Pulling up pants motion for kips?

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momof5

Proud Parent
My DD age 8 is trying to learn her kip and she is having trouble understanding part of it. Her coaches have tried to explain it in a couple of different ways. They used the pulling up the pants and also telling her to pull the bar to her hips. She doesn't get what they are trying to get her to do. Does anybody have any explanations that would help her understand this motion and the timing of this motion better.
 
well i just got my kip too and my coaches always said first on your glide extend your hips then pull your toes to the bar then do a candelstick on the bar like push your toes up to your knees then shoot them down whle you are pulling your torso up. so another way is just watch your toes:)
 
Tell her to think of sliding the bar from her toes to her hips. She also needs to pull up and forward in her torso, but that should help her keep her legs and hips close to the bar so she doesn't fall backwards or have to bend her arms.
 
I've always found spotted drop kips to be very helpful. The gymnasts starts at the bar in front support, drops back so their toes are at the bar, and then kips back to front support. If your DD's coach isn't doing this with her during training, maybe you could get a private lesson or something. Seperating out this pulling motion from the glide seems to help my gymnasts get it.
 
Have her coaches ever spotted just the last part of the kip? She'd start at the point of a kip where her toes come up to the bar (i.e. hanging under the bar with the legs lifted in a pike), and the coach would rock her up to front support, then back down to the piked leg lift, then back up to front support, etc. Have her focus on where the bar is in relation to the leg - the bar starts at the toes then moves up to the hips then down to the toes, etc. It's a easy way to show a gymnast what "pulling on the pants" feels like when the movement is isolated from the rest of the kip and repeated multiple times.


EDIT: Ha - must have missed reading the last post since it says the exact same thing! It must be a good drill...
 
One drill I like is to have a gymnast use a light bar or stick. They lay down and hold the stick out extended liked the extended portion of the glide kip.

Then they bring their toes to the bar ( knees to nose ) and procede to sit up into a pike sit bringing the bar down to their hips.

I've also seen it where you try to stop the sitting up action to focus on squeezing the body and then landing the shoulders and toes in front of the hip ( to be able to cast out of ).
 
If I am understanding this correctly then when she is swinging back in the pike at the bar then all the motion isn't in the pulling with her arms but its shooting up with her feet as she is pulling with her arms. Is that correct?
 
My DD age 8 is trying to learn her kip and she is having trouble understanding part of it. Her coaches have tried to explain it in a couple of different ways. They used the pulling up the pants and also telling her to pull the bar to her hips. She doesn't get what they are trying to get her to do. Does anybody have any explanations that would help her understand this motion and the timing of this motion better.


she's 8. could take weeks and months. don't kavetch over a kip. cast handstands are more important.
 
she's 8. could take weeks and months. don't kavetch over a kip. cast handstands are more important.

OMG you have made my day! My dd cant seem to get hers either. SHe gets close for a few weeks then goes backwards again. This has been happening for 9 months. But she did get her cast handstand this month!
 
Blairbob's stick drill is a good one, it is the action of the kip but the bar moves instead of the gymnast. 'Pull your pants up' is a coaches way of saying bring your ankles to the bar and let the bar scrape your legs all the way to your hips :D.

Standing on a Theo band (pants) and pulling it up to the hips in a tight dish/pike shape is another way to get the feel.

Here is a video of a fairly good beginner kip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyA_nm9PQp4&feature=related
If you keep hitting the pause button quickly you will sort of get a slow motion effect. Hopefully you can see the legs (almost) contacting the bar the whole way. The coach is emphasizing the finishing position, if she let the gymnast go, she would automatically cast as she is in the right position (legs still under bar and leaning forward).
I don't want to post a bad example but have a search and look for yourself. Perhaps a visual may help. There are many kips on you tube where the gymnasts flicks their legs behind the bar after the leg lift. A lot of 'first' kips are like this. Generally these kids struggle to cast out of the kip. It is better to spend a year learning a good kip than 2 months learning a poor kip technique.

Also make sure your daughter is telling the coaches that she stuggles to understand what they want her to do.

For some inspiration, maybe the kiddies will enjoy this (especially what Shawn has to say): YouTube - Hardest Skill to Learn
 

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