Attaining confidence in tumbling skills is very different to attaining confidence in skills from other “traditional” sports.

Let’s use the golf swing as an example. Not to knock on golf — as I know full well how challenging it can be — but if we’re being honest, I haven’t come across many people are afraid to hit a little ball with a club in their hand.

The only real fear I can think of is the feeling of embarrassment — especially as a newbie. Ever seen someone swing for their life, only to miss the ball and look like a dork?

I know I never have 😅

I think you get where I’m going with this — the consequences in sports like golf, basketball, etc. aren’t as dire as they are in tumbling.

This fact allows the athletes in most traditional sports to have something I like to call a skill baseline.

A skill baseline says: once you attain a skill at a high enough level, there is a standard of execution which you most likely won’t fall under, unless something extreme happens to you physically.

Steph Curry is a great example here.

I’d bet my own hard-earned money that when he becomes 50 years old, he will still be able to shoot three-pointers at a better accuracy rate than 99.9% of everyone on planet Earth that plays basketball.

That’s because his skill of shooting 3-pointers has achieved a certain baseline. And the only thing that will reduce this baseline drastically, is if he ends up with a major physical injury.

Tumbling skills however, don’t really have a strict baseline.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Simone Biles (for those that don’t know, I’m referring to the mental block she suffered, which she valiantly worked through to get back on top)

Worst of all, tumbling can trick an athlete into thinking they have achieved a baseline.

I always believed that I’d never lose my standing tuck. I firmly believed this skill was mine forever.

Not so.

It’s not that I’ve lost it, but I’ve lost the baseline of being able to throw it anywhere, anytime.

I don’t say this to scare all the coaches and athletes reading this into thinking they’ll randomly lose all their skills overnight. But to help everyone (especially Coaches) realize that there are strategies you can implement which will not only help keep an athlete’s baseline intact, but maybe even excel past it.

Let’s take a look…

Strategy #1: Specific Visuals

Do your athletes know where they should be looking during the start and end of a back handspring?

What about a back tuck?

Heck, what about a back walkover?

If not, then you’re leaving their confidence up to chance.

One of the most common questions I ask athletes when their execution looks off is: “what did you see during [insert phase of a skill] ”

An example for the back tuck can be: “What did you see during the take off?”

If their answer is any one of these variations:

• “I don’t know”
• “I’m not sure”
• “I had my eyes closed”

Then oh boy… we’ve got some real work to do! However, if they give a specific answer which happens to be incorrect, then that’s actually a win because we are half way there!

Here’s how: In the case of the back tuck if they say, “the ceiling” — then you know this needs fixing. The correct answer is whatever is directly in front of them OR something closer to the floor.

Some coaches advocate looking for their feet… I’m not sold on this unless you’re really hitting insane negative block angles. Still, I’ve seen it to be successful, so if that’s your jam, then so be it.

The point is, if an athlete is looking but just in the wrong direction, all coach has to do is now bridge the gap between what the athlete is currently seeing and where they should be seeing. This can be done using tools at their disposal such as drills, technique changes, spotting etc.

But can you see how it would be a problem if the athlete’s answer was “I don’t know”?

Because now we have to re-train them to open their eyes while tumbling, and this is like taking 3 steps back, before we can move forward again.

Bottom line: Make sure you know where athletes should be looking during the entry and exit of each skill that you coach. Better yet, if you tumble yourself then make sure you know where you should be looking, as it’ll be much easier to coach and pass on this knowledge. And if you’re completely lost about the visuals, ask a more experienced tumbling coach about their answers. If you ever attend any of my Coach’s Training Clinics, then you can bet we will be touching on this topic.

Strategy #2: Being Strong Isn’t Optional

If you didn’t know this was coming, you’re either new to coaching tumbling (welcome, by the way) or you need to up your game.

I’ve never met a confident tumbler that wasn’t physically strong to some degree.

“Ok but how do I know they’re strong enough? I get my athletes to condition all the time”, you might be wondering.
Great question!

The only way to confirm that your athletes are strong, is to have certain benchmarks in place.

For example, if an athlete cannot hold a handstand against a wall for at least 30 seconds with excellent technique, there’s a very small chance that I’m going to let them throw a back handspring on floor by themselves.

Sixty seconds would actually be preferred if we’re training back handsprings.

And this is just one benchmark for one area of the body — upper.

You — or better yet, your gym — should have many benchmarks in place which target all the major areas of the body (upper, lower, mid/core etc.) Once you have a set of benchmarks in place, here’s the most important bit: hold your athletes accountable to them!

This means mommy and daddy don’t get to have a say in things if their little Suzy is failing to meet them. If they want little Suzy to throw a BHS on the floor, but you know she doesn’t have the strength to pull it off, calmly explain to them the risks to her safety.
I’ve lost a few athletes in my time to other programs due to disagreements in this matter.

And you know what? I was right almost every time. Plus I sleep better at night. And to me, my sleep is precious.

