Hi all, I thought I would share some basic clear hip to handstand teaching/shaping drills. The first video is a prerequisite in the teaching process and that is a hollow body back circle with straight arms and neutral head position. The second is a video that demonstrates the 2nd half of the clear hip handstand and this drill starts with the athlete pushing back in their shoulders to extend to handstand with again straight arms and neutral head position, then we go on to add a small cast into the same drill.

Enjoy the videos and happy coaching,
Bart

clear hip handstand back circle drill


clear hip handstand open drill

We are getting ready for our 1st optional preview meet in 2 weeks. Here is a quick video of Annie's 1st half bar routine. We are still working hard to make sure we hit all off our handstands!

Happy Coaching,
Bart

I thought I would discuss something I have video for; The double layout on trampoline. Please excuse the poor video quality as this video is very old, however I cannot make any new videos with me spotting since I am not spotting too much right now with my arm in mechanical brace (3 weeks out of surgery, seems like a lifetime).
This double layout technique is for very young (approx age 6-10) athletes as an introductory method to help develop their kinesthetic awareness. The final video in the series is a 6 year old performing the double layout with spot.
I hope this video gives you a simplistic teaching method for an advanced skill. Please make sure you master the spotting techniques used before trying a few of the drills in the video.
Good luck and happy coaching,

Bart

4 Steps to a Double layout on trampoline

Hi all,
Sorry I have been away for so long. I recently had an accident in the gym and ruptured my bicep tendon at the elbow, causing the muscle to fold up my arm towards my shoulder, OUCH! Of course it was my dominant arm, so needless to say that this has really slowed me done a lot. I am 3 weeks out from surgery and recovering rapidly. Thank you to my wife and people around me helping me try to get back to normal as fast as possible. Back to the accident; I had this accident spotting a gymnast after she hit her feet on the low bar going into an advanced dismount out of half routines, the crazy part, we have it on video.
This setback for me has made me think about how important the spotters role is at so many different times of year as we move new skill combinations to competitive surface, add upgraded dismounts to full and half routines, etc..
This has changed our day to day routine in the gym, however the athletes have adapted extremely fast to being independent and making sure they take the right steps to safely perform there skills and routines (they have adapted faster than I have).  This leads me to my point of planning.
What does planning have to do with a coaches/spotters injury? Simple, with a detailed training plan and schedule in place we can now make small modifications to the entire plan to accommodate our workouts to still reach our end goals. This possible team catastophy is a small bump in the road due to a detailed training plan and organized system.
"Failing to plan is planning to fail".

I will try to start posting drills, progressions and video for gymnastics skills we are training right now in the next few weeks again.
Until then, happy coaching.
Bart

 

I would like to talk about eliminating a problem we can face when teaching the full twisting double tuck flyaway that is not common with the full twisting double layout. These two gymnastics skills are very similar yet quite unique. Commonly we will see the full twisting double tuck flyaway begin to tuck early through the bottom of the swing and  not rise with the tap of the swing; therefore not rotating as fast as necessary and sometimes causing this skill to be thrown out of an athletes "bag of tricks" or not becoming competitive worthy skill for that athlete.
We have a drill I like to use to help with the lift of the shins into the flip and get the body shape of the tuck correct with pelvic tilt. We do this by performing tucked tap swings to a double tuck flyaway into the foam. Using the tuck shape requires the initial rotation by shin kick and the hips to tilt for correct shape flipping.

Hope this tip helps, until next time,
Happy Coaching,
Bart

full twisting double tuck flyaway

Jaeger progressions and drills on womens uneven bars<< MORE >>

Gymnastics Skills presents the late toe drop or late toe on for uneven bars.
Learning the late toe-on or toe drop motion can lead to improvement in many uneven bar skills, for example; the uphill (toe hecht to high bar), the toe circle to handstand, the rear stalder to handstand, the frederick (toe circle tkatchev) and the list goes on. To help with learning this motion I have added a video for you of a simple yet affective floor drill.

Happy coaching,
Bart
Late toe on drill

Here is a video of the trampoline bar progressions for the tkatchev.
Enjoy and happy coaching.
Bart

Saturday practice was a lot of fun, I started a new release skill with one of my level 10's; a Frederick. One of the most difficult same bar releases in the tkatchev family, however a fun skill to watch when performed in competition. We are starting this now for the 2011 season. As with all of our release skills we start on the trampoline bar and here is a quick video clip of day 1.
Happy Coaching,
Bart

frederick drills on the trampoline bar

We have been working on moving our jaegers to the competition rails and its going well, check out the video with 2 different level 10's performing them in Thursdays practice.
I will be adding our Jaeger progressions and talking more about the drills we use in the weeks to come, until then;
Happy Coaching.
Bart