roundoff-backhandspring-backtuck

[leeaw]

Hi!

I was hoping someone might critique my back tumbling. I'm trying to get that punch and rebound, but it's tough.

Here's the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKuTckxdybw

NKuTckxdybw

Thanks a bunch!

Lee

[yuri marmerstein]

you are treating each skill separately, absorbing then jumping again. Using this method you may as well completely stop each skill and do it standing.

Try to stand up faster out of your roundoff and go into the bhs without absorbing any momentum with your legs. Also watch your feet position as they are apart and your knees are going in a bit. Try to get feet together if you can, this will also help with standing up faster and rebounding

[Blairbob]

Well, this is common when tumbling on non sprung surfaces. Grass is a bit softer than basketball floors or concrete but bending the limbs happens. Its not that much softer, really and it doesn't give you any spring.

[leeaw]

I really jacked up my ankle practicing it recently. Landing "short" feels like its snapping in half on the dorsal portion of the ankle joint. I don't get it. I feel like I'm going to fall on my face when I try to keep the hollow position into the rebound.

[leeaw]

here's newer videos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbTKrdi7PAk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cODwjRS3HJ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNR9YR3Wf_E

[leeaw]

any tips based upon the newer videos would be greatly appreciated... :-)

[Thomas]

Well, don't want to be too rough, but you're form is really bad

Simply try to point your toes and get your knees together

Apart from that, the roundoff seems to be your biggest problem. Both, the backhandspring and the back tuck look much better to me. In the first video you can clearly see, that your feet aren't going over you're head, as they should. They go sideways, which makes it a lot harder to come out fast and to get speed for your backhandspring. Somewhere during the roundoff, you should be in some sort of a handstand position and from there kick your legs into the floor as hard as you can.

[leeaw]

cool.

just to make sure i understand...

i need to work on:

1. carrying my feet directly over my hands and head into a handstand in the middle of the roundoff

2. keeping my feet together

3. pointing my toes

anything else?

[Joshua Naterman]

You are reaching for the round off... that is a no-no. The power of the leg kick is what should be powering both the forward rotation and the rotation from facing forward through sideways to backwards. If you are using your legs properly you will have no choice but to come down with legs together, they will pretty much slap each other and stick. Proper form, as I understand it, is a scaling motion. You start with straight arms, biceps by your ears. They stay there. Don't move them, don't reach for the floor. Just kick your back leg straight up behind you as hard as you can while bending forward at the front HIP, not the waist. Your body stays straight from hands to shoulders, down the spine, and through the back leg which is kicking super hard and causing your rotation. This will automatically take you through the handstand with zero effort and a TON of power. As you are going over you will feel the moment when you have to pull that front leg up as well, and you need to do that with a ton of power as well. This will drive you through the handstand and into your rebound with legs stuck together and an enormous amount of force if done correctly. It takes a really, really good handspring to get more power than a good and proper round off and neither one of us is open enough in the shoulders to perform a good handspring. You can do them, just know that you probably won't get the same feeling of power that you will from the round off once you clean it up (which can happen really quickly).

In addition, and as has already been said, you are not getting vertical. This has everything to do with your legs not powering your round off properly. You can set up drills with mats that are taller than you so that you have a small corridor (maybe 24-30 inches wide) through which you must perform your round off. If you hit the mats you'll know you did it wrong. This drill has helped me tremendously.

If you are feeling pain in the feet, I think you need a good bit more time strengthening your feet and lower legs before worrying about tumbling runs on grass too much.

[leeaw]

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm trying to let my ankle heal a bit before I get back into it.

A couple questions for clarification if you guys have the time.

1. What does it mean "to reach for the round off"?

2. How does a person bend "forward at the front HIP, not the waist"?

3. What does it mean for the round off to be "turned over"?

4. Is staying "open in the shoulders" simply keeping them by the ears during the full duration of the back handspring?

5. Should only the toes come in contact with the floor during back tumbling? If so, isn't that dangerous? Should a lot of calf training be done?

Many thanks!

[Blairbob]

reaching in your round off tends to mean, diving onto your hands

4. yes, for the most part though they flex past 180 during the hs phase of a bhs in some individuals

5. ball of foot, man. but this is generally for sprung surfaces. when you change surfaces from sprung to non sprung, it will change the tumbling technique

what josh should say, is that by kicking and making the back foot go up, the torso and hands will lever down to the ground. Think like a teeter-totter with the arms and base leg as a "T". It's not hands go down as foot goes up, but hands go down because foot goes up.

