learned how to turnover a fast RO, get off the hands, and land off-balanced right away, what happens is the classic undercutting where the knees buckle forward, the head throws back early, causing the chest to go out, resulting in a high, loopy back handspring.
I first got the idea of allowing kids to pike down from an Australian coach, Wade Petersen (who is now our head boys coach since last February; and who I think will eventually oversee all the programs at GW).
He has a back tumbling video (it used to be on YouTube but he's since deleted his channel) where one of the drills is to sit in a pike and slide down to your back (a sit up exercise). That's, in part, where I got my inspiration for the pike sit on the block, followed by the fall to handstand (essentially doing the same job as an octagon barrel or pac-man). I want my gymnasts to get it out of their heads that a backhandspring is an archy, bridgie action; I want them to think of it more as a stretched handstand.
Wade teaches both round-offs- ones where the objective is to get the arms and chest up and the strong turnover; the other technique (the pike down) for physically weak kids who can't do that. What's important isn't that they get their chest and arms up quick for the turnover, but that they land off balanced right away (due to the pike down, the hips are already behind the feet) and hold the coiled shape (the hollow in the chest) as long as possible before unraveling occurs into the backhandspring.
I hope my explanation makes theoretical sense. Clarity over agreement.
I've seen others teach the pike down method, too, btw. At National Congress, both Justin Laury and Ivan Ivanov teach the pike action. Their explanations are slightly different. But they are really emphasizing the pike. Ivanov also showed video footage of Valeri Liukin teaching kids to pike. It's essentially an overexaggerated scooped hollow position and eventually it should look "normal". Just the drilling of the position and shape is pronounced (i.e., exaggerated). ;)In Laury's presentation at National Congress, he also showed video footage of kids basically doing a round-off rebound into a piked seat drop shape; he'd catch them and then they'd unfurl into the back handspring. Wade's old video had one of his kids rebound the same way onto an 8 inch mat, and then unfurl into a supine, lying position.
I hope this helps. I know it's a bit unorthodox.

Bar Basics with Tom Stevens

Swing Big links to a bars clinic by Tom Stevens:

Technique for connected front tumbling

Teaching Quality Glides

Jason Mortimer's latest video reminded me that I had filmed a few of the level 3's doing correct-incorrect glide shapes, recently:

Also like doing hanging hollow holds and swinging hollow holds.

The crunch hollow holds at 37 seconds in Jason's video is the exact way my primary teacher used to have us do them for warm-up- palms resting face up on the knees.  Periodically through the 2 minutes, he'd demand us to crunch up another inch higher.  Having hands face up on the thighs/knees helped us have a visual of how high we were crunching and maintaining position.

Saving Handstands Drill

For more thoughts on saving handstands....

Wade into this?

I just happened across this discussion of the BHS clinic Wade gave a few years ago at BGS.  My videos.

It's an old thread.  Not sure whether I should bother to take the time to wade into it.

Hand Placement Drill for Round-offs

 Different coaches have different ideas about round-off hand placement.

As far as I know, standard/orthodox is the upside down "T".

Illustration source

Some coaches teach both hands turned inward.

On a straight line.

Or hands straddling the line:

Power tumblers might "hop 1/2-turn":

 The common "no-no" is hands turned out.


I saw this drill the other day:

Post by GymDrills.NET.

Description:

This exercise teaches gymnasts the correct hand placement during round off and encourages to perform the movement in a straight line. This drill has a positive influence on apparatus such as Floor Exercise and Balance Beam.

Since the single floor rail only allows the fingers to face sideways, I decided to use piroullettes to play around with this drill:

What I like about the floor bar(s) over symbols on the ground or drawing an upside down "T" and other markers, is that the gymnast has to turn the hands to face the desired direction in order to grab the push-up blocks (piroullettes).

Hurdles

Conditioning the Cartwheel

Backhandspring Training

Translated GymneoTV DVD Excerpt on Backhandsprings

The quality of not just the content but of the presentation is so good,  I am seriously considering purchasing.

It bothers me that in USAG, compulsory RO BHs require ears covered by the arms.  It's a technique-thing.  Instead of penalizing and making that the restriction (since a short arm-swing is a viable if not superior technique to no-arm swing), I think what should be judged is whether or not the head whips back ahead of the arms in turning over the backhandspring.

The Drop

Not my preferred method of spotting clear hips, but this is one way that I don't see used often (I did it on this occasion, due to the height of the bar and my being too lazy to get a block to stand on).

Swing Big! posted on the importance of the drop, recently.  I agree that the drop is vitally important to a good clear hip.  With a proper drop, the clear hip should just fly up to handstand.

Zari's post lead me to TeamCentralGym's channel that I hadn't seen before.  I like the drill at the beginning of this video for clear hips:

It reminds me of a drill Wade Petersen showed me where the gymnast starts in front support, pushes her body off the bar and drops into a pike sit onto a block, with the bar pushed down toward the knees.

I know some coaches don't teach the clear hip as a pike but as a hollow; but sometimes getting gymnasts to think that way helps keep the hips further away from the bar (over-exaggerated corrections can sometimes get you to the end result).

I remember seeing a gymnast with beautiful clear hips, who was clearly using a piking technique over simply hollowing.  I wish I had bookmarked that, to show.

Your toes are like your fingers

Progression for Building a Strong Back Handspring

I like that Travis Rainer uses the octagon in such a way as to not allow the gymnast to simply be draped over it, in an arch.  One reason why I used to prefer the pac-man over the octagon was because it forced the gymnast to squeeze the butt and have an active shape change and active muscles in order to get it to move- not just sagging like a limp rag, coasting along like a passenger for the ride rather than being the driver.

My current preference these days, as far as unassisted, spotting devices is to use a simple spotting block to slide off of.  I might post a clip to better illustrate what I mean.  I'm probably the only one in the world who is doing it (and I swear, it's not because I'm crazy.  I only came up with it recently and think the results will validate and lend credibility, although it's only a drill with a specific purpose; and it alone isn't enough to acquire a backhandspring.  It is also technique-specific).

I also like Rainer's emphasis on the snap off the hands happening through the chest and shoulders and not piking in the hips.

Hand Placement During Round Off?

Nick Blanton posted the following:

I choose "A" as the preference.

Adding a Little Twist

This drill from Rebecca Sykes interests me because the twisting method is one Wade introduced me to where you set and instead of pulling both arms down on the thighs (or rather, pull the hips up toward the hands), you pull both hands down over one thigh.


I think I might have mentioned the story before about how we had one level 5 gymnast bouncing layouts well enough on trampoline that Wade asked me to teach her the twisting method he described to make sure I understood it well enough to teach.  So I told the kid what to do.  We didn't tell her she would be twisting.  I just basically told her how I wanted her to pull her arms down, and to keep them there tightly.  The kid landed a full and then asked, "What did I just do?"

It's a great way to introduce twisting, in my opinion, because it's simple.  No complexity with one-arm dropping first, starting out wide set, or anything else (not to say I don't like other techniques and styles).  Just simplicity.

The hands go over one thigh, like you're sticking your gluing your hands to your pocket.  From there, you can also just flex the arms and bend at the elbows if you're ready for more.

Tony Retrosi also recently posted these series of trampoline drills:

Handstand Clinic with Sebastian Melander

Out to Lunge