Power Tumbling

When teaching gymnastics coaches should keep spotting to a minimum. Spot for safety and let the gymnast work on the skill progressively and safely.

I see coaches spot gymnasts way to often and for the most part when it is not needed. I have even seen 3 coaches at the club I teach, spot gymnasts that are working on  a “Salto – Front Handspring – Barani”. The first coach spotted the “Salto”, the second coach spotted the “Front Handspring” and the last coached spotted the “Barani”. This is a very good example were spotting has no effect. Ask yourself; “Who is really doing the gymnastic pass here? The coaches or the gymnast?” If the gymnast needs spotting on every skill in the pass, then the coaches should break the pass into smaller parts and work on each skill independently.

These coaches are very young and inexperienced at teaching gymnastics. Some of them have a good background doing gymnastics themselves, but being good at gymnastics is not the same as being good at teaching gymnastics. I have over 20 years experience teaching gymnastics and for the most part, I find that talented gymnasts are actually very bad at teaching other gymnasts. I see these very talented gymnasts teaching other gymnasts at the wrong level, wrong setup, wrong progression, too much spotting and so on. I call this kind of teaching for “Fast Food Gymnastics”. I have noticed that coaches that are 35+ years seem to be better at teaching, it seems that coaching experience one of the important key attributes for being a good coach.

For many coaches spotting to a show, event or competition is more about showing off then spotting for safety. Below I have included some video of unnecessary spotting with comments why it is unnecessary: 

H.C. Andercup 2012 – Competition 

Example 1:  0:00-0:11  Daniel standing at the side (Daniel is a helper coach for the National Team).

Attempt: You might be asking; What is the gymnast attempting? A full in? or A full out? Well,.. What he did was neither, more a mix of the two which we can call for a ½ in ½ out which is a perfectly valid skill. This skill requires a lot of height. 

Reason: The main reason for the gymnast crashing (on his legs!) is poor technique. The gymnast throws himself violently back at the take off trying to increase as much rotation as possible, but not gaining any height. Notice how his hips just hang at take off (even his legs just hangs at take off). The gymnast pulls his head violently back which is not what he should be doing when trying to execute this skill.

Spotting: So, should the coach stand their or even help the gymnast? The correct answer is the 3rd choice (hidden choice),.. the gymnast is not ready for this skill and should not be attempting this to a competition. The coach standing there is not for safety, and definitely not for helping the gymnast. The coach could not be more passive in this situation.

Conclusion: Their is only one conclusion for this type of spotting and that is the coach wants to “Show Off” that he is the coach that he taught the gymnast.

This video includes a lot of unnecessary spotting. To any competition it should be the gymnast showing what they can do and not the coaches showing off their spotting skills.

Ollerup OD-Dag 2012 – Show (National Team) 

Example 2: I would like to have pulled a single example of of this video, but the entire video shows unnecessary spotting and coaches standing their only to show off.

Attempt: Tumbling National Team doing a performance show at Ollerup OD Dag 2012.

Reason: In this show their are not too many crashes. The couple of “crashes” or close calls that I could see, are just gymnasts executing skills at their limit or little over. The crashes are all safe as expected from a National Team. 

Spotting: The minimum spotting in the video has only prevented a couple of gymnast from falling on their butts. 

Conclusion: Again only one conclusion for this type of spotting and that is the coaches want to “Show Off” that they can spot. Spotting the National Team is a disgrace, is the National Team really at that level that they need spotting?

TeamGym –  Men’s Tumbling at EM 2010

Example 3: You will notice that the coach is just standing in the background next to landing area. If a gymnast should need spotting then their isn’t much he can do. Remember this is the National Team for TeamGym, so their should not be any spotting.

Attempt: This is a competition, a EM competition and the gymnasts should only be doing skills they can. So I expect no spotting for this type of competition.

Spotting: The spotting in this video is useless. Their is no reason for that coach to stand their.

Conclusion: Same as always; this type of spotting and that is the coaches want to “Show Off” that they can spot.

Why should spotting be kept to a minimum?

When a coach “over spots” they are building a psychology problem for the gymnast. A good example of this can be seen when a gymnast is going to do a round-off back-backhandspring and asks the coach to stand on the other side when spotting. This is very common in Denmark and this psychology problem is actually built up by inexperienced or very bad coaches. Most coaches (it’s probably more like “all coaches”) I have meet move to the side the gymnast wants them to be on. Coaches should not move to the other side!!! If for any reason the gymnasts round-off is not straight then the gymnast should not be working on this combination skill and work on the round-off by itself and the back-handspring by itself. Coaches that move to the other side as the gymnast requests only help to build up and worsen the psychology problem.

At competitions we only spot for safety!

Too many coaches spot a gymnast at competition, so they can do skills they are not ready for. The video on the right here is a good example what can happen when coaches spot a gymnast on skills they are not ready for.

So many coaches spot their gymnasts to TeamGym, Power Tumbling and Shows. I wish we had a law were we could revoke a teaching license from all these coaches (problem of course there is no such license in Denmark, everybody can teach).

Why do coaches spot when it is not needed?

The simple answer to this is, because they want to “Show Off”.