Learning Kickover/walkover On Other Leg

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emo_wifey

Cheer Parent
Jul 13, 2015
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CP does her cartwheel and kickovers on opposite legs (cartwheel right so KO should be left, but does them with right also). I've noticed the problem but her tumbling coaches up until now haven't seemed concerned. Now she is in a tumbling class with IMO the best tumbling coach for her level and he is making her learn her walkover kicking with her left leg. I am super happy but wondering how hard it's going to be for her to relearn her kickover and start over on learning walkover? Also any advice for things she can do at home or in the gym to help?

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CP does her cartwheel and kickovers on opposite legs (cartwheel right so KO should be left, but does them with right also). I've noticed the problem but her tumbling coaches up until now haven't seemed concerned. Now she is in a tumbling class with IMO the best tumbling coach for her level and he is making her learn her walkover kicking with her left leg. I am super happy but wondering how hard it's going to be for her to relearn her kickover and start over on learning walkover? Also any advice for things she can do at home or in the gym to help?

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My CP has always done both cartwheel and kickover with her left leg and my little one prefers it that way too. It's never been a problem for CP, she's had plenty of tumbling passes and most of the time no one has said anything about the extra step.

At one point a coach wanted her to not do the step, she then found it easier to learn to cartwheel the other way around, rather than change the BWO.

Your CP might find that easier too?
 
My CP has always done both cartwheel and kickover with her left leg and my little one prefers it that way too. It's never been a problem for CP, she's had plenty of tumbling passes and most of the time no one has said anything about the extra step.

At one point a coach wanted her to not do the step, she then found it easier to learn to cartwheel the other way around, rather than change the BWO.

Your CP might find that easier too?

That makes sense but I don't think will work with this coach. They worked cartwheels on both sides and then when they got to BWO he had them show him their good side and worked with them on the correct leg. So unless he forgets which side she did and she can get her other cartwheel good enough by next week for him to believe it...lol. Plus I'm sure it would be good for her in the long run to be able to do it on both sides. Also she doesn't actually have her BWO yet on the right either, just BBKO, so she needs the instruction for the BWO still.
 
If she has not mastered the BWO she should stick to learning the BWO with her natural kicking leg. As a coach, I teach my athletes to either cartwheel and swing the leg all the way through (so their kicking leg ends in front of them) or learn cartwheel on the opposite leg. My athletes have found the cartwheel through to be the easiest and its seamless. I would not let her start BWO's on her opposite leg until she has mastered her regular leg to build skill confidence.
 
If she has not mastered the BWO she should stick to learning the BWO with her natural kicking leg. As a coach, I teach my athletes to either cartwheel and swing the leg all the way through (so their kicking leg ends in front of them) or learn cartwheel on the opposite leg. My athletes have found the cartwheel through to be the easiest and its seamless. I would not let her start BWO's on her opposite leg until she has mastered her regular leg to build skill confidence.
Same here, I actually prefer the look of the swing through I think its a better visual. I think that's the way CA teaches them. (don;t quote me though)
 
If she has not mastered the BWO she should stick to learning the BWO with her natural kicking leg. As a coach, I teach my athletes to either cartwheel and swing the leg all the way through (so their kicking leg ends in front of them) or learn cartwheel on the opposite leg. My athletes have found the cartwheel through to be the easiest and its seamless. I would not let her start BWO's on her opposite leg until she has mastered her regular leg to build skill confidence.

I'm glad you said that because my little one had a coach who was trying to get her to do kickover on her bad leg. She was miserable about it. When she did a lesson with another coach I asked if she could start doing it on her good leg again and he had her try both then agreed with me. :)
 
If she has not mastered the BWO she should stick to learning the BWO with her natural kicking leg. As a coach, I teach my athletes to either cartwheel and swing the leg all the way through (so their kicking leg ends in front of them) or learn cartwheel on the opposite leg. My athletes have found the cartwheel through to be the easiest and its seamless. I would not let her start BWO's on her opposite leg until she has mastered her regular leg to build skill confidence.

Same here, I actually prefer the look of the swing through I think its a better visual. I think that's the way CA teaches them. (don;t quote me though)
Ok I get that, but would you like it if a parent said, "please don't teach my kid this way"? I'm not pulling her from this coach so that would be my only other option. It seems like this is something you both prefer, not the only way.

FWIW, she was practicing at home and although it's harder for her, she's already able to kick over on her "bad" side. She gets really confused when trying to cartwheel on her bad side.

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Ok I get that, but would you like it if a parent said, "please don't teach my kid this way"? I'm not pulling her from this coach so that would be my only other option. It seems like this is something you both prefer, not the only way.

FWIW, she was practicing at home and although it's harder for her, she's already able to kick over on her "bad" side. She gets really confused when trying to cartwheel on her bad side. It would seem to me that learning to RO on her bad side would be a lot harder too.

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She wouldn't have to learn to RO on her bad side. The bad side CW would only be for when connecting to a BWO.

But if she's able to do it already, that's great! :)
 
She wouldn't have to learn to RO on her bad side. The bad side CW would only be for when connecting to a BWO.

But if she's able to do it already, that's great! :)

Duh. Thank you lol.

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Ok I get that, but would you like it if a parent said, "please don't teach my kid this way"? I'm not pulling her from this coach so that would be my only other option. It seems like this is something you both prefer, not the only way.

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There's really no harm in learning both sides, so I probably would be taken aback if a parent refused to let me teach their child both walkovers...
 
When I was in lower-level gymnastics, they had me learn the opposite walk-over leg as opposed to my opposite cartwheel.

IMO walk overs are a primary level skill where your dominant-side will have little effect on learning the skill... compared to say, full or double twists.
Again, just speaking from personal experience, I ended up learning a very struggled full twisting layout, twisting left, before a coach thought maybe my dominant twist was right-twisting. I was able to fully complete the rotation almost instantly after switching. Where as, my back-walkover was more 'uncomfortable' to throw with my non-dominant leg - but not impossible (also keeping in mind, when I was learning a back walk over- that was my most advanced skill at the time...)

ETA: Especially if she still doesn't have the skill, it would be an 'easy-fix' if she starts doing reps with her 'bad leg' as it will comfortably become her new normal.
Its more difficult to break a habit of good leg/bad leg if she has already acquired the skill & has the muscle memory of doing it that way.

Best of luck.
 
No advice but our gym requires kids to learn all skills on both legs. In my cps tumbling pass last year (m1) she had to do her "bad leg bwo at some point because otherwise she had to switch the foot position when she came up from whatever the skill was before the bwo (can't remember). She's a lefty so most of her tumbling is opposite everyone else's and she uses her "bad leg" tumbling often.
 
Our thoughts in what legs to kick are this:

CW which in turn will be your round off should just be which ever way a kid feels natural. Similar to which way a person rides a skate/snow/wake board.

The Back Bend KO and in turn the BWO should be determined by which leg their dominate/regular CW and RO is. We chose to kick with the opposite leg that they started with in their CW and RO, so if they are a right CW then we teach them to kick with their left foot in BBKO and BWOs. We do this so that in level 1 we can look as uniform as possible and no one has to switch legs.

The other thing that this helps with is level 2 (all though illegal now) and level 3 BHS step out half turn Chasse into another RO. All though it's not incredibly difficult to teach BHS Step Outs with the other leg, if definitely is a lot faster when the athletes are already comfortable with that leg.
 
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