Nice Basic circle development video/article

[Blairbob]

TBH, I would refer to what Coach Sommer posted and what was posted in those two videos.

I use a lot of bucket work as a side station if available, also because generally there are limited horses and mushrooms available at many MAG gyms. This pretty much gets phased out after they have something of a consistent connected circles. I use it to introduce new skills such as spindle, moores, and pommel transitions (with a floor horse with pommels), etc and also to work on speed in the circle by focusing on wrist/shoulder lean (less BW).

One of the issues with bucket circles is rhythm and a lack of wrist/shoulder lean. You can do circles without enough wrist/shoulder lean that doesn't carry over.

Wrist/shoulder lean is basically all in the physical preparation. If the body isn't prepared, you can crow about it and won't really matter.

After they can do circles in the bucket, they will move to doing upper arm circles on the mushroom.

I'm also a fan of breaking the circle into thirds vs quarters. 1/3, 2/3, full. Or using 1/8ths but it's not very useful explaining 8ths to kids who don't know their fractions and it's far more complicated than needs be. I do use 1/8 to begin with to teach counterturning the hips 

The problem with quarters is how the hips have to be counterturned. There is a tendency to land in these positions with flat hips just as you see in one of the videos and how the boy tries to pike his hips to make the circle.

So 1/3 basically is past 1/4 and the hips are turned and they are just about to put the 2nd hand down
2/3 they have put the 2nd down and focus on an arched body position. they are about to put the 1st hand back down again.
Full circle: they make it but the focus is on going 1 1/8th so they are already starting the second circle not just finishing 360 degrees to end.

So I have these old files on my HD. They are not basic drills really for building towards that first circle.

1) Floor circles on a floor mushroom. Kid is very extended in all videos.
2) front loops on a floor horse
3) rear loops on a floor horse

4) spindles on a mushroom

5) forward loop travel on a horse w/o pommels, spindle at end to turn around, rear travel
6) mushroom circles focusing on sideways lean of shoulders over wrists
7) same as #6 but camera is behind

 

[Rajesh Bhat]

I'm still confused on how one does upper arm circles, a video would be helpful Thanks.

[Blairbob]

Well, I do them on my forearms rather than the upper arms. 

Here are the original videos on Youtube.

[Rajesh Bhat]

Thanks.