How To Vault

Hi Guys. My name is James McGranaghan and I am the managing director of J'Amies Gymnastics academy. A leading branch who is based here in Beckenham, South East London.

Today, I am going to talk you through a variety of videos all based around the sport of gymnastics, so I hope you will enjoy them.
Hi Guys. In today's video, I am going to teach you how to do a front hand spring for beginners.

So we're going to actually assume that Leann can do a handstand, which she obviously can, so we are going to skip to the first stage of the hand spring, a hand stand jump. Now, what Leann is actually going to do, she is going to step into a hand stand position. From there, the minute her hands impact on the floor, she is going to push through her shoulders, creating a small gap between her hands and the floor and then landing back into a hand stand shape.

The first one I am going to help her with and the second one she is going to try unattended. So Leann, if you want to kick into hand stand. She kicks, as her hands hit, she jumps and comes back into a hand stand.

Now obviously, to make sure that the hand spring can be done correctly, Leann needs to perform this on her own. So Leann, if you feel comfortable enough to do it. She kicks, she jumps.

If you saw the jump, there you go. Stage two is a very important part of the hand spring. It is actually the shape that your body needs to be in from the point your hands leave the floor to the point your feet impact on the floor.

If you look back at Videojug videos of how to become more flexible, on there you would have seen a process of the bridge. To obviously become and make your shoulders a lot more flexible. The bridge is very key in the hand spring movement.

So what Leann is actually going to do in this stage is she is going to kick to hand stand without the jump we saw in stage one. She is going to move her shoulders back towards the wall and actually have her feet land onto the floor to finish in a bridge shape. So Leann, if you would like to do a hand stand to bridge for me.

So, she kicks to hand stand, her shoulders go back to the wall and if you look, she has got a nice bridge shape. Moving on now, stage three of the front hand spring. With us being in a gym, here at J'Amies Gymnastics Academy, the plan is to have a setup here that Leann can use.

Obviously, if you are doing a front hand spring outside of the controlled environment, please make sure it is safe to do so. The reason I have here a spring board and a crash mat, is if you look at the density between the spring board and the mat, it gives Leann about six inches to play with. This actually with the spring board having some springs in it, gives Leann a little bit more push from her shoulders.

Actually the soft landing and that small gap gives Leann that split second extra bit of time to potentially land her hand spring perfectly. So what we are looking for now. In a minute, Leann is going to take a couple of steps, her hands are going to impact onto the edge of the spring board.

Like we saw in stage one and two, she is going to then push through her shoulders, into the bridge shape with me assisting her and she will land back on her feet and thereby performing the front hand spring. So she takes a couple of steps, she pushes, there is the bridge and she is onto her feet. Now, stage four is going to be Leann performing the hand spring with me assisting her on flat floor and in stage five which we are going to do straight after, is Leann actually performing the hand spring on her own.

So hopefully, by what we have done in the first three stages up until now, Leann should be able to perform the handspring with me helping her to quite a reasonable level. Hopefully, in stage 5 in a second, you should be able to see Leann perform a perfect hand spring on her own. So she comes in, her hands go down.

First one obviously, that was assisted. She does not need me there so I can step awa