Stiff arm movements

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momof5

Proud Parent
My DD is working on learning the L4 floor routine and one of the biggest challenges is the arm movements. She got the routine down and the lower body looking great but her arms are a mess. They are bent when the are supposed to be straight and she has trouble remembering to raise and lower the arms at certain points. I think she is having trouble concentrating on both upper body and lower body together. Any sugguestions besides more practice to help her focus on arms? Also the arms movements at the beginning of the routine on so stiff it looks terrible. How can I help her fix the stiff arms at the beginning to look better?
 
My DD is working on learning the L4 floor routine and one of the biggest challenges is the arm movements. She got the routine down and the lower body looking great but her arms are a mess. They are bent when the are supposed to be straight and she has trouble remembering to raise and lower the arms at certain points. I think she is having trouble concentrating on both upper body and lower body together. Any sugguestions besides more practice to help her focus on arms? Also the arms movements at the beginning of the routine on so stiff it looks terrible. How can I help her fix the stiff arms at the beginning to look better?

Videotape her. It really helps when they can see for themselves what they look like.
 
I don't really know how to tell her how to focus on both upper and lower body, but for the beginning for the arms, tell her that she has paint on her hands, and she needs to smear it on the wall and you can't do that with straight arms!!
 
My DD learned the routine similarly. I think some kids are just naturals at the graceful/dance stuff and some aren't. Some of DDs teammates looked like they had been doing it forever when they first started, but they are also the girls who are good at dance and imitating.

My DD is just starting to put the floor routine all together and make it look pretty and she has been doing it since July/August. Before, she was just doing the motions, but it wasn't as pretty. I think it takes time and really getting to memorize that routine, then they work on making it look better, figuring out where arms are supposed to be, etc. :D

The painting a wall sounds like a good visual.

My DD loves to watch the L4 routines on YouTube and sometimes I see her doing her arm motions with them. :D
 
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If she is a young/ new L4 I would not worry at all! Just remembering the routine and doing the skills is enough for the little guys to handle. Also, grade/ dance/ understanding of beauty, etc is something the develops over time with a lot of work. Just be patient!

When kids are learning the L4 routines, I make sure the technique is good and they do it with good form. As as they practice & mature they learn to make the little details better!
 
I coach an optional team and one of the techniques we use is have them do hand routines. Which means they isolate the top of their body and do their whole floor routine while standing still. This helps them think about their arms movements. This may be something she can do at home it will help her visualize the routine as well because she has to think about it more in her head.

As with a lot of gymnast they have power or grace and its hard to find both at the same time. Some gyms require dance lessons to learn grace but I think working on it more and more is the best way to learn the specific movements of a floor routine.
 
Newbiecoach has a very good idea. When my oldest daughter was a figure skater I would have her either stand or sit somewhere in the house and play her music. She would just do the arm movements(so didn't have to think about the feet) to the music. If you don't have the L4 music available you can always just hum it(will drive you crazy before she even competes) and have her do her arm movements. Can be done at home or even in the car.
The stiff armed look may take longer to work out, but she'll get the hang of "pretty arms" the more she competes.
 
I love to have my girls work arm movements alone and in a mirror works very well. Another suggestion we received at a clinic was to tie Juggling Scarves to their wrists and they focus on moving the scarves.
 

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