Level 4 Skills for Boys Floor Routine

[Derek Simonds]

My son is getting deducted for some really basic elements in his level 4 floor routine. At his gym they don't train on the individual elements that often. The ones he has been struggling with are; scale, backwards roll to extension and straddle press to headstand / handstand.

Jr has a fairly high level of strength and a fairly solid tumbling base.

I have a bunch of videos of him at various meets in the last 2 years here.

http://www.youtube.com/user/simplesimonds

At the Daytona meet he had a sprained ankle and you can see the wrap. That messed him up. He had never practiced with the wrap and they wrapped it before the comp.

Should we simply drill on them at the house? At his last meet he scored an 8.1 on floor which was a lot better, but he still missed on some of the simple things.

Thanks.

[Blairbob]

Derek, did you see this post by myself on PM?

http://performancemenu.com/forum/showth ... 006&page=2

Straddle press to headstand is merely about doing the numbers and developing a good headstand. This is in our warmup for the level 4's and was focus over the preseason and season to get that 2s headstand ( at first I was telling them count to 3 and I got so fed up with them missing I said 5 at one point with the lil guys ). Got to really work on locking those knees out and getting that toe point. We do a bunch of pancake and straddle L drills in the warmup to focus on this. The ones who do this flawless are the ones who do them correctly. The ones who cheat bend their knees and flex their toes in their press to headstand.

I would teach him to get that chin in to the chest in the backward roll instead of keeping the head neutral.

I did ask a judge about the 2nd cartwheel in the first pass. She judges it as a cartwheel step together. Sometimes I wonder, with some of my boys if I should just have them take the deduction for the step. Again, the text is vague, but just be lucky this isn't the women's judges since they might call it omission of skill and substitution of another skill. Men's judges are typically not so anal compared to the women's judging culture my parts. I dunno if this stems throughout the US, though.

Your son is doing something of a scale instead of an arabesque. Many coaches teach this or the boys end up doing it because it is so similar to the Level 5 scale. A lot of my boys are still poor at these because their balance is poor.

In the arabesque, keep that chin up and chest up with the top of the head pointed to the ceiling. Back leg only has to be at 45 degrees and not at horizontal ( as in a scale ). Remember, I also come from women's coaching before I really got into the men's, so you can imagine how exact we were about scales and arabesques.

It's important in the arabesque and scale to have the base foot square, if not turned out. You just are not going to have very good balance with the foot turned in or sickled. I was having my boys do these in front of the dance mirrors from the backward step into lunge and turn.

I don't know if he is getting dinged for it on rings, but the judges want to see ring turn out in the back swing on rings. This is a progression towards inlocate. I really don't focus this during the training season with my 4's, but introduced towards competition. Just my take on developing ring swing.

He is arched on his back swings on high bar, often with head out. He should be looking towards his toes on the back swing, head neutral ( thoug I've seen coaches teach chin in to over emphasize it ). Other than that, he has decent swing on high bar and a good 1/2 turn.

Personally, I'm split on the having my boys try the back lever on rings. My boys love to try it during the routine but often fail it and pike their bodies in the skin the cat versus controlling it down to a straight position. Just like doing 2 pullups but losing for form deductions. Gotta start doing pullups hollow instead of arched there ( just like his long hang pullover ).

He also tends to do his cartwheels and round off with his head out. Get the head in. I started dropping my lil guy for burpees every time he got lazy about keeping his arms to ears. Mainly it was a bad habit that he'd be lazy on and wouldn't fix at times. However, all my guys learn to hate burpees so that eventually curbed it most of the time.

Girls do their floor and beam routines at home all the time, especially the choreography parts. No reason, the boy's can't do the same or just work parts. Just got to know what to look for. I would suggest learning the text or watching the video.

Anything else? Hopefully I don't sound like an abusive coach for my lil guys, especially my little super star in the making. He just has boatloads of talent that go to waste if he isn't pushed and I get to hear it from his mom ( and taking her flack just wasn't worth my time considering my stress level over pre and during competitive season ).

[Derek Simonds]

Blair, I don't know how I totally missed your post. Thanks for both the replies. Jr and I are sitting at the computer reading them.

I will try to get the video from the Gasparillo meet up today so you can see the improvement on the floor.

I will check with our coaches about the "Cart Off".

[Blairbob]

These are the current JO Boy's course notes:

http://www.ngja.org/pub/0708/jo/jo_2007 ... -01-21.pdf

handy, if you don't have a routine book

[Derek Simonds]

Thanks for the notes Blair. I printed them and reviewed. I do still have a question because they say arabesque and that the leg needs to be 90 degrees.

Here is the video from the last meet in Gasparillo

I think he did a lot better on a couple of the points you were bringing up. He fell out of his headstand unfortunately. Other than that it was one of his better floor routines.

We have practiced our arabesque several times throughout the day today.

[Blairbob]

Yeah, there are many interpretations of arabesque but mine pretty much looks like this, without the arms in opposition. Just straight out to the sides.

http://www.abt.org/education/dictionary ... esque.html

http://www.yale.edu/diffdrum/add/fall04/arabesque.jpg

Notice the torso is upright and they should feel tightness in the back as it's arched.

In the arabesque, the minimum is 90 while it could be horizontal like this:

http://www.lecolededanse.net/img/MayJun ... que_01.jpg

He is still leaning his chest forward in his arabesque. I teach the arabesque from a stand with arms out by just pulling the leg back and off the floor.

I pretty work them to just have the leg at 90 by describing the shape of the triangle ( long skinny triangle, same distance [ isoceles ], and fat triangle ). More than 90 is a matter of active flexibility.

