Round offs

[karen]

One of my gymnasts is really close to round off flipping on her own, but the only thing is that she can't seem to do it in a straight line! she always veer overs over to the right. Any ideas to keep her straight?

[Gina]

Well technically a round off is a half turn into handstand, and a fast snap down. If s/he isnt doing half turn into handstand s/he will have problems with the direction.

When I was learning round off, my coach put a thick safety mat against a wall & held up another thick safety mat about a metre from it. I had to do the round off inbetween the 2 safety mats, which really helped. Its a technique I have taken on when teaching round off with my young gymnasts.

Or you could put 2 blocks close to eachother and get the gymnast to perform the skill inbetween them.
Id recommend the safety mats though as its a soft surface should s/he kick it.

Gina x

[Gina]

Also, one way to see whether s/he is getting his/her hands in the correct position is to put chalk on their hands. Check the position of the hand print on the floor after the skill has been performed. As Im sure you know, the hands should be close together, and fingers pointing in the direction the gymnast came from!

[BritCheer]

Gina has it down... if this was my athlete, i'd look at where she was going wrong. Does she lauch with his/her right or left shoulder into the lunge? Say for example SuzySpirit went into a roundoff with her right shoulder, if she shrugs her shoulders to early or snaps down to fast she'll come out off the line and to the right. Try to tell your athlete to practice handstand half turn snap downs, and then slow-mo roundoff's (my kids call em slow-mo's), just from step in to see exactly where she's going wrong. then like Gina suggested use the mats to make sure her whole round off is parallel to the floor. Good luck x