All-Star Stunt Class??

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Jul 23, 2010
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Flyers ... Do you think it's more helpful to attend a stunt class where you are being based by coaches, or to get together with your actual stunt group to work on stunting?
 
I've always found that taking stunt privates with coaches helps me improve a lot. They can tell you exactly what you're doing wrong and give you really helpful tips as well as have you do the proper conditioning based on what you need to work on.
 
I would love to hear what @king has to say about this. Last year our gym had separate stretch/stunt classes for the flyers where they worked with coaches and junior staff. This season they have done away with that and have instead added 2 hrs/week to the team practice blocks in order to incorporate stunt classes. The stunt groups will work together with instruction and imput from coaches/junior staff.

My CP (age 9, level 2) is a flyer. She has good flexibility and pretty body positions, but she is scared and therefore tends to be very timid in the air. She seemed to be making good progression last season with the stunt classes, but I know it's because she felt much more confident with the older/bigger bases under her. I think stunting more with her actual group this season will help her to gain that confidence with them.

I also wonder if coed stunt privates would help her at all? We don't have the option of doing stunt privates with a group, but have several male coaches and males from our senior coed teams that are available for privates. I know coed stunting is much different than all girl, so I'm not sure how much this would help. My thinking is that any time in the air is good for her.
 
@king is a great one to elaborate on this!


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I would love to hear what @king has to say about this. Last year our gym had separate stretch/stunt classes for the flyers where they worked with coaches and junior staff. This season they have done away with that and have instead added 2 hrs/week to the team practice blocks in order to incorporate stunt classes. The stunt groups will work together with instruction and imput from coaches/junior staff.

My CP (age 9, level 2) is a flyer. She has good flexibility and pretty body positions, but she is scared and therefore tends to be very timid in the air. She seemed to be making good progression last season with the stunt classes, but I know it's because she felt much more confident with the older/bigger bases under her. I think stunting more with her actual group this season will help her to gain that confidence with them.

I also wonder if coed stunt privates would help her at all? We don't have the option of doing stunt privates with a group, but have several male coaches and males from our senior coed teams that are available for privates. I know coed stunting is much different than all girl, so I'm not sure how much this would help. My thinking is that any time in the air is good for her.


I think it is important to break down the parts of stunting more like tumbling. I have been working on this idea of stunting for a long time and today listening to Mrs. Love really solidified it for me.

First, you need to be conditioned and strong enough to do all the skills. Find drills (especially for the core) that strengthen your body and enable a flyer to do what she needs in the air. The stronger you are the better you can do the skills and in turn the less scared she will be. It is important though to work the right type of strength. Having your child try and bench press 300 lbs wont necessarily wont make them a better flyer. Talk to your coaches (or research what you can) to work on what can help you strengthen your body.

Second, flyers need to be able to find center a balance their bodies. Not balance to stay in the air, but balance themselves like a perfectly balanced scale. All weight is perfectly over the center no matter the body position (and the flyer has the strength to hold it). I highly recommend the Cheer Balance Pro Pedestal for this. http://forum.spiritcompany.com/threads/find-your-cheer-balance.31908/
It is the only apparatus I know of that helps you learn to find center and make your body balanced.

Third, your CP needs to be flexible. Flexibility comes from dynamic and static stretching. Holding splits for hours alone wont do it. You need to activate the joint as well as do static until it opens up and relaxes.

If you work on those three things your flyer will be better prepared for her group. I prefer stunting on someone how is over experienced when learning a new skill. I step into my groups at Tech because I know enough to not only the skill, but I am also strong enough and confident enough to 'guide' the flyer's body through the right feelings and motions. I am so confident the flyer relaxes and is more likely to try what I ask her to do correctly. It isn't that I am a coach, but that I know what I am doing. It is important a flyer get with that situation. I compare it to trying a skill on a tumble track. A tumble track provides more time to figure out exactly how and what to do.

With all that stunting extra should help.
 
I find it's easier to coach/correct fliers when they're under coaches or really solid big kids. It makes it so much easier to focus on the flier and rule out that the problem is the bases. It just removes a lot of variables if the bases are really experienced


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I think it is important to break down the parts of stunting more like tumbling. I have been working on this idea of stunting for a long time and today listening to Mrs. Love really solidified it for me.

First, you need to be conditioned and strong enough to do all the skills. Find drills (especially for the core) that strengthen your body and enable a flyer to do what she needs in the air. The stronger you are the better you can do the skills and in turn the less scared she will be. It is important though to work the right type of strength. Having your child try and bench press 300 lbs wont necessarily wont make them a better flyer. Talk to your coaches (or research what you can) to work on what can help you strengthen your body.

Second, flyers need to be able to find center a balance their bodies. Not balance to stay in the air, but balance themselves like a perfectly balanced scale. All weight is perfectly over the center no matter the body position (and the flyer has the strength to hold it). I highly recommend the Cheer Balance Pro Pedestal for this. http://forum.spiritcompany.com/threads/find-your-cheer-balance.31908/
It is the only apparatus I know of that helps you learn to find center and make your body balanced.

Third, your CP needs to be flexible. Flexibility comes from dynamic and static stretching. Holding splits for hours alone wont do it. You need to activate the joint as well as do static until it opens up and relaxes.

If you work on those three things your flyer will be better prepared for her group. I prefer stunting on someone how is over experienced when learning a new skill. I step into my groups at Tech because I know enough to not only the skill, but I am also strong enough and confident enough to 'guide' the flyer's body through the right feelings and motions. I am so confident the flyer relaxes and is more likely to try what I ask her to do correctly. It isn't that I am a coach, but that I know what I am doing. It is important a flyer get with that situation. I compare it to trying a skill on a tumble track. A tumble track provides more time to figure out exactly how and what to do.

