Making the vault less scary

Hi All,

So I’ve been thinking a lot about how gymnasts fear of the vault effects their running, their vaulting, their body position etc. I’ve talked a little bit about this in the past, but today I really wanted to focus on making vault less scary for gymnasts. The less scary it is to run toward a stationary object, the better your gymnasts are going to be able to focus on the corrections you want them to make, and not just on making it over. There are a lot of ways to make vault less scary, including starting on a resi mat. I like starting with bounders or front handsprings up to feet on a resi mat, and then vaulting over a level 3 vault sideways before ever letting kids go over a table. Another way to make the table less scary though, and one that I really like is just to put a sting mat over it. I know this sounds like a small things to do, but it makes a huge difference in terms of gymnasts fears of “not getting over the table” etc. Here are a couple examples:

Train hard!