AES Cougar Cheerleading
Cheerleading 101: Tumbling
Coaching Dance Exercises Jumps Motions Stunting Tryouts Tumbling
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Find a cheer gym or gymnastics center anywhere in the USA!
Beginner Cheer tumbling class: (Video 1) (Video 2)
Be sure to visit the blue links in each section. They include more valuable tips, pictures, and videos that can help you learn these skills.
Somersaults
Handstands Cartwheels
Round-offs
Handsprings Tucks
Layouts/Twists
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Forward rolls
- Very new beginners to this skill prefer to squat down on the
floor before initiating the roll, but as they become more
comfortable with the roll they should learn to start it from a
standing position.
- Put the back of your hands against the top of your shoulders with the palms
facing the ceiling.
- As you lean forward and place the palms of your hands against
the floor, tuck your head in and look for your belly button in order
to have the correct neck placement. If you put the top of your head
on the floor you will fall flat on your back when
you push over. To prevent this from happening remember to keep
looking at your belly button as you roll.
- Lift your bum into the air and push forward with your legs to
start the roll.
- Keeping your chin tucked, your back rounded, and your hands
firmly placed on the floor roll down your spine.
- To exit the skill young children tend to put their hands on the
floor and scoot their bums forward to their feet. Older students
should be able to exit the skill without placing their hands on the
floor, but rather reach forward past their knees with a big stretch
of their arms and use their stomach muscles to help pull them up. A
tighter tuck position held throughout the entire skill will allow
the tumbler to land on his or her feet.
- Some variations on forward rolls:
Handstand roll-downs,
straddle
rolls,
pike rolls,
dive rolls (We are not allowed to do dive rolls in our cheering
division.)
More somersault variations.
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Forward roll tutorial |
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Backward rolls
- Again, beginners like to start from a squat but should work
their way up to starting from a standing position.
- Place the backs of your hands on the top of your shoulders with the palms
facing up.
- Tuck your head in and look for your belly button.
- Keeping your head tucked in and your back rounded, roll backward
down your spine. Make sure your hands take the weight as you reach
your neck.
- Push hard off of your hands and land on your feet. If you
land on your knees, try tucking into a tighter ball all the
way through the roll. If your roll goes sideways,
you may have turned your head to the side during the tuck or only
taken your body weight on one arm rather than both.
- Variations on backward rolls:
back extension (video), back roll to pike,
back roll to straddle.
More somersault variations.
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Backward roll tutorial
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Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning these skills! Considered very basic elements that even a preschooler should
know, these skills can still result in neck damage if done improperly;
so use a trained spotter until you can correctly tuck your head in,
hold your weight up on your hands,
and protect your neck.
Handstands Good handstands increase your chances of having attractive higher level tumbling skills, so work hard to perfect these.
- Tighten all the muscles in your body. A floppy body leads to a
sloppy handstand, and a sloppy handstand leads to sloppy tumbling, so squeeze your
arms, legs and bum tight and suck in that tummy. Don't forget to
point your toes! (In fact, curl them under a little bit.)
- "Glue" your arms to your ears. Your ears should not show
behind or in front of your arms but be hidden by them. Your hands
should be very close together, with your fingers spread apart.
- Using your favored leg (right if you are a righty)
lunge forward and kick up to the handstand position. (Beginners
do this against a wall to keep you from falling over onto your back
and to help encourage correct alignment.) Stretch yourself as tall
as you can. Don't forget to shrug your shoulders to your ears.
If you are having trouble kicking all the
way up to the handstand position, you may be planting your
hands too far away from your supporting foot. So try planting them
closer and see if that helps.
- Step back down onto your supporting foot, the one you stepped off
of to get into the handstand, and return to the lunge position.
- When you do handstands freestanding without the wall, make sure your eyes are on your hands but that you are able to see your toes if you look upwards. This will tell you if your alignment is good. A head that is tucked in too far will cause you to roll out of the handstand, and a head that is thrown back will force your back into an arch. You will not be able to check for your toes in that position.
Cartwheels A perfect cartwheel relies on having a perfect handstand.
- Don't arch your head back because it causes your back to arch,
which ruins the cartwheel. Your feet won't get up in the air high
enough and you might even go off course as you travel. If you try to
do a cartwheel of this type down a piece of tape, you will "fall
off" for sure.
