I saw this video of the 5 Craziest Gymnastic Moves and felt it had to be shared here. You most likely have never seen these moves (and possibly never even heard of them) unless you’re in the profession.
#5 – 1.5 Twisting Kovacs on the Gymnastic High Bar
#4 – Triple Twisting Double Backflip on the Floor
#3 – Full Twisting Triple Backflip off the High Bar
#2 – Triple Backflip from the Parallel Bars
#1 – The Tkachev Salto
Now you may not agree that these are the craziest moves EVER but they’re certainly up there and a blast to watch.
If you have any other crazy videos to share post a link below. And if you can do any of these skills (or even come close) tell us about it.
This combines some of the concepts from the previous videos on getting up without your hands and rolling around. Building on top of these basics you can develop more difficult skills.
Try doing a random flow like this. Great for a warmup if needed and for getting the body moving.
There was some confusion about how to go about rolling in 8 directions. This video should clear that up.
Basically there are 3 types of rolls here. Straight forward (and backwards) somersaults. Diagonal rolls commonly done in martial arts and parkour. And then the sideways roll. All are pretty easy to do and can be done with a little practice.
All these basics can be expanded upon for further body awareness, control and skill. I recommend you check out Tumbling Illustrated for more details.
I put together a short video showing some on the recent progress I’ve made in gymnastics. There’s plenty of other things but I don’t get everything on film.
The first move shown here is a back lever on the rings. This is a strength movement that requires whole body tightness and coordination. You’ll noticed I’m straddling the legs which lessens the leverage slightly.
Just lowering into a horizontal position takes skill, especially being able to know when you’re parallel to the ground. It’s helpful to have someone tell you when you’re there.
As in the case with all these moves I had better attempts but they weren’t always caught on film.
The next move is an aerial. This is like a cartwheel done without the use of the arms. I still figured I was weeks or even months off from being able to do these but all of a sudden I was successful.
This move tends to be much easier for women due to hip flexibility. What I may lack in there I try to make up for in power. The landing was not graceful but I have since duplicated the move gradually making more improvement.
The third is a goal I set just because I thought it would be fun. My goal is 10 backflips in a row. In the video I do seven. Since then I have hit nine.
The difficult part about this is two-fold. One, I get dizzy and my take-off becomes less vertical giving me less space to flip. Secondly, it’s tiring to do such an explosive move over and over.
Hope you enjoyed the video. With my new gym I have some exciting projects in store. Stay tuned.
Good Luck and Good Gymnastics,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Nothing takes the place of practice but learning is a way to start and build the foundation. To do many of the moves I recommend Tumbling Illustrated. You’ll learn tons of tumbling moves whether you’re beginner or advanced.
The back handspring is one of the staple moves of gymnastics. It is a great move in and of itself, but its also used as a move to set up, and gain momentum for even bigger moves.
It is also one of the tougher of the basic tumbling moves. In my opinion it is harder to do then a back tuck. While accomplishing it is not too difficult, get it to work smoothly and correctly is a bit harder.
And, as it is back tumbling, its not something most people can jump into. While many people could easily work up to a front handspring with a little practice, going backwards over your head can be much trickier, mentally.
The basics of the move is to jump up and back. You need to hit the right amount of both or else you can miss your hands entirely (jumping too high) or not give yourself enough room (jumping not high enough).
When you jump your arms are thrown overhead, preferably locked out and in line with the ears. For those less flexible the arms aren’t always kept straight or in line. While the move can be accomplished this way you won’t have as much speed and momentum useful for going into any other move.
You transition through a sort of handstand position (obviously not pausing at all) and then come to your feet, preferably in an upright position. You want to avoid being bent over or in a squat.
You’ll notice I mentioned ‘preferably’ several times. This is the difference in doing the move and doing it well. When you’re starting out its great to just get through the move, but as you progress you tighten up your form, making the move not only better but easier to do.
I’ve been doing the back handsprings for awhile. Always working on improving my form, but my primary goal has been to string these moves together. My weakness thus far has been in doing just that, going from one move to another seamlessly.
For a couple weeks I’ve been practicing doing roundoff back handsprings as well as double back handsprings all on the mats.
I’m happy to report as of last week I’ve been able to do these on the floor. You’ll notice many of the points discussed above are not shown here. 🙂 Not perfect but a big step in the right direction.
There are some who say if you can’t do something perfectly don’t do it. I say first accomplish the move. Then work on making it better. Yes, you can set in bad habits, but if you constantly work towards improvement these won’t stay a problem.
