Gymnastics-requirments and qualities of a gymnast
Gymnastics, perhaps more than any other sport, places great demands on an individual and requires tremendous discipline. So let us now turn to the importance of body preparation and safety precautions, your relationship with your coach, and look at the qualities required in a gymnast. The first basic principle of gymnastics is the ability to stand properly. If you stand well, then your work will be technically more correct. Your legs and back must be straight and you need to have your joints and limbs working in correct alignment to reduce the risk of injury and stress.
Essential requirements of a good gymnast are body control, body awareness, strength, good timing, courage, and suppleness. Strength in your back, arms, legs, shoulders, and stomach, is also very important. A gymnast not only has to run fast and jump high but must spring from the hands, balance on them, and turn somersaults in the air. Timing and coordination are required for the different moves and for the linking of those moves during routines.
Discipline is absolutely vital in gymnastics. You must always be punctual; if your coach is giving a lesson, then you must be there at the beginning. Always listen to your coach – there is no room in gymnastics for anyone who fools around. Coaches will not encourage the presence of your parents or relatives during a lesson. You must stand up for yourself just as you do at school. Respect for your coach is essential at all times. But that does not mean you should be afraid of him or her. A good coach will prepare you physically and mentally for new skills.
Talk frankly at all times about anything that worries you, and have complete faith in the judgment of your coach. Remember, a silence gymnast is not an easy one to coach. Neither is a noisy one – you must learn when to be quiet. You will find that all skills are graded into groups ranging from simple and unclassified moves to A, B, C, and D degrees of difficulty. The hardest are D skills with difficult twists and turns, but not everyone is going to achieve these.
Just as degrees of difficulty are graded, so are competitive tournaments and championships ranging from club to national level. In Britain in 1986 there was a national novice’s championship in which no twisting movements at all were required. The all-important thing in gymnastics is that you recognize your limitations and do not try to go beyond them. Just look at the happiness and sense of achievement that lights up a young gymnast’s face on performing a relatively simple move with perfect execution. That is what you must aim for; it is the only true way to move ahead to bigger things.
For instance, should you be stiff in the hip joints and legs, you can improve movement in those areas so that a cartwheel and a straddle skill can be achieved. Arms and shoulders can be strengthened for handstands. That, coupled with speed and spring, could eventually produce a handspring vault.
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