- If you are right handed, you will need to turn your body so that
your right side is facing the direction you want to go. Eventually
you will do cartwheels facing head on, but for now face right if you
are a righty. Lift your right leg up and have both hands high over
head, arms glued to your ears. The process will be right foot, right hand, left hand, left
foot. Don't even worry about getting up into the air, per se, just
get your body used to putting your hands and feet down in that
order. (Or left foot, left hand, right hand, right foot if you are a
lefty.) If your cartwheels are ending with your arm twisted
awkwardly under you, spend some time on the cartwheel mat to make
sure your hand placement is correct. If you can't afford a
cartwheel mat, just put tape down as follows:
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__ ---- ---- __
- Make sure you are keeping your body very tight and using a good
"lever" (video
of lever) Must sign in to see.) as you go into the cartwheel. That means that as you
step forward on your first foot to go into the cartwheel, your torso
and hands are straight out ahead and parallel to the floor and your
back leg is straight out behind you. Basically, you look like
superman flying through the air but balancing on one leg. When you
place hand number one down your extended leg should be up in the air
overhead. Your body should be in a straight line from the hand on
the floor to the extended leg's toes. Later, as you place your foot
down to finish the cartwheel, everything from the beginning is
reversed. Again the leg that is in the air should be in a straight
line from hand to foot. Keep those toes pointed as you go.
- After a while try to get your legs up in that straddle, with
your legs, hips, and hands all in line. Doing straddles while you
are in a handstand against the wall is a great drill for cleaning up
your cartwheel. Another great drill is to do a cartwheel over or off
of a
stacked panel mat. That extra time before you hit the ground gives
you a chance to straighten your legs and land cleanly. If your
cartwheels are ending in a squat, focus on keeping
your legs straight and pushing off hard with your second hand.
-
It may take
1000 cartwheels to get them as pretty as you want them to be, but
the only way to get them to be pretty is to practice over and over.
- Variations of the cartwheel: one-handed cartwheel, aerial cartwheel (Never try to teach yourself this on your own.)
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Cartwheels for the littlest beginners |
Round-off tips. Most people assume that a round-off is just a cartwheel with the feet together, but that's not quite right.
- Make sure you have a good hurdle run into the pass. Momentum
helps get it over. If you are doing it from standing, you need to
have a good lunge and reach into it. Keep your body tight through
the entire skill.
- The hands are different. In the round-off the first hand goes
down just like in a cartwheel, but the second hand goes down almost
perpendicular to the first, like this: Lefty: | -- going this way
-----> or <----- going that way -- | :Righty If you look at
them, the forefingers and thumbs of the two hands together should
make a triangle-shaped space between them, or a sideways T.
- As you launch into the pass, keep your head in a bit. Heads
that are thrown back will put an arch in your back and wobble your
round off.
- You know to snap your legs together as they just pass the midway
(handstand) point of the round-off. If you snap together too soon,
you will lose momentum and have a very weak round-off
with almost no rebound. So think "1 o'clock" when you snap your
legs instead of "high noon." Many people also make the mistake
of piking or tucking their legs and letting their feet touch the
ground even as their hands are still on it. Push off hard with your
hands, keeping your body banana shaped or
"hollowed out" (video
of how to hollow out) with feet before your hips, before your feet hit
the ground.
Snap down drills are good for working on speeding up
your turn over. Do a handstand on stacked mats and throw your feet
to the ground, pushing off hard with your hands.
- Make sure you land with some give in your knees and your hands
overhead with your arms by your ears. Take a big rebound jump after
you finish the round-off. This is to train you for the day you add a
back handspring or back tuck to the round-off.
Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning this skill!
Front Handspring drills. Looking at the picture in the previous link you can see the gymnast pass through the following positions: a hurdle run, kick through handstand, spring to arched lay out, pull to standing position.
- Kicking hard to a handstand against a wall/upright mat. This
will help you get ready to kick hard in the front handspring, so
you'll have momentum to drive your heels to get over.
- On a trampoline or spring floor to stacked soft mats, kick to
handstand hard and allow yourself to go over and land on your back.
-
Shoulder shrugs,
blocks, and pops. The spring in going over comes not from
bent arms but from blocking through the shoulder. Practice keeping
your arms by your ears nice and tight, and shrug. Raise your
shoulders, then lower them. Repeat several times. You can also do
these shrugs while upside down in a handstand, on the floor and up
onto another mat as if you were popping up steps.