With all that stunting extra should help.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and for all of the fantastic advice.
 
I think time with your group is important, but I feel like stunting on coaches would really help the most. It's like a "control" in a science experiment - you know that the bases are experienced, so the one thing to work on is the flyer. You know the bases aren't the problem. It's hard to teach everyone in the group at once - to see what the bases, flyer, and backspot are all doing wrong at once. By stunting on coaches the flyer can learn the stunt correctly, and that way when she stunts with her group you just have to work on base/backspot technique because the flyer already does it right. But once the flyer can hit her stunt 10/10 times on the coaches I think group stunting privates are good if they're struggling with the stunt, so they can get one on one as a group. So I guess what I'm saying is both help but group privates should come after individual privates


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What about the other way round? What can you do for bases to get them more comfortable and experienced with the skills? Sometimes as a coach I step into a group to feel what is going on from my flyers' perspective (on adult teams only!) but I don't offer stunt privates to fly on them…
 
What about the other way round? What can you do for bases to get them more comfortable and experienced with the skills? Sometimes as a coach I step into a group to feel what is going on from my flyers' perspective (on adult teams only!) but I don't offer stunt privates to fly on them…
As a base, i think working with experienced flyers helps a little bit but other than trial and error idk how to get more comfortable. Unless you plug them into an all-coach/all-experienced group one at a time and let them learn and see how it feels to do it correctly? Then after everyone has tried start working it as a group? Idk it seems easier for flyers to learn via privates XP


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I've done both and yes attending a clinic with coaches does help you get flying experience. But I personally find it helpful to stunt with my group that I'm going to be working with all year. It helps develop a bond and helps the bases practice too. The only time I stunt with a coach is when I am practicing one mans and stuff! :)
 
I have tried numerous positions including flying (that was truly a disaster:oops:) and I find it easier to work with my group that I will be working with all year.Everyone has a different technique and style, flyers like different things and I find its easier to figure things out on your own.
 
I have tried numerous positions including flying (that was truly a disaster:oops:) and I find it easier to work with my group that I will be working with all year.Everyone has a different technique and style, flyers like different things and I find its easier to figure things out on your own.


Personally that is one of the issues with lots of stunting at programs. While it is generally accepted there is one 'true' technique for tumbling when it comes to stunting we seem to accept there are no similar techniques and everyone should do it however they wish.
 
Personally that is one of the issues with lots of stunting at programs. While it is generally accepted there is one 'true' technique for tumbling when it comes to stunting we seem to accept there are no similar techniques and everyone should do it however they wish.

I agree completely, but what is out there to teach the "true" technique for stunting? I feel like there are many more opportunities for coaches to be properly trained in tumbling technique and teaching tumbling technique then there is for learning stunting technique. I am not really "in the know" when it comes to coaching though, so maybe I'm just not aware of how the coaches really learn how to teach true stunting technique. Does the USASF certification test the coaches knowledge of proper technique or just general knowledge of the stunts and rules? Other than the way they learned (which with the way stunting has evolved and is constantly changing, may be outdated) and trial and error, how does a coach learn true stunting technique so that they can pass that on to their teams? You see people like Debbie Love who are experts in the field of tumbling coming around to different gyms to offer tumbling clinics (for the coaches as well as the athletes), but I don't see many gyms saying "such and such, a stunting expert is coming to do a stunt clinic".

**I do have to say that I feel very blessed that CP is at a gym where I am confident in our coaches abilities and knowledge. We are lucky to have staff that have trained with the best and have at one point or another actually been the best (former UofK national champs, former team USA gold medalists, former coed partner stunt Worlds champions, etc.). Unfortunately, I know that there are many, many gyms out there where this is not the case.
 
I agree completely, but what is out there to teach the "true" technique for stunting? I feel like there are many more opportunities for coaches to be properly trained in tumbling technique and teaching tumbling technique then there is for learning stunting technique. I am not really "in the know" when it comes to coaching though, so maybe I'm just not aware of how the coaches really learn how to teach true stunting technique. Does the USASF certification test the coaches knowledge of proper technique or just general knowledge of the stunts and rules? Other than the way they learned (which with the way stunting has evolved and is constantly changing, may be outdated) and trial and error, how does a coach learn true stunting technique so that they can pass that on to their teams? You see people like Debbie Love who are experts in the field of tumbling coming around to different gyms to offer tumbling clinics (for the coaches as well as the athletes), but I don't see many gyms saying "such and such, a stunting expert is coming to do a stunt clinic".

**I do have to say that I feel very blessed that CP is at a gym where I am confident in our coaches abilities and knowledge. We are lucky to have staff that have trained with the best and have at one point or another actually been the best (former UofK national champs, former team USA gold medalists, former coed partner stunt Worlds champions, etc.). Unfortunately, I know that there are many, many gyms out there where this is not the case.


I think there is slowly evolving a 'most effective' technique. The reason I say 'most effective' is there are more variables involved when combining people of different heights and sizes. I have learned 5,000 different ways of doing a full up, but not all of them lead to double ups. So you have to find the right technique for what can be reproduced at all levels and lead to future skills.

IMO we are reaching the point of 'no real new skills' when it comes to stunting. But the best technique to do those skills will be the next frontier. And then, over time, we will develop the best techniques to do those skills eventually.

And I love iteration.
 
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