Parents Just need to see some success

[Ariekannairb]

My poor girl is seriously undercutting her back handspring and as a result almost always collapses her arms. Especially when she starts from standing. She is getting very discouraged and frankly, I am not sure I can keep watching it. We have her going through some private tumbling classes but if you had a gymnast who had issues with undercutting can you tell me about how long it took to break the habits causing it? There are days when we are both sure she is never going to get this.

 

[5birds]

Our gym usually has the girls use the octagon trainers to help with that.

 

[JoyAvenueMom]

It took several months....and the improvement was not sudden, it was very gradual. You don't want to hear this...but stop watching. it will take some pressure off of her, and you will recognize the progress when you wait a several weeks before observing. I PROMISE it will get better...and then in a few months there will be something else that stumps her and frustrates you. It's a never-ending cycle...just different hurdles for each gymnast.

 

[GYM0M]

She may be undercutting because she's going back too high. Finding the sweet spot in the foot for the jump can be tricky for some gymnasts. Fly backs to stacked mats from a standing block will improve her take off.

 

[Sixmonkeyjungle]

It seems to depend on the child, how long she has been doing them incorrectly (how ingrained the habit is) and how gifted the coach is. We had a coach at our gym who was able to correct the habit in a single private lesson for every single girl who had the issue except one. And that girl was allowed to do them incorrectly at home for years prior to "learning" them in gym.

 

[iwannacoach]

The back handspring is one of those skill best described by the phrase "It's not what you think" because it relies on a very abstract mental model that has little with doing the two most obvious parts of the skill.... going upside down, and going around.

You daughter probably has a some ideas about how the skill does both those things and is filtering every correction she gets though her own mental model, and then adapting each correction to work within her own concept of what needs to happen to make the correction.

I'd suggest you ask your dd to start her next private with her explanation of how she thinks of the skill. It doesn't have to be a detailed analysis, just a simple list of her first priority for the skill followed by her second priority. That alone should be enough to alert her coach to possible conflict between their two mental models.