The other day I got a call back from the gymnastics club that I was hoping to go to. A coach was available so I booked a private lesson. We met up last Thursday at Capital City Gymnastics on the west end of the city. My coach asked if there were any particular techniques I wanted to learn so I told her I’m interested in learning handsprings, back flips and front flips (Self chosen UBBT requirement).
She said if I can learn those basic techniques I should be able to experiment with a bunch of other agility maneuvers. We started out with some simple handstand stuff and moved on to handstand hops. My wrists are going to be a problem; since I can’t bend them back far enough to be perpendicular to my forearms.
After the handstand stuff we worked on backwards handsprings. She covered a pommel horse with a mat and put a landing mad behind it. I’d stand about a foot away from the pommel horse with my back to it and try to jump backwards over it and land on my hands on the other side. This is my favorite exercise so far, I’m getting pretty good at it too.
The last thing we worked on was using a small trampoline to do front flips onto a big mat. I have habit of going over my shoulder, probably because of shoulder rolls, instead of straight forward so I’m going to have to get break it. I spent awhile experimenting with the front rolls and flips.
The session was about an hour long but I stuck around for another hour to practice the exercises she gave me. I think I over did it because I could hardly move my legs for the next couple days and I’m still a bit sore three days later. The gym is pretty cool, absolutely everything is covered in mats, foam or padding of varying softness. You can pretty much face plant from three stories up and not hurt yourself. I did my share of landing on my head, face and back. I probably landed on my head more times in two hours than the past 22 years combined.
It was a ton of fun messing around. I’m going to try and go once a week for the adult drop in to mess around and practice. Every now and then I’ll make an appointment with a coach when I feel confident about moving on.
2 comments:
Hey,
Before I did Kung Fu I was heavily involved with gymnastics. Between the ages of 4 to 11 I trained 4 days a week doing 6 hours a day. I completed my level 2 gymnastics before I retired to do Kung Fu. This means I trained primarily for competitions. I no longer do any of this but I still have the skills to show others how to do it and am able to still do back and front walkovers, back and front handsprings, handstands... so on. The key to doing all of this is stretching. You need to train your muscles and increase your flexibility. As you seen its easy enough to do it with the mats but difficult without. If you require any assistants I'd be happy to you help you out.
Sifu Amanda Shipalesky
You can contact me at amandaraeship@hotmail.com
Gee thanks Linda. I'll probably ask you advice now and then, it would be great to have some one at kung fu with gymnastics know how.
Post a Comment