- A lot of people tend to learn their front handsprings with an
accidental tuck coming out of the handstand position, causing them
to nearly land on their backsides. Make a bridge near the wall and
walk your hands up it. This will help you get the feel for the arch
position you must lay out into as you come over. Later on try
getting up from a
front limber,
(front
walkover and limber stand up video) without the wall walk. Use your
stomach muscles to pull you up, pushing your knees forward and your hips out. You can do
these over a barrel the first few times. If you need more time to
lay out for the landing, try doing front handsprings from a stacked
panel mat as a drill. (Video
of a similar drill) Just hurdle run as normal, plant your hands
on the mat and kick up and over to a front handspring.
- Variations of the front handspring: front handspring step-out, front flyspring
Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning this skill! Many beginners think that this is an easier or safer skill than a back handspring, but the truth is landing on your backside, as is common for people just learning, can provide a damaging jolt to your spine, and collapsing arms can still dump you on your head and neck. So please work on this skill in a safe environment instead of trying to teach it to yourself at home.
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Front Handspring tutorial (don't do the
headsprings) |
Back handspring drills. If you look at the picture in the link, you will see the tumbler move through the following positions: the chair, a narrow arch and bridge, the handstand and block, and the snap-down-and-up.
- For the
chair drill, simply press your back and head against a
wall and sit. Keep your eyes looking straight ahead of you while in
this position. Keep your seat perfectly in line with or above your knees to
make no more than a 90 degree angle. This is very important. It will help train
you to keep your back straight and to not drop your seat lower than your knees, which in a back
handspring makes it very difficult to get over correctly. If you
have trouble landing on your feet or falling onto your head
in the middle of the back handspring, re-examine your jump and make
certain your knees are not pushing forward, your seat is not
dropping too low, and your chest is not leaning forward.
- For
fallback-jump drills you need a partner who will stand
behind you. (Drill
for working without a partner) Start standing with your arms glued to your
ears, your hands overhead and thumbs close to touching. Sit back
as though there was a chair behind you and get into that 90 degree
angle position or just above it. Your partner should let you fall against his or her
hands and absorb your weight. (Video of partner drill) As you pass the point of feeling like
your feet will go out from under you and your bottom will hit the
floor, jump and arch back, keeping your arms by your ears and your
eyes on your hands. Do not throw your head back during the
jump or you will train yourself to be out of alignment during the
actual back handspring. Keep your ears and arms in line at all
times. (Do not go over into a back handspring.
Simply practice the jump into it without going upside down.)
Spotters, you may want to turn your head to the side so that the
tumbler's arch jump does not land the back of their head on your
nose. Using your hands at her waist, absorb her jump back so that
she does not fall and hurt herself. If you are going off to
the side or twisting in your back handspring, it probably
means you are looking over your shoulder during your jump back. Do
fallback and
mat jump drills to correct this problem.
- Bridge drills: Most people assume that a bridge is shaped like a rainbow. Rather, it is lopsided instead of symmetrical. If you don't have a
bridge that looks like this
with the shoulders, arms and hands all in a vertical line, and has this kind of flexibility through the upper back and shoulders, you won't be able to do a back handspring.
To get this kind of flexibility do
bridge rocks and kiss the wall. This will
help you to learn to
get your shoulders in line with or in front of
your hands. Stand back to a wall and walk your hands down through a
back limber to a bridge. Use your legs to rock you toward the wall
so that your face can pass through your arms and you can kiss it. If
you have trouble getting your arms into place during the jump into a
back handspring it may
be the result of having shoulders that are too tight and closed to
allow your arms to reach back enough. Work on the bridge rocks and
the following exercises to increase your flexibility. (Video
of bridge drills and exercises) (More
bridge exercises)
- Back kick-overs: Many people think you
must learn a
back walkover before a back handspring, but this isn't
necessarily so since walkovers are flexibility skills and
handsprings are about power. However, some coaches prefer to teach
back limbers, kick-overs, and walkovers before handsprings since it can help make
the tumbler more comfortable with going backwards headfirst. One
exercise that will help you prepare is to do a
bridge and lift one leg at a time. You will also want to work on
your splits since you are in that
position upside down in the middle of the walkover or kick over. At
home, you can lie on your bed and wiggle down so that your head and
arms hang off the side. Keep going until you can get your hands into
a handstand position and support yourself a fair ways away from the
side of the frame, then kick over off the
bed. (Watch your head, though, as you turn over. You don't want to
hit the bed frame.) You can also do a bridge with your toes pressed up against a
wall. Walk your feet up until you can kick over. Ask a parent or
friend to spot you when you first learn how to do this, and make
sure you have clean safe space to do it in. If you fall on
your head during kick-overs it can mean that your arms are
not placed correctly or are bent, that your back is not arched
enough, you are not pushing through your shoulders and keeping them
open, or your kick is weak. Focus on the bridge drills in the
section above and at the link to the right. (Bridge
progression to back walkover)
- A good
handstand drill to help your back handspring is
handstand
push ups. Most people will feel more comfortable learning these
against a wall and with a spot. You can also do
shrug pop drills to
help with your blocking.
