I have gymnastics tomorrow and we are doing Front Handspring vaults.?

We are using a trampete. I am doing it to stacked mats but will be doing it to only two mats tomorrow, most likely. How do I get to a better handstand and how do you pop off your hands? If you have to block, what is blocking and how do you do it? And how do you pike less and avoid hitting the vault too? It is a horse vault and I am very tall.|||Blocking is the popping your doing off the vault. You block with your shoulders...NOT YOUR ARMS! to practice this there are 3 things I have my girls do for warm up - armcircle and hit the wall and push off using your shoulders, handstand hops, and handstand shrugs, thats when you kick up against a wall and shrug your shoulders keeping good position. Even if you put your hands up in the air and move your arms up and down with out bending your arms, just your shoulders, is what a block is. To pike less you have to make sure your chest is up when hitting the spring board. If your chest is down your hands will go straight into the vault, not giving your body time to heel drive so you pike. If your chest is up the board will take you up while your heel driving ( driving your heels like a donkey kick) and there should be a time before you hands hit the vault where you hands and feet are in the air and thats called pre-flight. If you do all those things you will not hit your back, and hitting your back doesnt hurt that bad ;)


Good luck!