WAG Backwalkover?? HELP!

[Abs]

Hi, im a level 6 this year and i have my backwalkover but sometimes i get scared and balk or fall.I missed one hand on Wednesday but im not that scared like i used to be. I have meets coming up and i dont know how to control it. I looked the backwalkover up and im trying to go slow and controled, but sometimes i twist and my back has been hurting me. HELP!

 

[iwannacoach]

Learn how to hold your hands in position if you don't know how. If that doesn't help, maybe the following rant session will get you on the path to "beam walkoverness".

Spend some time thinking about this idea, and then try it on the floor. Stand on a line with your body in position and prepared to do a walk-over. Look at the wall in front of you and "watch" it during your first movements into the skill. Don't make any changes other than being very aware of the wall, but focus your mind on moving straight back away from the wall as you lose sight of it.

Work with that idea while you're warming up on the line, and if you feel comfortable with the concept try it on the floor beam, low beam, and up.

Your complaint of a sore back makes me think that you're going way too slow on the skill, and using your low back to control the speed. By going slow you're changing the skill from one you know well to one you don't. Hear's three more reasons why you shouldn't go slow.

Reason 1.....When you do them on a floor line, do you do them the easiest possible way with good preps before and good form through out at a speed you're comfortable with......or do you choose the hard way by going so slow you have to work hard to get your hands to the floor and again when you're taking your foot off the floor so you can come up and over.

You know what I'm getting at, right? Why would you choose to make an "easy skill" so much harder to do than the way you do it on floor. It's already "harder enough" by being up un the beam and having so few choices about where to put your hands, so do it the most "natural" way...the way you learned it!

Reason 2.....Follow along with my rant for a minute and see if you can figure out where I'm going before I actually get there. There's 24 hours in a day. Figure you spend 9.5 hours sleeping and the other 14.5 are spent doing "daytime activities". So out of each 7 day week total of 168 hours, you're laying down for 66.5 hrs and doing gym for something like 17.5 hrs, and other day time stuff the remaining 84 hrs.

At the gym you do skills that require an upside down position. Let's figure since a lot of your time is spent waiting for a turn, standing in front of coaches as they blah, blah, blah, and all the other not doing gymnastics moments.....that you are actually upside down a little less than 1/10th of the time, or just about 1.68 hours a week.

Looks like you spend about 2% of your waking hours upside down, or you could say that for every hour spent upside down per week, there are 50 hours spent standing, sitting, slouching, leaning, and maybe a little time laying down reading or doing homework. I hope you'd agree with my next three statements.....we are far more comfortable when our heads and bodies are rightside up than upside down...... our body's instincts and structure favor rightside up......and you'd almost never choose to do something upside down if you also had a choice to do it rightside up.

Have you figured it out yet? If not, then here's.........

Reason 3......Since none of us are built to spend time upside down as a position of comfort, it makes sense to be un-comfortable and even fearfull of that position. My larger point is that by going slow onto your hands you are making yourself spend a longer, uncomfortable time getting upsidedown, being upsidedown, and recovering to a stand while coming up from being upside down. You probably spend just under 2 seconds torturing yourself when you could have it over in less than 1 second. The better choice is to start rightside up do the upsidedown stuff as quickly as gymnastically reasonable, and get rightside up as quickly as good technique allows.

So figure out if you want to do it the hardway X 3 = pain, frustration and fear.....or the easy way of "rightside up" rules.

I'd wish you luck, but I don't think you need luck. You've already been lucky by staying injury free while doing it the harder, more dangerous way, so you can make your own luck by doing it the easy way.

 

[Abs]

Thank you. i will try that, and i think my mom is making a private with the head coach.

 

[Flossyduck]

My daughter has been working on these over the summer and I'll tell you what her coach told her in case it helps.

She was told that she was taking the first part too slowly and then rushing the second part. Going back too slowly was giving her body time to instinctively twist and causing her problems, rushing the second part meant she was trying to stand up before she had her balance.

She was told to reach back firmly and confidently for the beam and kick over, and then pause in needle scale to make sure she had her foot down and collect her balance before standing. She did lots of drills on the floor line and low beam.

She was also told to have a look at her foot as she put it down to keep it square on the beam and orientate herself.

She has this now.

Hope that helps. Just keep plugging away and good luck.