I saw this video over at Gymnastics Coaching and thought it was worth sharing. While I’m not surprised like the hosts of the shows seem to be it is a fun watch.
Trampolining and tumbling go together hand in hand. Trampolining involves doing all sorts of acrobatic tricks on a trampoline which provides much more height. Tumbling involves doing the same or similar moves on the floor (and with gymnastic spring floors more height can be had).
I’ve mentioned this before. When I first started doing gymnastics I never really used the trampoline. My idea was that I should be able to do all the moves without artificial apparatus. Basically I wanted to be able to do every move outside.
The problem with this idea is that the trampoline is such a useful tool. Although it easily allows you to get tons of air without needed to generate it yourself (by jumping off the ground for instance) you need to control your body in the air. The same control and acrobatic ability in the air is applicable to being on a trampoline or not. It doesn’t really matter.
So even if you only want to do moves outside like I did, the trampoline is a useful tool for getting there.
Just ask Damien Walters. One of the best out there in free running and all manner of acrobatic stunts. One of his primary training methods and tools is the trampoline even competing in the trampoline world championships along with doing all manner of stunts in the gym and out.
For this reason you should use everything available to you. Set goals for tricks you can do on a trampoline. If you need ideas on getting started check out the Trampoline Handbook. In it you’ll find 48 different moves to work on. These range from basic to intermediate. From there the world of trampolining really opens up. Work on doing more complex tricks as well as stringing several more basic tricks together.
Here’s a video showing some amazing trampolining stunts from Adam Menzies along with some other moves at the end.
Want to do a twisting backflip? Do it on the trampoline first and nail it down, before moving onto the floor. Not to mention a trampoline can just be a lot of fun.
When it comes to tumbling on the floor you should follow the same progressions. Work on what you can and build from there. For a wide range of moves (248 to be exact) check out Tumbling Illustrated. And again, do more complex moves and focus on stringing moves together.
The truth is just about anyone can build up decent acrobatic skills if they work on it with persistence. You may not be trying out for Cirque du Soleil anytime soon but you’ll master moves few people can do.
Trampolining and tumbling skills are well worth going after. Working on one will help the other and vice versa. Use the combination and get better starting today.
Progress has been real good in my gymnastics class recently.
Here I wanted to show a backflip video of not one but five backflips in a series.
They’re not the prettiest back tucks but they are getting increasingly easier to do. A week or two ago was the first time I could ‘see’ the ground as I flipped. I don’t think it was that I closed my eyes before, just that the ground moved to fast.
In this series I was jumping too far back with each one. It was near the end of the night and I was fatigued. Plus it gets hard doing backflips repeatedly as I begin to get dizzy and jumping straight up becomes even harder. But for the most part my take off, my tuck and everything is better than ever.
With the progress here I’ve even started doing these backflips again outside at the beach, on grass and dirt.
It’s funny. Back flips are one of the easier basics of tumbling (much easier than a standing front flip!) yet they can be one of the scariest moves to do. Once you get over that fear and progress to being able to safely doing this skill you may find it can be easy. For more details on getting started check out the article How to do a Backflip.
My current goal is to do ten in a row like this. After that I’ll move on to more difficult variations like those found in Tumbling Illustrated.
As I’ve reported here I’ve started going back to gymnastics. My skills quickly returned and I feel I’m beginning to break new ground. Below you can watch a couple clips from Tuesday night’s session.
First off, the back flip. I’m happy to be able to do this skill once again on the floor. But as you can see in the video I’m still jumping too far back and not up enough. Sometimes even when you know what you need to do, its not always easy to correct it. But then last night I was on and going just about straight up.
Second is the round-off to the back handspring. One of the things I haven’t quite mastered yet is stringing moves together. Hence this move, as I’m just getting use to it is done on mats. It feels fairly easy but I know I’ll need many more reps in it.
Third in the video is swings on the parallel bars, as I mentioned previously here. One of the great things about video is that is shows you your weaknesses. In some ways it can be even better than a coach, as someone else can tell me what I’m doing, but seeing it myself is something else. What I noticed here was that my legs were not tight and together. Once I corrected that I was getting more air.
There’s just something about old hand balancing pictures that I really enjoy. Maybe its hearkening back to a time when physical culture was simpler (…when everything was simpler.)
When you see a group of guys and gals doing some hand to hand balancing you know that they were having a blast doing that. Having fun while becoming stronger and more skilled then before.
Here are a few photo’s from Rafael Guerrero’s collection with him and two friends doing all the above at the beach.