When you are standing upright, just put your arms up and glue them
to your ears. Do a very fast shrug and try to get your shoulders up
to your ears and right back down again. Now do that same thing while
upside down in a handstand. Have someone spot you the first few
times you do these.
Blocking against a mat helps you to learn to make your turn over push
through your shoulders instead of your elbows. Chin-ups and push-ups
are other good exercises to help you build up strength. If your arms
are collapsing and you crash on your head in your back
handspring, build up your strength with the above drills, and
double-check to make certain your arm alignment entering the
handstand phase of the handspring is correct. Remember, your arms
stay on your ears and your eyes stay on your hands.
-
Snap down drills are good for working on speeding up your turn
over. Do a handstand on stacked mats and throw your feet to the
ground, pushing off hard with your hands. You should be completely
in the air, neither hands nor feet on the mats/ground, and you
should be in a hollowed out position. When you land on your feet be
sure to do a big rebound jump up with your arms overhead, pinching
your ears. If your hands are still on the floor, your body
is bent over at the waist when you land, or you
land on your knees, work on snap-down
drills. If you are having trouble connecting back
handsprings do a snap down from the stacked mats and go
right into your back handspring from there. Remember, you have to
land your handspring with your torso vertical and arms glued to your
ears. If you are leaning forward or your arms are all over the
place, you won't have much success connecting another back
handspring to your first one.
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Arm swing drills While still working with a
spotter as a beginner tumbler, do not swing your arms during
your back handspring until you have mastered keeping your arms glued
to your ears as you go over. Remember, poor arm and hand placement
is a leading cause for people landing on their heads during their
back handsprings.
- When doing back handsprings, if you have trouble with
"undercutting"
which is trying to jump straight up and replace your feet
with your hands (usually caused by dropping the chest towards the
knees before the jump, dropping your seat below your knees, and/or jumping straight up instead of back,
and most likely to cause you a lot of wrist pain as
you land in the handstand position),
review these drills: 1) Chair drills 2)
jump back onto a mat to
really emphasize traveling back instead of up, and 3) lie on the
floor with your arms overhead and have a partner put red tape where
your feet and hands are and yellow tape where your belly button is.
Stand on the red tape and make sure when you jump back into your
back handspring your hands land on the yellow tape. Your feet will
snap down to the other red tape. Handsprings
over a barrel also help
clean up your form.
- If your legs are bent or apart as you go over
in your back handspring, try placing a small stuffed animal between
your ankles/calves as you practice. The squeezing action it takes to
keep the toy in place between your legs will help you to develop
better form.
- Remember to tumble from your toes.
- A variation of a back handspring: the back handspring step-out
Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning this skill! Many beginners do not have the proper form and often have their arms too far out and away from their shoulders when they land into the handstand position of the back handspring. This means they cannot support their weight and all of it will come crashing down onto their necks and spine, which can lead to serious injury or worse. So again, use a spotter in a gym instead of trying to learn this at home on your own.
Tucks To help prepare yourself for learning
these skills you will want to do the following exercises:
Power jumps and tuck jumps to help you get lift and to practice bringing
your legs up, and various
ab
exercises such as crunches and hip rolls/reverse rocks so that you
have the stomach strength to pull yourself over. Below are lists
of specific drills you can also do to help speed up how long it takes
you to learn how to do tucks.
Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning these
skills!
-
Back tucks
A variation of a back tuck: the X-out
- Front tucks (Punch fronts)
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Punch front video tutorial |
Layouts and Twists Don't forget to use a trained spotter when learning these skills!