[leeaw]

Should I even be looking at the ground during a round off, or should I maintain neutral head alignment with shoulders on ears?

Should I begin with shoulders squared as in a front handspring, though hands placed down in a line as a cartwheel (with second hand fingers pointing to first hand of course)?

[Blairbob]

yes and yes.

look at your thumbs like the sight on a rifle. as your hands get closer to the floor, you will see the floor clearly and you shoulbe be able to see it with your field of sight ocular range ( so wanted to say ocular ).

keep shoulders squared until last possible moment. 2nd hand placed sideways/turned back as late as possible.

one of the coaches at a gym I was at liked first hand forward, 2nd hand sideways to keep the girls as square as possible as long as possible. eventually as they needed more turnover for advanced tumbling, adjust the hands more 1/4, 1/4; t style

[leeaw]

i think i found a good tutorial video.

how do you like the technique of this tutorial?

[leeaw]

i think i found a good tutorial video.

how do you like the technique of this tutorial?

[Joshua Naterman]

what josh should say, is that by kicking and making the back foot go up, the torso and hands will lever down to the ground. Think like a teeter-totter with the arms and base leg as a "T". It's not hands go down as foot goes up, but hands go down because foot goes up.

Exactly, exactly what I meant. Hands go down BECAUSE foot+leg swings up. Good catch

[leeaw]

i think i found a good tutorial video.

how do you like the technique of this tutorial?

[Philip Chubb]

what josh should say, is that by kicking and making the back foot go up, the torso and hands will lever down to the ground. Think like a teeter-totter with the arms and base leg as a "T". It's not hands go down as foot goes up, but hands go down because foot goes up.

Exactly, exactly what I meant. Hands go down BECAUSE foot+leg swings up. Good catch

Does this apply to front handsprings as well? My kick is what makes my hands go down?

[Joshua Naterman]

Wow. I have no idea about front handsprings.

[David Picó García]

i found the tutorial quite good. But take in mind that this is a roundoff for going directly to backtuck, not backhandspring, if you want the last one the last portion change as you don't want the you the jump, so you have to move a bit your feet to the inside of the roundoff when landing, not looking for rebound, but to take you to the initial position of the backhandspring, (the position of someone that is going to get sit.

And a typical mistake you make is when you start the round off you don't have both arms fully extended at both sides of the head, you put one up and the other down searching the floor. You have to put your arms like in a handstand and go down and when your hands are down (maybe at knee level), then you put one infront of the other, otherwise your legs will no go over your head but will tend to go to the side and your back will arch, and loose the hollow position.

[leeaw]

thanks serotonin

[Matthew Barrett]

what josh should say, is that by kicking and making the back foot go up, the torso and hands will lever down to the ground. Think like a teeter-totter with the arms and base leg as a "T". It's not hands go down as foot goes up, but hands go down because foot goes up.

Exactly, exactly what I meant. Hands go down BECAUSE foot+leg swings up. Good catch

Does this apply to front handsprings as well? My kick is what makes my hands go down?

Yes, the back leg kicking motion is the same for front handsprings, round-Offs, cartwheels and aerials.

My experience is limited though but I perform the same strong kicking motion, straight back and over my hips, on all these skills the same way.

[Philip Chubb]

Thank you very much, Matt! I can't wait to try this out tomorrow!

[Matthew Barrett]

Hi!

I was hoping someone might critique my back tumbling. I'm trying to get that punch and rebound, but it's tough.

Thanks a bunch!

Lee

This is going to be a fairly lengthy reply with hard criticism. I would recommend incorporating the fixes and improvements one at time for your skills. Keep coming back to the post after you feel like you've mastered a fix so you can incorporate a new one.

The Criticism: When I see your videos I see a Round-off, standing Back handspring and a standing back tuck. The only reason you don't crash on your head is because you have guts and muscles. Tumbling is incredibly skill based and if you want to really progress then you need fix much of your basic skills. By the end of the post I think you’ll start seeing how tumbling is one small detail and skill building onto another.

The Hurdle: When you do your hurdle you need to aggressively bring both your arms up to ears and open your shoulders. You can also clearly see that your front foot is tucked under your butt and next to your left knee. This ultimately creates piking in your round-off and prevents the "reaching" that was mentioned earlier in the thread.

How to fix it: You need to correct your foot position by having your heel AT LEAST directly underneath the knee. I would even recommend for you to practice your round-off with the front leg straight.

