SPOTTING 101

1. Psychological Safety

Imagine that you’ve spent months with an athlete working drills, fixing technical details and having them do hundreds (if not thousands) of reps on all the safety surfaces and mats you could put together, and now it’s time for them to put it on floor.

If this makes your athletes a little nervous, that’s totally normal. We both know they don’t need it, but if giving them one or two spots means that on the 2nd or 3rd attempt they will start trying it, it’s well worth the effort. If after a few spots they are still nervous, that’s when you take it back a step to a previous progression. Spotting on floor shouldn’t be a taxing physical tax for the coach. In my opinion, 10-20% of your max physical effort is all that should be required.

2. Technique Intervention

There’s a golden rule of correction which goes like this: An athlete can’t fix what they can’t feel.

This is why if you’ve yelled “get your feet together” a thousand times, it happens exactly zero times. It’s not that the athlete isn’t trying to get their feet together, it’s that they THINK they are.

Try this: close your right eye and put your right arm straight out to the side. Next, point your index finger to the ceiling. Now, as quickly as possible, try and touch your earlobe with your index finger. If you missed, then you now know the difference between intention (what you wanted to do) vs what actually happened. This is similar to what’s happening with your athletes tumbling.

So what I like to do, is not only spot the skill, but PAUSE it midway. So if they’re constantly doing back handsprings with bent legs, I will spot their next few reps but pausing the skill at the point it breaks down. Then I’ll poke or tap the limb that needs fixing (so they can feel) and once they make the correction, allow them to finish.

While this does take considerable effort on the coach’s part, you can make it easier if you have equipment to assist you such as the Octagon Barrel.

3. Beginners / Newbies

I think we can all agree that spotting younger kids doing basic skills is much easier than spotting those who are nearly full grown adults. This is why prep, rec and Level 1 kids will get more hands on time than those who are working tucks, layouts or fulls.

Here are the skills that should need the most amount of spotting:

Again, not because they always need it, but because you want to make sure they’re perfect NOW so that you don’t have to do as much work later.

The 6 Spotting Techniques For Tumbling

1. The Bump Spot

This is the most common technique of them all. Nearly all coaches know it (even if they don’t know the official name) and have had enough practice to help assist their athletes.

While the Bump Spot is easy to learn, and can help you give an athlete a lot of power, it does have one downside: you’re not in constant contact with the athlete.

Usually after the bump, the athlete is on their own to finish the execution and landing. And since most tumbling injuries happen during the landing phase, I suggest coaches either learn how to reengage their athlete after the bump (see technique #3) or use it only when needed.

Another thing to be aware of, is that you should not bump using your wrist. If an athlete loses power needs an aggressive bump, their body weight will come crashing down on a joint not designed to handle that much load (regardless of how small they are). So when bump spotting, I prefer to wrap around the hip (almost like half a hug). The closer their center of mass is to your shoulder, the easier (and safer) it will be for the coach.

2. The Safety Spot

In my opinion, this is one of the most effective spotting techniques a tumbling coach can learn. Not only is it extremely versatile (can be used to assist everything from walkovers to fulls/doubles) but it’s one of the safest due to the fact that you are in constant contact with the athlete.

Hence the name, safety spot.

The downside is that it takes some practice in order to get the timing right, and feels a little awkward at first. And so, many coaches revert back to their comfort zone (i.e bump spot). But here’s the bottom line: if you care about the safety of your athletes AND you want to learn how to spot twisting skills, learning the Safety Spot is mandatory.

Start by standing on the side of the athlete you feel MOST comfortable. For me, I like standing to their left. Then, you put out the same arm and turn it upside down (so palm faces up). In my case, I’d put out my left arm. If you prefer standing on the athlete’s right side, you’d simply put out your right arm.

As the athlete goes into the skill (let’s use the BWO for now to keep it simple), your arm that’s sticking out will wait for the athlete to fall on to it, and while providing support, you will grab the hip, then rotate with their skill in a way that feels natural.

Do not let go of the athlete. If you did it correctly (and you’re following along from their left side such as myself) then your left arm will have rotated clockwise and have the thumb facing down as you still grab the hip.

Key point to remember: Whether you’re left or right handed DOES NOT matter. What matters is where you as a spotter are most confident & comfortable. Generally those who have bump spotted for years while standing on an athlete’s left side, should continue standing on their left side. That’s because when it comes time to practice the next technique, you will bring back the bump spot.