Backwards Gymnast??

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californiaaaa017

Okay, I'm right handed in writing, eating, and everything else. Even softball. But for gymnastics, I do left-handed cartwheels and round-offs. And I go down for my handstands with my left foot first. However, when i do a front walkover i switch legs and pull myself up with my left leg. Then, I go for my back walkovers, aerial walkovers, etc. with my right foot up first. Is it normal to be switching legs like this with no problem? Could it affect me later on?
 
I know some people like that. Being right handed and completely left footed doesn't surprise me, but I do find the "mix footed" situation to be a little more problematic. It's hard to say what problems it could cause later on because it depends on what level you advance to, but for instance, stepping out of skills with the right leg first but doing a left RO would limit combination tumbling like front throughs.

What level are you?
 
Its strange isn't it?

My son is writes with his right hand but kicks a football with his left foot and plays cricket and any other bat related games in a left handed way.

If you put an object (like the inner tube of a toilet roll) down on the table and ask him to walk into the room and pick it up - he will pick it up with his left hand and put it up to his left eye. He also always walks off (or steps) with his left leg first.

What I have always wondered is if the kindergarten teachers forced him to write with his right hand (and I was not aware of it). They start school at 4 here and can do a Kindergarten year beginning at 3. It is kind of early to know which hand is dominant.

I am looking forward to see what others have to say about this.
 
Regarding writing with your right hand and being a left-handed tumbler, that's not at all unusual. I'm the same way, and a lot of my kids are as well.
 
Yeah i know what ya mean cause my little brother is like that he uses his right hand for mostly everything and he just uses his left hand when doing cartwheels handstands and stuff like that:D
 
I'm sort of like that as well.

I write with my right hand.. I can with my left but it doesn't look as good. But for gymnastics I do everything to the left except for twisting forwards to the right.

For diving I do everything to the left though, but I can twist fowards to either the right or left. It can get confusing on different dives but it's just the different techinique.

When I was a level 4 learning my backwalkover on the beam, I learned it with my right leg. Once I started doing the routines and already had the bwo on the high beam, they noticed that my cartwheel was done with my left leg. So they told me to do my bwo with my left leg foward so I just relearned it.

I guess this is pretty normal but not sure.
 
My dd is righty with everything else - but lefty in gym. She is consistently lefty though - she doesn't switch.
 
Okay, I'm right handed in writing, eating, and everything else. Even softball. But for gymnastics, I do left-handed cartwheels and round-offs. And I go down for my handstands with my left foot first. However, when i do a front walkover i switch legs and pull myself up with my left leg. Then, I go for my back walkovers, aerial walkovers, etc. with my right foot up first. Is it normal to be switching legs like this with no problem? Could it affect me later on?

It doesn't matter so much which foot/hand you use, as long as it is consistent. You may want to train yourself to do a front walkover correctly for your handsprings. A switch leg walkover/front handspring step out is a real problem.

The right foot on the back walkover (and I assume back handspring) isn't so much a big deal.

If you are still doing compulsories, you may want to take the time to figure this out while you still can.
 
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I'm a lefty in handwriting and in gymnastics. I did for a while hurdle for my fronthandsprings with my right leg. Now I do it with my left like everything else. I do have some teammates who can hurdle for vault with either leg and its still good.
 
i am a righty in everything. SOME coaches tell me to move my other foot in front in some of my beam roundoffs and some people tell me i twist the wrong way. i know some people do things like you do and it does affect them somewhat later on, but you have to change it or just don't do those skills. talk to your coach about it.
 
i do that to like im right handed but lefty gymnast and i used to do righty handstands and backwalkvers but now im an all lefty except for hurdling for vault and fronttucks.
 
I hurdle lefty, also. I don't know, I had a coach a couple years ago that let me learn everything like that. I now have figured out a non-switch-leg walkover, putting my right foot down first. I guess I'll learn everything again! Haha.
 
ohmylanta how funny my BFF does the same thing! She is "righty" in everything else but she switches her legs in gymnastics on like every skill! It is so funny! You may a little bit of trouble in the compulsory routines because they have certain legs you have to do the skills on but no worries :) you will be just as good as you would be if you did all your skills on the same leg!
 
I'm generally a righty but I do turns better on my left. All my coaches have been lefty though and I found that I learned to spot things and I feel more comfortable spotting lefty.
 