The Round-off: As I said, correcting problems the hurdle will help alleviate problems in the round-off. It will help with the reach and fixing your arm position up to your ears will also help your hands be centered over your shoulders when you place them on the ground. Currently, your hands are to far apart and your shoulder angle is to closed.

The next thing to correct with your round-off is bringing your feet together. They need to come together and stay together until the end of the tumbling pass. Keeping them together is a prerequisite to punching with them correctly.

The next correction for your round-off is the intense piking when going from your hands to your feet. When your feet hit the ground in the round-off your hands are still at knee level. This is very bad and correcting this will take a great deal of practice. It is largely a result of a lack of blocking and the inability to “snap†your feet down.

How to fix it: You need to block off your hands faster and stronger. When your hands push off the ground you should push all the way through your shoulder with as straight arms as possible. Immediately after the second hand makes contact you push. As a drill you can try kicking up into a handstand and then blocking. If done right, with minimal effort your hands should completely leave the ground. An easier drill is to get up into a handstand against the wall and perform a few small sets of aggressive shoulder shrugs. Make sure you’re in a hollow position in the handstand.

How to fix it: You need to bring your feet to the floor faster WITHOUT bending at the waist. You do this by leading the “snap down†with your hips while keeping your legs tight. Leading with your hips causes the legs to snap down and the chest to snap up, maintaining the hollow position. My favorite drill for this is to place the hands on something that is 4-6 inches above the floor, kick to a handstand, and then practice the “snap down.†This concept of snapping down, maintain the hollow position, and punching out of it will take a great deal of practice to even become slightly proficient at it. With practice, you could do this drill and snap down into a punch with straight legs and do a back tuck picked higher than the back tucks in your video and all that with completely straight legs! ïŠ

The next correction is fixing the placement of your feet but this is pretty much solely determined on your ability to snap down strongly and correctly. Your feet need land closer to where your hands make contact to the floor. Currently they are too far.

How to fix it: Do not pass go! Do not gain a new skill! Go back to the previous How to fix it!

The Back Handspring: Half way done now!

The first thing I notice is this deep squat you have. This is purely a result of improper technique from your poor round-off though. Fixing your problems in the round-off will prevent you from doing this standing back handspring you got going and allow you to actually connect the skills.

The next thing I noticed is that your feet apart. Surprise, this too comes from a poor round-off because your feet are not finishing together in the round-off.

How to fix it: (Proper Round-off!) A drill for keeping your legs together is to lay flat on your back on something 4-5 feet with your head hanging off the edge. Place your hands on the ground and pull your feet over all the way to the ground without them ever separating. Also, you need to practice standing back handsprings with your feet together so that anything else feels unnatural and uncontrolled.

The next thing I notice is a lack of blocking in the back handspring with your hands. Learning to do it proficiently in your round-off will also help you here. It’s the same motion and to practice this I would do the same drills I mentioned earlier for blocking. Also, when doing standing back handsprings you can practice this blocking motion. Remember too, to block correctly, you need to have open shoulders. Currently, your shoulder angle is too closed. Get your arms by your ears.

The next thing I notice is the snapping of the legs down in the back handspring.

How to fix it: Are you starting to see it?!? Guess what, this motion is virtually identical to the one in the round-off. What changes is the placement of the feet based on the next skill, but that is far above your skill level to even consider worrying about right now.

The back tuck:

The first thing I notice is that you’re dropping your shoulders back and low. In a solid back tuck the shoulders remain pretty darn to where they began and the hips and heels come over them. Learning this concept will give your standing back tucks a much higher center of gravity.

How to fix it: I can’t think of any drills to teach this that would not hurt when not using a mat. However, learning a good pull over on the trampoline will actually emulate a motion much closer to a correct back tuck. A pull over on the trampoline is a simply a small back drop and flipping your hips over your head and landing on your feet. Doing this motion of bringing your hips and heels over your head instead of rolling back and dropping your shoulders gives you a high enough center of gravity and fast rotation that you can land standing completely upright even with a very small bounce. Warning! Doing this incorrectly will cause you to roll back onto your neck and die.

Finally, I’m not an expert, I know little on the matter, and you should find a coach if possible.

[anhkun]

anyone here feel pressure in their distal bicep tendon when they tumble or the day after? was doing more volume than i should be on carpet because i just started tumbling and yeah when u just learn something new u get excited n all . same kinda feeling when u do too much volume on planche and back lever training