Here is a cut-and-paste of something I wrote out on our FB page:
"I've been asked a few times "Why are you teaching kids to pike down?" out of round-offs and backhandsprings. To save myself some time, here's a concise answer I gave in a comment on a previous video a while back ago:
"As a gymnast and as a coach, I was always told, "Arms by the ears; arms and chest up fast". The problem with young kids (or beginners) is that when they try and connect a RO and BHS without having learned how to turnover a fast RO, get off the hands, and land off-balanced right away, what happens is the classic undercutting where the knees buckle forward, the head throws back early, causing the chest to go out, resulting in a high, loopy back handspring.
I first got the idea of allowing kids to pike down from an Australian coach, Wade Petersen (who is now our head boys coach since last February; and who I think will eventually oversee all the programs at GW).
He has a back tumbling video (it used to be on RU-vid but he's since deleted his channel) where one of the drills is to sit in a pike and slide down to your back (a sit up exercise). That's, in part, where I got my inspiration for the pike sit on the block, followed by the fall to handstand (essentially doing the same job as an octagon barrel or pac-man). I want my gymnasts to get it out of their heads that a backhandspring is an archy, bridgie action; I want them to think of it more as a stretched handstand.
Wade teaches both round-offs- ones where the objective is to get the arms and chest up and the strong turnover; the other technique (the pike down) for physically weak kids who can't do that. What's important isn't that they get their chest and arms up quick for the turnover, but that they land off balanced right away (due to the pike down, the hips are already behind the feet) and hold the coiled shape (the hollow in the chest) as long as possible before unraveling occurs into the backhandspring.
I hope my explanation makes theoretical sense. Clarity over agreement.
I've seen others teach the pike down method, too, btw. At National Congress, both Justin Laury and Ivan Ivanov teach the pike action. Their explanations are slightly different. But they are really emphasizing the pike. Ivanov also showed video footage of Valeri Liukin teaching kids to pike. It's essentially an overexaggerated scooped hollow position and eventually it should look "normal". Just the drilling of the position and shape is pronounced (i.e., exaggerated). ;)
In Laury's presentation at National Congress, he also showed video footage of kids basically doing a round-off rebound into a piked seat drop shape; he'd catch them and then they'd unfurl into the back handspring. Wade's old video had one of his kids rebound the same way onto an 8 inch mat, and then unfurl into a supine, lying position.
I hope this helps. I know it's a bit unorthodox."
19 мар 2017