I'm a mixed gymnast... front things and turns with my left foot but round offs and back tumbling with the right. I never ran into anything too problematic though it may just seem weird. I did have trouble doing a turn jump combination on floor because I did the turn one way and the jump the other. If you happen to run into a situatioin like that you could change the series or learn to do one the other way. Though its not easy, if you run into a major problem its probablly the only option. I had to do that with handstands and frontwalkovers and now I can do them with both, though they both feel really weird lol. Let me know how things turn out.

Asherz<3
 
I did have trouble doing a turn jump combination on floor because I did the turn one way and the jump the other.

I had that problem too! I am a righty for everything from handwriting to all my gym skills.
I do pivots/turns to the right and I twist for all my jumps and tumbling etc to the left. As above, it hasn't really evern been a problem except when I tried to do a turn and jump combination :) lol I just swapped to doing a jump-jump combination and totally avoided the problem! :)

One of my kids that I coach is completely mixed up. She is only seven so I'm wondering if I should bother changing her to be the same leg for everything or just leave it. Her best splits are right leg but she does leaps on her left leg, she turns on her right leg and I think does handstands/cartwheels etc left left..... lol should I try and get her to change do you think? How do you work out which leg they should be using?? :confused: haha it's so confusing :eek:
 
oh man. That is quite a delima. Because she is so young I would probablly try and get the skills all on the same foot. To figure out which leg the gymnast likes best you just need to spend time and try each skill with each leg. And with stretching, if the gymnast just can't to a leap with the right, should get her to where she needs to be with flexibility. I had always wished someone would have stopped me. Some of the things would have been far less confusing lol. But let me know how it turns out!

Asherz<3
 
I had that problem too! I am a righty for everything from handwriting to all my gym skills.
I do pivots/turns to the right and I twist for all my jumps and tumbling etc to the left. As above, it hasn't really evern been a problem except when I tried to do a turn and jump combination :) lol I just swapped to doing a jump-jump combination and totally avoided the problem! :)

One of my kids that I coach is completely mixed up. She is only seven so I'm wondering if I should bother changing her to be the same leg for everything or just leave it. Her best splits are right leg but she does leaps on her left leg, she turns on her right leg and I think does handstands/cartwheels etc left left..... lol should I try and get her to change do you think? How do you work out which leg they should be using?? :confused: haha it's so confusing :eek:


If you just stick with the text in the USAG compulsories, things should work themselves out. I would pick a leg/hand based on the better cartwheel.

The one thing I don't do is teach the Level 5 dismount turning in the prescibed direction...it screws things up for kids down the line.
 
me and some of my teammates have this problem. mine was mostly when i was younger there were certain skills that carried over and there will be times when you may have to learn to do one skill a certain way. but it shouldn't be to big of a deal.
 
If you just stick with the text in the USAG compulsories, things should work themselves out. I would pick a leg/hand based on the better cartwheel.

The one thing I don't do is teach the Level 5 dismount turning in the prescibed direction...it screws things up for kids down the line.

I have also out of the blue asked kids to lift up one leg in a bridge (like they're going to kick over) and then I'll see if they're doing HS/CW with that foot and stick with it. I had a L3 who I was starting to teach the L4 routine to and I hadn't noticed her to be switching in training but then I realized she was taking an extra step between her leap and CW. She was leaping right and HS left. I changed everything to the HS direction (left) and she did it just as well, so I think she just started stepping for her leap on the wrong leg at some point and kept doing it (she had just switched to the program as a L3/4). I don't really know how it got by me, except she was catching onto the routine and skills (most of which she'd never seen before) so fast, it didn't occur to me until we got to the HS part.

If you mean the L5 bar dismount, what is the prescribed direction? I never realized there was one. I might make sure the way they were doing it was compatible with their pirouette. i.e. I change and turn around my right hand on a pirouette and I initiate the L5 dismount with my left hand as the post arm.

I twist left (front and back) and turn right on floor (I'm right footed). That's not really unusual, just annoying for combinations. Not the same as doing stepout skills with different feet imo. I know a bunch of girls who turn right and twist left. I know a righty who turns on her left foot because someone recognized it early when she began training optionals and made her do all her turns left. Her left turns are better than her right even though she's right footed and her turn/twisting jump combos looked great.
 

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