How to Use a Double Beam Balance

Video Transcript

"Hi there, my name is Lisa, I'm here from World of Gymnastics in Woodstock, Georgia. We coach gymnastics, we also have cheerleading here at our campus, and then there's swimming across the street. So, we have a family feel at our campus. We're going to talk about the balance beam a little bit here today. We're going to talk about how we teach the girls to keep their balance on this little itty-bitty piece of equipment. So, Summer's going to start off, and she's going to show you how we do some walks. Just making sure that her center of gravity remains over, she's going to use her arms to act as levers, so that if she starts leaning one way or another, she can adjust it with her upper body. She can do all these kinds of walks with different kicks, and she can do them on toe. We make sure that her feet stay flat on the beam, and she's using her big toe to counter the weight. So, all directions. This helps when they go onto their hands as well, they can use the lower half of their body to counter the balance. So, Summer's going to do her cartwheel, and she's going to adjust her balance, and make sure she stays over the top of the beam, that way she can stick. So, Summer showed you how she does her walks and she counters her weight as she's walking down the beam, now she's going to show you how she uses her hands and her legs to counter her weight. So she's balancing, and you can see that she uses both of her legs, one on each side, and she's going to be able to hold that handstand position, because her legs are used as levers to counter the weight. And then she can go all the way down and press down to that beam."