AES Cougar Cheerleading
Cheerleading 101: Tumbling
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Somersaults Handstands Cartwheels Round-offs Handsprings Tucks Layouts/Twists
Find a cheer gym or gymnastics center
anywhere in the USA!
Beginner Cheer tumbling class: (Video 1) (Video 2)
Be sure to visit the blue links in each section. They include more valuable tips, pictures, and videos that can help you learn these skills. And don't forget to warm up and stretch out before doing your drills.
Tips for making YouTube more
kid-safe.
Please review before watching videos.
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Front Handsprings Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning this skill! Never try to learn this skill on your own! Many beginners think that this is an easier or safer skill than a back handspring, but the truth is landing on your backside, as is common for people just learning, can provide a damaging jolt to your spine, and collapsing arms can still dump you on your head and neck. So please work on this skill in a safe environment instead of trying to teach it to yourself at home.
- Looking at
this picture you can see the gymnast pass through the following
positions: a hurdle run, kick through handstand, block and spring to arched layout, and pull to standing position.
- Kicking hard to a handstand against a
wall/upright mat
will help you get ready to kick hard in the front handspring, so
you'll have momentum to drive your heels to get over.
- On a trampoline or spring floor to stacked soft mats, kick to
handstand hard and allow yourself to go over and land on your back.
- If you need more time to lay out for the landing, try doing
front handsprings from a stacked panel mat, first into a pit and
later on the spring floor. (Video
of a similar drill) Just hurdle run as normal, plant your hands
on the mat and kick up and over to a front handspring. (You'll want
to use a spotter when first working on this drill.) Once you've done
this, you can start doing them
over a barrel or an octagon mat.
-
Shoulder shrugs,
blocks, and pops. The spring in going over comes not from
bent arms but from blocking through the shoulder. Practice keeping
your arms by your ears nice and tight, and shrug. Raise your
shoulders, then lower them. Repeat several times. You can also do
these shrugs while upside down in a handstand, on the floor and up
onto another mat as if you were popping up steps.
- A lot of people tend to learn their front handsprings with an
accidental tuck coming out of the handstand position, causing them
to nearly land on their backsides. Make a bridge near the wall and
walk your hands up it,
keeping your shoulders open. This will help you get the feel for the arch
position you must lay out into as you come over. Later on try
getting up from a
front limber,
(front
walkover and limber stand up video) without the wall walk. Use
your stomach muscles to pull you up, pushing your knees forward and
your hips out. (Exercises
for strengthening your abs.) You can do these over a barrel the first few times.
You can also do
hip kip drills to help you keep your hips open and leading ahead of your torso when exiting the skill.
- Variations of the front handspring: front handspring step-out, front flyspring
(See above for YouTube safety information)
|
Front Handspring tutorial (don't do the
headsprings) |
Back handsprings Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning this skill! Never try to learn this skill on your own! Many beginners do not have the proper form and often have their arms too far out and away from their shoulders when they land into the handstand position of the back handspring. This means they cannot support their weight and all of it will come crashing down onto their necks and spine, which can lead to serious injury or worse. So again, use a spotter in a gym instead of trying to learn this at home on your own. (Helpful hint: If you desperately want to learn a back handspring but are worried about the cost of classes, then don't sign up for one until you have a perfect bridge and a really good handstand and jump back. Once you have those you will have to spend far less time in classes trying to get the back handspring itself, thereby saving yourself some money. Don't forget to do push-ups, ab crunches, pull-ups, and squat jumps to help build up your strength.)
- If you look at
this picture, you will see the tumbler move through the
following positions: the chair, a narrow arch and bridge with the
shoulders and hips kept open, the
handstand and block, and the snap-down-and-up. She tumbles from her
toes, stretches herself as tall/long as she can, and tries to "draw
a rainbow" with her feet as she brings them over. (See how
this tumbler "draws a rainbow" with her toes by stretching
herself long and not allowing a bend in her knees or hips. 1:40 into
the video.)
- For the
chair drill, simply press your back and head against a
wall and sit. Keep your eyes looking straight ahead of you while in
this position. Keep your seat perfectly in line with or above your knees to
make no more than a 90 degree angle. This is very important. It will help train
you to keep your back straight and to not drop your seat lower than your knees, which in a back
handspring makes it very difficult to get over correctly. If you
have trouble landing on your feet or falling onto your head
in the middle of the back handspring, re-examine your jump and make
certain your knees are not pushing forward, your seat is not
dropping too low, and your chest is not leaning forward. All three
of these things can cause poor arm/shoulder angles when you plant
your hands, making it difficult to execute the rest of the back
handspring correctly. There are
mats that can help remind you to sit correctly during your back
handspring.
