WAG Previously okay flic-flac gone wonky...

[Kiwi]

DD has been doing okay with her flic-flacs (RO-flic, RO-flic-flic, tic-toc-flic), I mean far from perfect but looking basically okay. But in the past few weeks they have changed and are now terrible. The flics now look like she is trying to get her whole body over before her hands land, with closed shoulders. The only thing I can think of is that a couple of weeks ago the coach had them trying out back tucks. Could this have caused confusion in some part of DD's brain, messed up her muscle memory somehow?

I'd really like to hear from the experienced coaches (Dunno, IwannaCoach, etc.) as well as anyone who has experienced this problem. Did the problem resolve itself, or was there a lot of painful retraining everything?

 

[Aussie_coach]

It can happen if a kid is not 100% on the flics and they start doing back tucks that the flics can be affected. The key is to go back and do a bunch of body shape drills. Take the gymnast back to jumping back wards onto mats, spotting the stages in slow motion and which ever other drills you normally do to teach the flic.

 

[iwannacoach]

If the skill has not been repeated enough,it's not committed to muscle memory. So if she moves too soon from one skill to a new skill (or sequence) she can have problems with her body deciding to repeat what it did yesterday instead of what she wants it to do today. I guess you could say "it's definitely possible to likely."

You dd's dilemma may (if this is happening for that reason) be a great example of what takes place in the learning process. The first step is usually ignoring what the coach says in favor of doing it the way that makes sense (gymnast's mental model) and from there slowly acceptthe coach's model.

Once they've accepted the correct model for the skill, they'll start doing something that closely resembles the skill they say they're doing. You could say, at this point, they've learned the skill but are refining it so the mechanics are exactly what they should be. This is when, once refined, you can say they've learned the skill, but haven't committed it to muscle memory because muscles only remember the "one" that gets repeated....... like maybe 500 nearly identical repetitions with no "wierd ones" messing up the muscle's "concept" of the pressures, directions, speed, position, and timing that are (more or less) unique to that same skill.

Consider it similar to being introduced to a new group of people who spend 15 minutes together working on a project. It takes a while to earn just their names, and then some time to understand their sense of homor, and then, and then, and then........ through a series of nuances. It's only when you've committed each person's traits into your relation ship memory that you can consistently get the most benifit for your effort and time........ Gymnastic learning works kinda like that, sort of.

A new skill that goes upside down (in an substantially different way) that shares a few common traits, like back salto after a bhs instead of a bhs after a bhs. The coach possibly saw a few problems and has reacted by not working them until the kids really have it. Consider it a test to see if your dd had really learned the skill, and the results prompt the coach to pull back a bit and work th skill a while longer.

There is a bit of an upside in this for your daughter in the sense that she now has another thing to learn..... the difference between what works for a bhs, and what "sorta" works for a salto. During the relearning process she'll learn more than she knew existed in the bhs universe, and that's always a good thing.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yep. the back flip was introduced too early. this can happen.

 

[Kiwi]

Thanks to all the wise coaches! DD missed quite a lot of training last year because of injury, so she probably hasn't done as many repetitions as the others in her group, or as many as needed to get the skill properly as you've said. They weren't actually doing RO-flic-BT, they were doing standing back tucks on the tumble track and spotted onto the pit mat. I think the coach was starting to introduce some skills for the next level, which includes RO-flic-BT, however they won't all be moving up. DD has struggled this season and will be repeating, so she won't need the back tuck for quite some time yet.

 

[Kiwi]

Here is a video of her from a couple of months back: RO flic flic - YouTube

I don't have video of her recent wonky ones, but they look more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xJKiWwo4ig

Thanks for the replies. Iwannacoach, I love your explanations, you put so much thought and detail into them. I am hoping that she will learn and understand a lot more about the flic-flac through this experience, as you say.

After all the injury drama of the last couple of years, this year I've just been happy she has been able to compete without injuries, so I've been much more relaxed in general, not worried about her low scores or having to repeat. It is just frustrating to see her go backwards on skills (and I don't mean literally backwards, LOL) and frustrating for her as well. She still enjoys her gymnastics and is very motivated, so I'm sure this will only be a temporary setback.

 

[iwannacoach]

The video shows she's doing many parts of the series hey way they should be done, which tells me her coach knows how to teach kids to tumble....... so figure the two of them will get this figured out.

 

[Committed]

It sounds like you got your answer!

My DD has a BHS issue now, too, that I was hoping to get an answer from your post, but her issue is different . She is BHSing to the right. It's obviously in her "sit". Now, to counteract it, she BHS to the right, and then (in mid-air) her arms spring her body left. This way she lands where she should, but it's a bizarre zig-zag BHS. The more she tries to fix it, the weirder it gets.