Teaching Tumbling Basics

[Coach Sam]

I coach a unique squad. We are a collegiate club team, and we have a more relaxed (we don't compete, just perform exhibition) component as well as a competitive squad. I coach the non-competitive portion. I have some girls who have never cheered a day in their life and others who are national champions. all of my girls are between 18 and 21. I have a background in coaching middle schoolers, so I have a pretty good handle on girls with no experience.

One of our squad's weaknesses is tumbling. Since we don't actually compete we don't necessarily have to have a tumbling section but I want all of the girls to have the tools they need to make the competitive squad if they wanted to. Tumbling was not one of my strong suits as a cheerleader. At most I had a roundoff and a shakey backhandspring.

Is there any particular way that is most effective for coaching tumbling from the ground up? So far I have given them drills for muscle building, stretching, and working on handstand snap downs and cartwheels.

Also, with my more experienced girls. I have talked to some gymnasts and learned how to spot most skills. I spot their back tucks and back handsprings but the most coaching I can give is keep your feet together, jump more, don't reach for the ground. They technically have these skills but I can't give much more info for them to be perfect. Any resources I can go to to educate?

I know these questions are painfully novice but any advice you could give would help.

 

[Ren]

@Coach Sam This may not be what you want to hear but in my opinion you have three options:

1) Take a gymnastics or cheerleading (with focus on tumble) coaching course. I'm not familiar with US courses but I'm sure someone else on the boards can help you there. While it's great that gymnasts etc. have helped you pick up spotting techniques, these may not be the most effective as you are learning them 2nd or even 3rd hand, and also means you don't have complete knowledge to teach the skills, meaning it is likely that the athletes will pick up poor technique (potentially even harder to fix than not knowing anything);

2) Hire a qualified tumble coach to come in and teach your athletes, and maybe they could also teach you to coach tumbles if they are qualified to do so;

3) Send your athletes to a gymnastics/cheer gym for tumble coaching if they want it.

 

[Coach Sam]

@Coach Sam This may not be what you want to hear but in my opinion you have three options:

1) Take a gymnastics or cheerleading (with focus on tumble) coaching course. I'm not familiar with US courses but I'm sure someone else on the boards can help you there. While it's great that gymnasts etc. have helped you pick up spotting techniques, these may not be the most effective as you are learning them 2nd or even 3rd hand, and also means you don't have complete knowledge to teach the skills, meaning it is likely that the athletes will pick up poor technique (potentially even harder to fix than not knowing anything);

2) Hire a qualified tumble coach to come in and teach your athletes, and maybe they could also teach you to coach tumbles if they are qualified to do so;

3) Send your athletes to a gymnastics/cheer gym for tumble coaching if they want it.

Oh I rarely hear what I want to hear haha. Thanks for your response. I have been looking for such cheer/tumbling coaching classes but haven't really found any. As for hiring a tumbling coach, you are correct, that would be completely ideal. We are currently looking for one that would be a voluntary coach. We are a new club so we don't get money from our school till after 4 years. Most of the people we've approached want to be paid (obviously) and we can't afford it. I appreciate all feedback!

 

[Ren]

Oh I rarely hear what I want to hear haha. Thanks for your response. I have been looking for such cheer/tumbling coaching classes but haven't really found any. As for hiring a tumbling coach, you are correct, that would be completely ideal. We are currently looking for one that would be a voluntary coach. We are a new club so we don't get money from our school till after 4 years. Most of the people we've approached want to be paid (obviously) and we can't afford it. I appreciate all feedback!

Best of luck with everything! If you have a gym (cheer or gymnastics) near you maybe that would be the best option for the athletes if they want to learn to tumble?

 

[Coach Sam]

Almost none of us have cars (parking in our city is impossible) and our buses don't go out to the closest gym. And tumbling classes are not cheap. Most of the girls pay for school themselves and can't afford the extra expense. I have spoken to them about cutting our team a deal, but it's not enough. We always tell girls it's an option but usually no one goes.

 

[Ren]

Almost none of us have cars (parking in our city is impossible) and our buses don't go out to the closest gym. And tumbling classes are not cheap. Most of the girls pay for school themselves and can't afford the extra expense. I have spoken to them about cutting our team a deal, but it's not enough. We always tell girls it's an option but usually no one goes.

That's unfortunate Well I hope you manage to get everything to work out!

 

[Coach Sam]

Yes, believe me I've been trying to utilize my resources. I only want the best for my girls. I will look into classes and getting a tumbling coach. Thanks much!

 

[Keep_Believing]

Great Resource

For the "Love" of Tumbling | by Debbie LoveFor the "Love" of Tumbling

 

[Travis Pang]

Not sure what resources that you have access to there but I think getting funding to buy more equipment sounds like the best thing to do. You can always fundraise and purchase lots of great equipment like tumbling blocks, there are lots of good handspring boulders that you can get too. You always want to start your girls off with the basics before progressing them to anything further. I coach all star and school here in Alberta, Canada. I see the difference in athletes in school verses tumbling since school cheer here has never stressed much importance on tumbling, so a lot of athletes here become amazing at stunting but if they want to goto an all-star program after they struggle with the tumbling component. The best thing to do is to instil the basics of tumbling, so focusing on handstands, rolls, cartwheels, round offs. If you have access to track and field equipment, you can also start them on throwbacks for back handsprings making set they understand the importance of the "sit" position and then the up and back position onto the mat. Another good thing to do is building on the snap downs. Snapping down to their backs onto another mat, so it simulates scooping out of a roundoff into a handspring. For athletes ready for tucks there are lots of drills that you can do to simulate setting and pulling for tucks. If you have a deeper or higher mat you can do tuck sets, they can swing pull up into their set and then hit a candle stand position or (more advanced) a ball position after setting for a tuck.

I hope this helps some how... I've been trying to think up some stuff myself to work with my kids to bump their tumbling skills up. Youtube has many tutorials on how to teach tumbling as well, and some of them are really good at breaking down skills. The best way for someone to learn tumbling is to break it down step by step and position by position that's how I learnt to tumble is to just break each skill down into the positions that you need (i.e. Backhandspring - swing your arms back and bend legs into a chair position as the arms come back up you want to reach back (up and long back) hit your handstand and then snap down.

- Coach Travis (Canada)