- For
fallback-jump drills you need a partner who will stand
behind you. (Drill
for working without a partner) Start standing with your arms glued to your
ears, your hands overhead and thumbs close to touching. Sit back
as though there was a chair behind you and get into that 90 degree
angle position or just above it. Your partner should let you fall against his or her
hands and absorb your weight. (Video of partner drill) As you pass the point of feeling like
your feet will go out from under you and your bottom will hit the
floor, jump and arch back, keeping your arms by your ears and your
eyes on your hands. Do not throw your head back during the
jump or you will train yourself to be out of alignment during the
actual back handspring. Keep your ears and arms in line at all
times. (Do not go over into a back handspring.
Simply practice the jump into it without going upside down.)
Spotters, you may want to turn your head to the side so that the
tumbler's arch jump does not land the back of their head on your
nose. Using your hands at her waist, absorb her jump back so that
she does not fall and hurt herself. If you are going off to
the side or twisting in your back handspring, it probably
means you are looking over your shoulder during your jump back. Do
fallback and
mat jump drills to correct this problem. If you
have an extremely weak jump back, do
jump backs to a mat and squats and lunges to build up some leg
strength. Doublecheck to make sure you are pushing off from your
toes. Always tumble from your toes to your toes.
- Bridge drills: Most people assume that a bridge is shaped like a rainbow. Rather, it is lopsided instead of symmetrical. If you don't have a
bridge that looks like this
with the shoulders, arms and hands all in a vertical line, and has this kind of flexibility through the upper back and shoulders, you won't be able to do a back handspring.
To get this kind of flexibility do
elevated bridges,
bridge rocks
and kiss the wall,
front limber pull-overs, and
back handstands (only at the gym with your coach) . This will
help you to learn to
get your shoulders in line with or in front of
your hands. Stand back to a wall and walk your hands down through a
back limber
to a bridge. Use your legs to rock you toward the wall so that your
face can pass through your arms and you can kiss it.
If you have trouble getting your arms into place during the jump into a
back handspring it may
be the result of having shoulders that are too tight and closed to
allow your arms to reach back enough. Work on the bridge rocks and
the following exercises to increase your flexibility:
Shoulder stretch 1,
Shoulder stretch 2,
Shoulder stretch 3 (Video
of bridge drills and exercises) If
you are having trouble getting up and staying in your bridge,
you may be too tight to really make that arch. Try loosening up with
these other stretches back
and stomach stretches before moving on to the bridge.
Don't forget to stretch the chest and shoulders too.
If you can't even get your head off of the
floor it could be a lack of upper body strength, for which
you can do exercises like these,
poor arm position (make sure your hands are by your ears with your
fingers pointed toward your shoulders,) or
it's a timing issue. Some beginners lift their hips and then their
heads. Doing it this way drives most of your body weight into your
shoulders. No wonder you can't get them off of the floor! So, try to
lift the hips and shoulder blades up simultaneously instead.
- Back kick-overs: Many people think you
must learn a
back walkover before a back handspring, but this isn't
necessarily so since walkovers are flexibility skills and
handsprings are about power. However, some coaches prefer to teach
back limbers, kick-overs, and walkovers before handsprings since it can help make
the tumbler more comfortable with going backwards headfirst. One
exercise that will help you prepare is to do a
bridge and lift one leg at a time. You will also want to work on
your splits since you are in that
position upside down in the middle of the walkover or kick over. At
the gym, you can
do them off a stack of mats, or at
home you can lie on your bed and wiggle down so that your head and
arms hang off the side. Keep going until you can get your hands into
a handstand position with locked out arms and support yourself a fair ways away from the
side of the frame, then kick over off the
bed. (Watch your head, though, as you turn over. You don't want to
hit the bed frame.) You can also do a bridge with your toes pressed up against a
wall. Walk your feet up until you can kick over. Ask a parent or
friend to spot you when you first learn how to do this, and make
sure you have clean safe space to do it in. If you fall on
your head during kick-overs it can mean that your arms are
not placed correctly or are bent, that your back is not arched
enough, you are not pushing through your shoulders and keeping them
open, or your kick is weak. Focus on the bridge drills in the
section above and at the link to the right. (Bridge
progression to back walkover)
- Handstands and
blocking in the back handspring: A good
handstand drill to help your back handspring is
handstand
push ups (video). Most people will feel more comfortable learning these
against a wall and with a spot. You can also do
shrug pop drills to
help with your blocking.