Bottom line: Do. Not. Compromise when it comes to strength standards (parents, if you’re reading this then please don’t become part of the problem. Encourage your kids to listen to their coaches). With that said, coaches, please don’t be a hard-nosed drill sergeant about it either, because then athletes will simply think you dislike them.

A coach’s job is to sell the idea of being strong, so that at the very least, the parent & the athlete won’t feel like it’s a waste of their time. Best case scenario? Everyone believes in your strength standards, and are actually enthusiastic about it.

If you’re looking for exercises to help your athletes become strong, I have over 50 of them on my Exercise Page. Feel free to use them to come up with a plan for your athletes, or feel free to get in touch and I can help create a specific plan for your entire program based on the equipment available to you.

Strategy #3: Quality Repetitions Matter The Most

I’ve lost count as to how many emails I get from Coaches stating something like this: “I’ve got X athlete to do a million reps of Y drill, but she still hasn’t made progress”

Or even something like this: “I’ve got X athlete doing a million reps using the [insert equipment], but she still can’t do it on floor!”

Then when I finally see a video of this athlete, I can tell within the first 10 seconds that they focused on the quantity or reps, not the quality.

Technically speaking, both are important.

Realistically speaking though, only quality is important.

If you see me run classes, clinics or private lessons, you’ll most likely hear me tell athletes the exact amount of reps I want them to do; but it has to be quality reps.

This means if I want 10 reps of a back tuck off a trampoline that lands in a stick, it might take them 30 attempts to reach that 10.

Golden Rule: attempts are not counted reps.

Only successful attempts count as actual reps.

See the difference?

Most athletes, by the nature of statistics, are average. This means if they’re asked to do 10 reps, they will fly through those 10 reps, then want to move on to something else (I had moments of doing this myself, by the way).

It’s very rare that an athlete is truly excellent in their mentality and will naturally keep working until they hit 10 quality reps.

Luckily this type of mentality can be taught and enforced until it just becomes a part of the culture.

Here’s an example of how that conversation would go: “I’m glad you did 10 reps Suzy, that’s great! However in this gym we’re only allowed to count the quality reps. So while I love how your arms were tight, we can’t count the 4 were you had bent legs and a soft rebound. Please re-do those with ABC corrections in place. Once you’re done, you may move on to XYZ station.”

Note that there are a million different ways to word things to get the results you want.

If you (or your staff) need additional training in this department, feel free to reach out. I regularly conduct virtual clinics with programs all over the World, and I’d be happy to help.

I also highly recommend reaching out to my good friend Jeff Benson. Jeff and I have run many joint clinics at gyms all over the World where we go over an entire module on how to effectively communicate with athletes and parents so they “buy in” to the quality culture. If this interests you, contact me.

Bonus Strategy: Minimize The Negative, Maximize The Positive

If you managed to read this far along, I want to reward you with a bonus strategy that has worked wonders, and is based on real science.

And that is to ensure that any failures your athletes might encounter is minimized (or nearly eliminated) while helping them experience “mini wins” every single time they are in the gym.

Here’s what this would look like for an athlete that is new to back handsprings.

Let’s say they’ve never done the skill over a Boulder or Octagon before, and you can tell they are a little nervous going backwards on it.

Believe it or not, this is quite common.

So instead of having them perform a complete handspring that involves a jump, hip drive, open shoulders, a tight handstand and an aggressive snap-down… I’ll ensure they start already lying down on the Boulder or Octagon then slowly “feel” their way over until they can land in a front support. Drill #4 on my standing BHS drills page is a great example. Take a look…

You might think this looks simple, or even obvious, but I’m still surprised how many times I’ve seen coaches (even experienced ones) force athletes to skip these simple progressions.

As my good friend Jeff Benson says: “meet them where they’re at”

So if they’ve never used a Boulder in their life, don’t expect them to feel comfortable and execute the drill at the same time.

When an athlete is in the learning phase, any negative experiences they go through will be embedded in their brains in the form of long term memory storage. In the same way that if you stub your toe on a certain table, the next time you’re around that very table, you’re going to be extra cautious.

Personally, I’d rather have an athlete stall in their progress for a few classes and experience no serious failures than have them make rapid progress, only to experience a big “scare” or injury in their learning journey.

Quick Sidenote: Small failures are fine — it’s part of learning. Think of a baby learning to walk; we all know they will fall on their rear end many times. In fact, we find it cute and laugh it off because we know it’s no big deal. But the last thing you’d want that baby to experience is a slip down a flight of stairs or fall on the back of their head — these are very serious negative experiences, and will definitely have an impact on their learning curve.

I hope you enjoyed these 4 proven strategies which will help you and your athletes build a rock-solid baseline set of skills so they can continue to learn new things and set bigger goals!

If you’d like to support more content like this, here are a few options at your disposal:

• Hit the donation button listed above
• Take a peek through my store for helpful products & programs
• Interested in clinics? Scroll down below to access the interest form
• Follow me on Instagram
• Share this article with your fellow Coaches, Athletes or Cheer Parent

Cheers!