I like my boys to really show the step back into lunge before they turn and it isn't so rushed. In the lunge, the back should not show an arch but rather be straight from heel to toe ( the whole body being planed diagonally ).

Gotta keep working on those knees and toes. This is hard for many young lil guys. I know mine still suffer from it.

I'd simply encourage him to practice headstands at home. Just like a handstand, it's a matter of time and practice. If he doesn't have it, either spot or do it against the wall. I'd put his head on something soft, since home carpet still isn't as comfortable as a spring floor.

Pommel is just pommel. It's a pain and just takes time. Learning how to push down and lean takes time, as well as keeping good posture. My 5's have pretty crummy posture in their pommel work and it shows up in their routines. Most boys tend to hunch over their pommel, I think to get their COG over the pommels. That and many boys are small on pommel horse.

Some coaches allow the far hand on the pbar dismount to come to the near rail. This is allowed.

I thought he showed an arch in his torso momentarily on his vault, but he did have a nice score.

Still bent arms in the back hip circle. Pretty common at this age. I try to have them do 1.5 circle so they end up in an inverted candlestick/cradle position on the bar before they kick out with their legs. It can be difficult to to keep the head in on this as many boys have problems with this.

Notice he's still arched in his cast. Again, pretty common with many boys and I can't say my 5's are any better ( and probably just about the same height and shape )

Arms by ears, as I'm sure he has the flexibility to do it.

When he comes down from his candlestick, I like my boys to try to stay as hollow as possible and not just let their butt drop causing a pike.

I'd say start working straddle L on low parallettes or on floor if he can. A simple drill is sit in pancake place your hands between your crotch, lean forward and try to pull your heels off the floor. Also doing this isometrically is good. It cramps the hip flexors but ya need those for a press handstand.

[Derek Simonds]

All right another meet under our belts. This was the final AAU Qualifier. The boys had some trouble with the big crash mats, they were way softer than what they were used to. Other than some issues on his dismounts Jr has really focused on what we have been talking about.

Jr did his press to handstand on floor. There was a little extra oomph in there from the toes but he has worked so hard on it. I am very proud of him.

It is interesting because coaching styles definitely come into play in regards to where the focus is.

One question on the tap swing are the boys supposed to be leading with their hips or toes?

Here is the latest video.

Any thoughts are always welcome.

[Blairbob]

Derek, your son competes AAU? I've never heard of it in CA but I'm sure it's out there. After your post at PM about L3, I did go read their routines. I wonder how different it is judging wise and what not. Then again could just be the same people doing the same stuff ( I wonder if the meets are expensive as USAG JO meets ).

Jr. press on floor was a jump. Those knees flexed. Handstand is supposed to be momentary if I remember correct per USAG. His handstand there could have counted as momentary. This was pretty much the acceptable press to handstand for L5 ( that isn't a bonus ).

On tap swings the swing should lead through the toes. This is very common in L4 and L5 ( especially after they swing out of their 1/2 turn ) to swing with their hips leading. Look at his front swing on P's compared to his high bar or ring swing. Btw, nice dismount as that may have been handstand within 15 degrees.

On Jr.'s ring swing his hips are leading also because is " front levering " it as I call it. His head is leaving inside his arms and engaging the front lever muscles. I find this different because he wasn't doing it before.

On floor his hand is still reaching for the floor in his cartwheel series. Really, I never bothered to ask if the judges deduct for this and it doesn't seem they do. I like the boys to close the legs and then go into the candlestick from there. He kind of jump blended the movement. They may or may not have taken a deduction for it.

Pommel is starting to look good with a nice tempo. If I remember AAU's mushroom routine they don't have to have connected circles. He does need to be quicker with his right hand and lean on it more. At most of our meets this season, very few boys and coaches had their boys do the mushroom routine.

On the routines where he stuck it, he could have missed the 2 seconds. They may or may not have given it to him ( .1 for stick bonus ). I was getting a bit annoyed with some of my boys do that so I was literally telling them to count to 5 in their holds and we knocked it down to 3 when started not getting deducted for it. My boys were getting killed for missing their holds across the board and it was very frustrating. They also suffered from 7 year old moments like forgetting to salute to start or salute or bow at the end to the judge ( in fact one of the 6yo had quite a habit of doing that to me).

For instance on rings, the back lever is momentary which means a stop for about 1 second. On the skin the cat, it should stop at the bottom for 2 seconds with that nice open hip position. Some of my boys just couldn't do this because they were too tired or losing their grip at that point.

I really hated it when we got those soft crash mats or just too many old 8 inch mats. A couple of times, we would lay down panel mats over the top of them ( generally on rings or high bar ). I would then try to put my foot where the edge of the outside of the mat and crash mat would be to kind of stabilize it. Quite often we would just not have enough mats under for one of my 6 yo's as it simply was too big of a drop from the skin the cat.

Your season goes way later than ours. My level 4's were done at the beginning of the first weekend in March and I was quite happy we were. For the other levels, it goes way later.

[Blairbob]

As I'm looking at the L4 AAU routines right now ( again ), it doesn't seem Derek Jr did the last 1/2 circle with a flank dismount as I remember him only trying two attempts at the circles.

It also doesn't look AAU rewards a .1 for stick bonus or virtuosity or amplitude.

Here are the AAU boy's routines.

http://www.aausports.org/handbooks/gymn ... utines.pdf

I notice there is a slight difference in the parallel bar routine for L4 in the USAG, as it requires one more swing before the dismount compared to the AAU. Hopefully, you didn't ever recieve any deductions because of my coming from the USAG L4 routines. I don't see anything about degree requirements and I'll bank they are the same as the USAG.