When you are standing upright, just put your arms up and glue them
to your ears. Do a very fast shrug and try to get your shoulders up
to your ears and right back down again. Now do that same thing while
upside down in a handstand. Have someone spot you the first few
times you do these.
Blocking against a mat helps you to learn to make your turn over push
through your shoulders instead of your elbows. Chin-ups and push-ups
are other good exercises to help you build up strength. If your arms
are collapsing and you crash on your head in your back
handspring, build up your strength with the above drills, and
double-check to make certain your arm alignment entering the
handstand phase of the handspring is correct. Remember, your arms
stay locked out on your ears and your eyes stay on your hands.
-
Snap down drills are good for working on speeding up your turn
over. Do a handstand on stacked mats and throw your feet to the
ground, pushing off hard with your hands. You should be completely
in the air, neither hands nor feet on the mats/ground, and you
should be in a hollowed out position. When you land on your feet be
sure to do a big rebound jump up with your arms overhead, glued
tightly to
your ears. If your hands are still on the floor, your body
is piked and bent over at the waist when you land, or you
land on your knees, work on
hollowing out, snap-down
and blocking drills. If you are having trouble connecting back
handsprings do a snap down from the stacked mats and go
right into your back handspring from there. Remember, you have to
land your handspring with your torso vertical and arms glued to your
ears. If you are leaning forward or your arms are all over the
place, you won't have much success connecting another back
handspring to your first one.
-
Arm swing drills While still working with a
spotter as a beginner tumbler, do not swing your arms during
your back handspring until you have mastered keeping them locked out
and glued
to your ears as you go over. Remember, poor arm and hand placement
is a leading cause for people landing on their heads during their
back handsprings.
- When doing back handsprings, if you have trouble with
"undercutting",
which is trying to jump straight up and replace your feet
with your hands (usually caused by dropping the chest towards the
knees before the jump, dropping your seat below your knees, and/or jumping straight up instead of back,
and most likely to cause you a lot of wrist pain as
you land in the handstand position),
review these drills: 1) Chair drills 2)
jump back onto a mat to
really emphasize traveling back instead of up, and 3) lie on the
floor with your arms overhead and have a partner put red tape where
your feet and hands are and yellow tape where your belly button is.
Stand on the red tape and make sure when you jump back into your
back handspring your hands land on the yellow tape. Your feet will
snap down to the other red tape. Handsprings
over a barrel
(or
over an octagon) also help
clean up your form and improve the length of your back handspring.
- If your legs are bent or apart as you go over
in your back handspring, try placing a small stuffed animal between
your ankles/calves as you practice. The squeezing action it takes to
keep the toy in place between your legs will help you to develop
better form.
- To start learning your round-off back handspring:
Start by doing
round-off jump-back drills (second
video). Then with your spotter do a round-off, and come out of
it in a nice hollowed out position. Pause to
get into a good chair sit, then throw a
standing back handspring. Do that over and over with a shorter and
shorter pause and bigger rebound after the round-off and before the
chair sit. Eventually you will be able to connect them together and
have formed the very good habit of starting your back handspring
portion of the skill with a proper vertical rather than piked over
chair sit. You can also
learn this skill using an octagon mat. (Video
2)
- Scared of throwing your back handspring? You
have to want it more than you fear it. It would help not to say that
it scares you, because the more you say "fear" or "scared" in
connection with it the more you reinforce that fear in your mind.
Try visualizing yourself doing it perfectly, to help build up your
confidence. And have your coach give you a lighter and lighter spot
until (s)he stops touching you altogether. The have him/her move
back a little at a time until (s)he can no longer catch you if
there's a problem. If you still lack confidence, your coach can
stand an octagon mat on its end near where you are throwing your
skill. For some people, just having the shadow of something nearby
makes them feel safer.
- A variation of a back handspring: the back handspring step-out
(See above for YouTube safety information)