WAG backhandspring

[twinklytoes9468]

Hi Please could somebody explain what shape we should be aiming for during the second flight of the BHS ie snapping down from hands back onto feet.I have only done a basic coaching course and I think they said to tell gymnasts to think of chest snapping up as much as legs snapping down and keep the shoulder chest angle open.But I've come across some coaches doing drills which encourage a much sharper piking down and a closing of teh shoulders.
Any advice for a newbie gratefully received!!

 

[marie83]

This is a very important thing to get right, and it's pretty difficult.
In the UK it is often called a donkey kick and I've also heard 'snap down' or 'snap up'

I'm not keen on donkey kick or snap down myself - In my mind, when a donkey kicks, it has bent legs - not something we want to see from our gymnasts! And snap down makes me visualise the piking action you describe.
The official term is Courbette which is a term describing the change in shape from 'arch' to 'dish' and this is what we want to see.
This video is pretty useful to see the change in shapes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKVbAPGqB8g&feature=related

 

[iwannacoach]

One end goes up to make the other end go down........and in this case you can't get one end to go up by snapping the other end down....unless you want to get really deep into gymnastics voodooisms.

A "snapdown" of the lower body will never lift the upper body into the air, so the best thing is to teach a bhs that allows a good push off at the mid-point od the handstand phase. That's going to take longer, and require more time spent on conditioning and technique, but it will get the right results way before a "snapdown approach" to finishing a bhs.

A good place to start is to watch a good bhs in slow motion or frame by frame, and figure out what gives a bhs the energy/power to make the "pop up" happen. Have the kids work them on a trampoline......it will amplify mistakes and correct attempts, and will help them pop up to a stand.

The shape changes are important as well, but IMO it's counter productive to teach them during a bhs until the kids are gettimg some push off through the handstand phase. Find some other activity like throwing an exercise ball, with straight arms, from a slight backward bow shape finishing in a slight "dish" shape. They'll be able to get in a lot of repetitions and move from shape to shape with resistance provided by the ball's inertia.