That question was posted on the The Chalk Bucket forum. The advice given was NOT to spot 1/1 twist. To use progressions, instead.
I can’t think of a single coach in 2007 who advocates spotting twisting on Floor as a progression.
When I was a young coach, though, I spotted Jon Moffat for ten standing 1/1 twists every work-out. I got pretty good at that tricky spot, after a while. On the down side, I think I did more harm than good for Jon. In his mind, the challenge was to twist, not flip. That’s the wrong mental approach for this skill.
But lets say for sake of argument you MUST spot full twist on Floor. For a cheerleader, for example, who does not have a huge background of trampoline and gymnastics basics.
I think I’d start with the athlete in a twisting belt, from stand on a mini-tramp. And leave them in that safe environment until the motor pattern was quite stable. (For the athlete and the spotter.) We have something similar at Altadore.
Alternate front somersault with half twist. And back layout with half twist. Spotting both.
Eventually combining the two into a full twist. Eventually taking that skill out of the belt and on to the floor. The twist is fairly easy if the somersault is consistent.
Over Head Spotting Rig | Twisting Belt
Any other suggestions? Leave a comment below.
I suspect we could take another cheerleader of the same background, and teach her a full twist faster using trampoline devices. Without spot.
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I have always been opposed to spotting fulls. I believe that the best way for the kids to learn the skill and gain confidence with it is through progressions. I’ve successfully taught fulls to lots of kids with no hands on spotting. The only kids that I’ve ever had to spot were those that came from other gyms where they had been spotted through the skill. One other thing is that we don’t have a pit in our gym so all progressions are taught at floor level or higher onto mats. I have them go on TumblTrak (in a nutshell the progression I use is layout jump half, late half, then go for it). Also I’m willing to back them up on the progressions if I feel that they’re developing a bad habit. I’ve found that when they’re confident on TT they can progress pretty quickly to floor because they already know that they can do the skill, it’s just a new surface. I’ll have them go onto a 4″ mat, then a sting mat, then the floor. And through all of this, I never spot the skill. I’ve never had a kid balk on a twist, and I’ve never had a kid get hurt on a twist – 2 indications to me that my method works.
I learned without a spotter, or tumble track, or trampoline. If you don’t have a solid layout you shouldn’t be twisting it.
We did it where we did a layout and said “now” when we saw the floor, and then we started twisting when we saw the floor rather than saying “now”. The coach stood at the end of the rod floor for us to look for. Once we had half twists, whoever had the brightest leotard on was to stand in the front of the line for us to look for on full twists (or we’d pass around a neon orange tshirt). As we got comfortable twisting late gradually we’d twist earlier…the only person to ever get hurt twisting was the girl who decided to throw a full without being able to control a half. Everyone else always pulled a complete flip and controlled the twist even if it was short.
Great ideas from both coaches, all of which I use when teaching twisting (as a tramp coach) around the room. Learn to look first and feel second, rather than trying to learn by feeling. If you always look and turn late, you may end up short, like Anya was saying, but still on your feet.
I wonder then, what is the “saying” for learning a double twist?
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you should put a video on showing someone doing it and for the instrutions you should have a scetch of someone doing it!
Twisting belt is good~! Can anyone tell me that how to make a homemade twist belt? I need the system of the belt!
Thanks!
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