WAG Teaching uncommon skills.

[Aero]

So I received the code of points for Xcel about two weeks ago and I've been looking it over and studying it. There are A LOT of awesome skills within the categories and I would love to teach them. However, my main question is whether it's worth it to teach these skills or not. I would love to teach some of these skills, such as a half twisting jump to kip on low bar to half twist catch on high bar (Group 1, Mounts, 1.202), but I never see them performed. If any of you experienced coaches out there could tell me some advantages and disadvantages of teaching these skills I'd be very grateful.

 

[iwannacoach]

The mount sequence you spoke of is a throwback to the days when the distance between the bars was a lot shorter. I'm not saying it's impossible with today's bars set at FIG, but you'll probably never see one.

Try picking skills that can transition into more difficult skills. An example on beam would be a well done backward roll that transitions to a back extension to handstand (easier than it sounds) over a two year span.

 

[Gymishome]

Advantages-the routines stand out and are more fun for the gymnast (usually)
Disadvantages-more room for mistake. I mean, why not just do a regular kip for the example you used? It's less for them to think about..

But our gym actually does the stuff you don't see much anymore. Straddled pak salto, drop kips, lauman (spelling?), deltchevs, different mounts, vault catches, etc. they're just more fun for the gymnasts to play around with...

 

[Gymishome]

I also wanna second what iwannacoach said, it IS good to pick things that lead to higher difficulty. Think beam: bwo bhs>bhs bhs>bhs lo step out

There's a method to everyone's madness...

 

[Gymsanity]

We teach 'odd ball' skills in the gym all the time. Breaks it up and makes it fun for the girls to learn new stuff. We don't compete it, and just stick to the 'bread and butter' that we know works and scores well.