Tumbling Questions

I have two questions for anyone who can answer about tumbling.

First, for flips. When you do a flip such as a front tuck, do I wait until I am at the top of my jump to initiate the tuck or do I begin earlier?

Next, for beginners, where do we start on teaching the cartwheel? Are there any progressions to use?

Thank you!

you can tuck right away on front tucks, as long as you set properly and get your hips over your head you will go up and flip at the same time

for cartwheels are we talking teaching adults or kids? I have different progressions I use for people of different ages

either way, a good kick to handstand is essential

Thanks Yuri. This means not dropping the head but instead lifting the hips, correct? I will work on that.

This is teaching adults. Adults who have had no gymnastic experience. Thanks again!

Correct. Hips are to go over the head, not head under the hips

For cartwheels, really I like to teach on an individual basis, so here is a very basic method.

First off they need to learn arm support. So start in a pushup position and work up to wall HS.

Next they need to learn how to shift weight back and forth from hands to feet. The easiest thing to do here is a kick to handstand with the legs split. It is very easy to scale by just not going as high.

They need to be able to demonstrate good lift with the back leg, locked arms and shoulders, and a more or less vertical handstand with the legs split. Then they need to be able to kick down with one leg, stand the chest up and finish in a lunge landing one leg then the other(not together). This must be demonstrated with both legs.

After that cartwheel starts as the same motion, just this time we kick harder and turn the hands.

This is a very general approach, but it will work. Building up arm support, weight shift, and general body awareness is key.

I just started basic tumbling, front rolls, back rolls, etc. When I got to the cartwheel, I noticed my form is shotty. I have a hard time having my legs go straight over my head, is this mostly because of flexibility and my poor pancake stretch? I can nearly pause in the handstand portion, so I know that there's not a strength issue

Thank you, Yuri. I will try this approach with my students. It is harder to teach this skill because I learned it as a kid and don't know a process for adults. I will use this one.

http://drillsandskills.com/article/10

Roger has a pretty thorough guide to cartwheels. As a prerequisite, I like a simple wall HS but let's face it, not a lot of 3 or 4 yo will be able to go stomach to wall at that age.

One of the basic drills I do is similar to his first cartwheel drill. Assume a downward dog yoga position and lift one leg into the air as vertical as possible (technically this is called a Needle scale). No hop on the base leg. Eventually learn to hop from leg to leg. This isn't that difficult and generally something we do in warmup. At first it might be very low, just inches off the floor but ideally it will be close to handstand in time. It's also much easier to teach a handstand from than starting them from a knee or standing lunge (because let's face it, there balance tends to suck when they are noobs).

I have a hard time having my legs go straight over my head, is this mostly because of flexibility and my poor pancake stretch?

Possibly angle in the shoulder, arch in the back besides the "guts" factor. A shallow straddle makes a side cartwheel more difficult but it's easier to do one from a lunge because of physics (lever effect from distance between feet in straddle).

However if your shoulder flexibility is poor, you can go wider with the hand placement but this makes it harder to push off the floor since the arm will not be alignment with the body because the alignment is not straight ( like a Y instead of I).

Ideally, I would teach a flyspring before any saltos and a bunch of basic tramp progressions first. Basically seat drop to table/doggie drop and roll. Eventually you end up flipping to your seat (L) and making the flip to stand.

yuri said:

you can tuck right away on front tucks, as long as you set properly and get your hips over your head you will go up and flip at the same time

I have one more question if you don't mind Blairbob or Yuri or whoever else tumbles. Does this also apply to to horizontal techniques. Like b-twist. Do I wait to elevate then twist or just twist as I start?

Alex, can you do a butterfly? The b-twist is just a butterfly that pulls the legs together. Landing is a tricky part as you have to open out one leg to land on and not crash and burn when it lands. You'll notice that in the butterfly, the body already does 1 twist.

Do you mean the horizontal no handed cartwheel type thing? I can do that. I have tried twisting it too. I'm just not sure when the legs pull in.

By the way, thanks Blairbob and Yuri for the cartwheel help. I used it and the adult I was working on got their cartwheel today!

In a Butterfly twist, you kick the second leg and pull it in and twist and torque.

depends on what kind of btwist you are trying to do as there are many ways to go about it.

for a high wushu style btwist, yes you should wait until the top to twist. however, this move serves other purposes sometimes and a different setup can be helpful

at the minimum you need to finish the dip and kick standing up in an arabesque position before twisting

Okay thanks! That is what I thought. Yes height is a plus. I would rather have some distance from the ground.