Finishing

[Carmansunshine]

Does anyone have any drills or suggestions for helping a girl finish better. I tried ballet classes but it didn't seem to help in the right areas. The simpler the better. The coach can put her in the position and it looks great, but she can't seem to find it on her own.

[gym law mom]

Are you referring to the standard pose at the end of a vault, dismount off beam/bars and at the end of the fx? Typically it is some arch to the back, arms up in a V with the head back slightly. To get that down I've never seen actual drills. I think our kids were told to do it in practice everytime they ended any routine and it became 2nd nature to them.

[hammy]

we always did it standing up straight w/ arms in a V and our chins up. we always called it Champion Stretch. The one coach at my current gym has the girls do it so that they look like headless gymnasts--with their head all the way back. I'm not sure of any drills other than having the gymnast try to figure it out and constantly reminding them.

[Carmansunshine]

I probably didn't phrase it right the first time, she has the idea and the poses at the end just not the tightness and ability to hold them is the issue. Her over all strength is pretty good her coach says. I mean finishing in general. The tightness required to make everything look nice. I am looking for drills to help get the endurance to flex everything at once. Our gym doen't offer and sort of dance instruction, I know some of you probably do. We do the standard workout with splits bridges ect. but nothing that really holds the whole thing tight at one time. The most they do is releve walks in class, Does anyone do anything else?

[hammy]

If you know some dance try adding some into the beam and floor workout. I used to have a ballet coach at my gym and as a compulsory gymnast I had 30 minutes of ballet every practice. Anywho, try adding a special ballet part into floor or beam, or you can create your own ballet session.

[gym law mom]

Our gym does not offer any dance training for the younger girls. The L9s-10s do get some dance instruction. I'm trying to remember if there was anything specific that my daughter did to learn to make the finish look better and other than doing it over and over and over I can't think of anything. Right now they are doing progressions for skills or isolated skills themselves, so they don't throw a finish pose when they're done.

For the last skill in a routine---handstand on beam, the coaches would work on keeping tight, pointing toes etc. so that when the feet hit the mat, they would just go right into their finish. Same with bars and vault. I know the L5 and 6 floor routines do allow for the girls to pick a finishing pose(sorry, we don't do L4). My daughter would change that just about every other meet---she'd think of one that she liked better than the one she had just done.

[Mac]

Quote:
The tightness required to make everything look nice.

The best thing I've seen is a coach putting their hands on the gymnast to set them in the required position. It lets the child feel the right way. And then constant reinforcement. For compulsory, the required set positions are so specific that anyone not trained in them will as likely harm as help.

If nothing else the child will eventually get it just to shut the coach up! [that's facetious]

Quote:
I am looking for drills to help get the endurance to flex everything at once.

That's the coaches' job. If they are doing it, then your doing other stuff can easily get in the way. And if they are not doing it, then the solution is to find someone who can, rather than assume that role yourself.

If you feel the need to do something, handstands, push-ups, and V-ups are always good time-fillers. When mine says, "I'm bored," I say, "Do 20 push-ups. Hold 20 second handstands. Do 200 V-ups." Amazing how un-bored she becomes!

Just friendly advice, one parent to another.

[Jea_bernadette]

what really helped for me was, we would sit in front of a mirror and just do the part of the routine that required using your arms or just the dance parts. so that you could see what you were doing and how to fix it.

[GymnastRaeRae87]

If I were her I would practice. At my gym with the little kids they tell them to do a "tada" at the end of their skill. They do the pose and say TADA! I don't know how old your DD is but that is just what they do at my gym. This might seem weird but some times I try to visualize myself doing a perfect routine and like I am in the Olympics or a competition and I stick a solid routine and I get a really good score and how I would finish. When I am finishing I like to think how proud I am of myself and how proud my parents are and how I want to make myself look good and show that I am proud of what I did.

[~JEM~]

As a coach I am very big on tightness and stretch. I get gymnasts from age 5 and train them untill they are about 10 so I do a lot of drills with them.
First I do major basics, sit ur daughter down legs stretched infront of her and get her to squeeze and relax her thighs and knees 3 times, then repeat with feet (ie point, relax), then repeat with her bottom, then tell her to squeeze all the way from her bottom right to her tippy toes etc. Then I tell them 'do u think u girls can squeeze that hard when you do ur routine?' and put them to the test but making them try, after a while they do it automatically.
Another one I do is test teir shapes, all gyms call each shape a different name so let me know if u dont understand. First do basics, as always. get her to lie on her bak on the floor and tell her to squeeze her bottom tight, you should be able to lift up her feet without her loosing the straight shape, if she is tight, if not she will bend in the middle u dont want bend. Then you can do this with front support, if her whole body is tight u should be able to lift her feet to handsand without her sagging or loosing shape.
If you want more let me know i have A LOT. Basically all you need to do is have a consistend body tension program just twice a week, and within a few weeks u will see MASSIVE improvement