Blind change drills

I thought I would do a post today on blind changes. We’ve been working on them lately in the gym so I thought I would put together a bunch of videos that show that there are a multitude of ways of teaching this skill.

This first video from Tom Forster I really like because a) it has tons of drills and b) lots of these can be done early in a gymnasts career. A lot of the one armed handstands etc can be done at levels 4 and 5 if you’ve got gymnasts that have good body tension. Then that gives you a couple years to refine the skill. I also really like that this video shows you both the correct and incorrect techniques the gymnast is using.

Jeff Lutz put together the next two videos. Some of the drills are the same, some are different. Again, it’s about figuring out what works for your athletes. The more ideas the better.

Getting kids confident on something other than a floor bar can sometimes be a challenge especially if you’ve only got a few sets of bars (or just one). This p-bar set up is a really nice one to get gymnasts a little further off the ground without taking up a whole bar set.

This last one is of an equally valid approach. Instead of starting at the top you essentially build the level 4 dismount up to handstand. For some gymnasts this ends up working out better and often requires less spotting.