How to do Jump Back Drills for Back Handsprings

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Mandy Butler on behalf of Expert Village. I'm going to be taking you through some back handspring drills and techniques to help you on your way to mastering the back handspring. Now I'm going to take you through a jump back drill. We've already learned how to sit. We've learned how to push through our toes last. Now, we're going to talk about how important it is to extend your body in a complete elongated position. A lot of people tend to be crunched when they go over. Their arms are already bent, so they don't have a chance to keep them straight. That's when you have head and neck injuries in a back handspring. I'm going to keep my chest forward. My hands are going to be nice and tight. Arms by my side, and I'm going to jump backwards onto that mat and reach a nice hollow body position. This is jump back drill done onto a nice thick cushioned mat. Notice my hollow body position. I didn't just flop back on to the mat and I traveled. It's very important that you travel up and back in this drill. A lot of people like to just flop. I didn't go anywhere when I did that. Make sure you travel up and back, because you're going to turn that into a back handspring. This is a jump back drill."