I spend a lot of my in-gym time consulting coaches on “twisting problems”.
About half of those problems stem from “barani confusion“. The other half are kids that twist “too early“.
Obviously we need to be better organized. To minimize future problems, our gyms need strict policies on twisting, club-wide. Charts on the wall need list every athlete’s twist direction.
I feel the Head Coach should be responsible to decide twist direction, not the athletes, nor the pre-competitive coaches. It’s that important.
As Head Coach “decider”, when I can detect no strong preference for a child, I choose based on round-off.
Here’s my rule-of-thumb:
If first hand down on round-off is the right hand, I declare this gymnast a right twister. For life. Very rarely will I change my mind later.
Dr. Bill Sands did a study which reinforced this coaching philosophy of mine. In researching twist direction of elite female American gymnasts:
With regard to backward twisting, if the gymnast places her left hand down first, she will twist left approximately 80% of the time. … her right hand down first, she will twist right only approximately 70% of the time.
One of many conclusions from this study: girls are more likely to be successful at the highest level if they follow my rule.
One (small) advantage is that you can step out on Floor out of one and a half twist twist somersaults more easily.
For boys it is even more important as many want to compete the Kasamatsu vault. And you cannot do a Kasamatsu unless you twist in the same direction as your first hand on round-off. (You do a Tsukahara with 1/1 twist instead.)
Kyle Shewfelt, for example, does Kasamatsu. It’s much easier than Tsuk full.
Read Bill Sand’s article: Twist Direction – Technique Magazine
I understand many Romanian coaches use round-off as an indicator which way to twist. But that they twist in exactly the opposite direction. So my rule is far from iron clad.
8 comments ↓
This topic has always made my head spin.
I put my left hand down first on my round-off, and do twist to the left.
It becomes confusing, though, when I do blind changes and handstand pirouettes. The perception/perspective of my brain is such, that I look to my left armpit and let go with my right hand, turning to the left on my blindchange. But my handstand pirouettes always went to the left (from my brain’s upright perspective), which means that I am actually “twisting” rightward. This messed me up, since I did circles and flairs clockwise, from left to right; I never tried to flair up to handstand, but if I did, I’d never be able to carry it into pirouettes (unless I “relearned” it).
Why do the Romanian coaches teach the twist direction the way they do?
How common is it for gymnasts to learn to twist in both directions? Is it a liability, or are there benefits? I know gymnasts who practiced circles in both directions. In this case, I think it was beneficial.
Are there any advantages to teaching a round-off in both directions? We always emphasize “good side-bad side” cartwheels, but never roundoffs.
From a health benefit standpoint, since one side being stronger than the other creates asymmetry in the body (and I suppose in the brain’s sense of coordination as well), is it worthwhile to develop athletes who do “both sides”? I believe there are few people in the world who are truly and naturally ambidexterous; and we may have a natural dominance of one side over the other. But does it have to be like this? Would all athletes benefit if they didn’t overtrain just one side of their body? From bowling, to baseball and tennis, and so on?
All good questions!
First. The ambidextrous gymnast.
Sounds great in theory. The closest I can recall was Steve Elliot. Legend has it that Steve could twist any skill in both directions.
Two problems:
1) Humans have different left brain / right brain functions.
2) The risk of getting mixed-up in the air while twisting. And possibly getting hurt.
I will stick with my “rule of thumb” until we see more top gymnasts doing skills in both directions.
I have never heard more crazy theories from any gymnastics nation than I have from Romania. There must have been some coach educators there who decided to split from Soviet training theory.
Lastly, the confusion over which way to turn on pirouette, blind change, etc. I try to address in another post:
preventing “barani confusion“
http://gymnasticscoaching.com/?p=453
Happy Holidays down there in California !
Thanks, coach Rick. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, to you, too.
I loved that article of yours, and will forward it to our head coach.
I’ve never actually suffered from “barani confusion” on baranis themselves. In fact, at the gym I coach at, we don’t even bother with baranis really. Front layouts with a late half twist, yes.
I found this particularly useful, and makes absolute sense:
most importantly the pre-school and recreation instructors!
We should decide the dominant direction of twist for each child BEFORE they learn round-off! I recommend that recreation programs encourage practicing cartwheels in both directions, and DELAY learning the round-off for as long as possible.
I loved the drills to determine natural propensity for twist direction. Kind of reminds me of a coordination test I saw where a person was asked to lie down and then lift up one arm and one leg. If the brain’s cross-patterning was “efficient”, the person would naturally lift up the opposite arm and opposite leg. I forget the other tests.
Thanks for this!
I agree that all athletes have a stronger side (coordination and strength) and that is the side that should be developed in regards to skill perfection and performance. However, I also agree with a previous poster in regards to training both sides (at least during training) to try to minimize assymetric muscular development. Considering that most injuries stem from muscle imbalance, I believe that it is necessary to train both sides (maybe not evenly) in order to prevent injuries.
[...] • deciding twist direction based on round-off [...]
Hi Coach
Reading the article above deciding which way to twist I agree fully with your reasoning, however we need to instil into younger coaches it is there reasonability to ensure there is no confusion. When a young gymnast comes to the gym with potential the coach needs to instil commonalty straight away i.e. spin, turn, twist the same way not leaving it to chance when they are about to do higher level skills.
You also where going to address the confusion over which way to turn on pirouette, blind change, etc. looking forward to that post.
Right … I’ll try to get to that.
It’s much less critical though.
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