All-Star Flyer Flexi but not good at tumbles

[UKFlyer]

My 12 year old is a fab little flyer and is exceptional with stunting and ridiculous flexibility but struggles with her tumbles. She has been fighting so hard but just can't get her back handspring. Any tips on how to help her? It's really holding her back

 

[catlady]

A good tumble coach and patience. After the BWO, it took weekly privates, plus weekly group lessons for my kid's to get to a head grazing, frog legged BHS in a year. It took another year of privates and weekly group lessons for it to have good technique and power. Every athlete is different, but a good tumble coach and patience is what worked for my kid's.

 

[UKFlyer]

Thank you recently found a great tumble coach not sure how many privates I can get him to do for us as his ridiculously busy. Think we realised her current tumble coach didn't know how to fix the issue she was having. She learnt her walkovers from you tube the BHS just isn't something we can do that with

 

[UKFlyer]

she is super strong in her BWO and FWO and has had both since she was 9 year old. Just made no progress since then with advancing her tumbling.

 

[catlady]

No progress? Any injuries? Fear?

 

[UKFlyer]

No progress she has never had an injury tumbling she was dropped out of stunts but she has zero issues getting right back up. I found a new tumble coach who said a whole host of things she didn't know and had never been taught so I am wondering if it's just a case of the things holding her back are things her current tumble coach can't help her with. Her back is ridiculously flexible and the new coach says she's not using her shoulders and is trying to do it through a back bend. He also says she's not doing it fast enough it's just incredibly frustrating and really holding her back from the progress she desperately wants to make. Stunting and flexibility is progressing at a rapid rate

 

[NJ Coach]

The bhs is the most expensive skill in all of cheerleading. It can take FOREVER, and therefore you're paying for privates/classes FOREVER. This isn't abnormal, especially if she taught herself skills beforehand. She's going to have to unlearn any bad habits she may have.

Don't worry about stunting progressing faster than tumbling. That's also normal. She may be a better flyer than tumbler, it may even out, or at some point, she may tumble better than she flies. Don't stress, let it happen how it will happen. Most important, be excited for every hurdle she crosses as she learns this skill. It's easy to get discouraged if something isn't happening as fast as you would expect.

 

[UKFlyer]

Absolutely not worried about her becoming an exceptional tumbler for her it's all about the flying. She's concerned her inability to do a BHS won't allow her to advance teams as a flyer. She's only attended her tumble classes at the moment. We have done a few privates but recently reached out to tumble experts for cheer privates. Happy to continue this until she finally smashes it. Thank you so much for the advice it helps me know I am the right track with hunting down private tumble coaches

 

[catlady]

Does your daughter by chance have joint hypermobility? It isn't inherently bad, many flyers/gymnasts/dancers have it, but you might ask your pediatrician to perform the Beighton test on her (or you can Google it). If so, she may need to focus more on strength training to progress in tumbling and protect her joints. With hypermobility, flexibility classes aren't stretching muscle, they are stretching ligaments and tendons that are already too flexible for their own good.

My youngest's PT had us get her tested for hypermobility, and tested positive. I ask about this because she, also, was undercutting her BHS (feet beginning and ending relatively in the same place) because of her incredible back flexibility and hundreds of spotted reps putting it to muscle memory. My youngest was a base, however, she gravitated to flexibility classes and exercises because flexibility was inherently easy for her. Her PT put a stop to flexibility classes and had her focus on strength training. If your daughter has joint hypermobility, the strength training will only serve to protect her joints from partial and full dislocation, and help with the strength needed to get the proper technique in her tumbling.

 

[UKFlyer]

She has minor hyper mobility in her hands and knees diagnosed by and an osteopath and physiotherapist. It caused her issues when flying at first as knees wouldn't lock right and of course in writing. She's had to do a ton of strength training to ensure she could fly stably and excel in English. Her flexibility mostly come around in lockdown as it was the one bit of cheer she could work on non stop at home.

The guy we recently saw for tumbling has said she uses her lower back rather than her shoulders to do her jump. She also is under confident at the idea of leaving the ground and trusting her body will do what it needs to do. With walkovers you always have a limb on the floor. Shes weak with her jumps so I did wonder if it was a strength and suggested to the tumble coach. However he has said it's all her technique she's completely learnt wrong so has muscle memory and needs to unlearn and then relearn. Sometimes it feels like a mountain she will never climb.