Connect Round off to Back Handspring

A round off to a back handspring is one of the most important skills in acrobat.
However, to do it perfectly is very difficult because that it is composed of two skills.
In this page, you can see how to connect a round off and a back handspring.
And off course, you should  improve your round off and back handspring respectively.

Round off (for a Back Handspring)

Back Handspring

1 – Go backward with a round off and a back handspring –

You should do a back handspring from proper position.
In the proper position, your feet are in front of you and you’re leaning back.
See the illustration below.

If you start doing a back handspring even though you are not starting leaning back, you cannot jump backward, you must jump upward.

Also, you may not be able to extend out your knees.
If you jump upward with a back handspring, you will fall down and lose energy.
You should  go backward with a round off and a back handspring.
And then, you should jump upward with a flip.

2 – Make a proper starting position –

To jump backward with a back handspring, you should start doing a back handspring from the position you’re leaning back.
However, in the most cases you haven’t rotated enough.
After a round off and when your feet reaches the ground, you may be leaning forward.
There are 3 ways to get rotated more.

1. Improve your round off

   By improving your round off, you can get more rotation.
   (cf. Round off (for a Back Handspring))

2. Make your form smaller in the air

   By making your form smaller, you can rotate more in the air.
   In the result, when your feet reach the ground, you are starting leaning backward.
   
   His form is smaller after round off in the air (especially just before his feet touch the ground).

3. Wait for doing a back handspring until you rotate enough

   Even though your feet are on the ground, your body continues to rotate.
   Therefore, if you wait for a while, your body start leaning back.

   

   
   He waits for his body to leaning back after the round off and each back handspring.
   However, he gradually waits for shorter time, because he gets more backward momentum after each back handspring and his body starts leaning back earlier. 

    

Off course, it is the best that you don’t need to do 2 or 3 thanks to the good round off having enough rotation.
However, everyone does 2 and 3 more or less.
Especially in people who don’t have good round off yet or when people can’t have enough run-off.

3 – Down your arms after a round off –

In the air, before your back handspring,  you should down your arms to the front of your chest so that you can swing your arms on the ground.
If your arms are already up, you cannot swing them anymore when do a back handspring.
This can be seen in women’s gymnastics because they have little power relatively and need to get more momentum.
Also, if you put down your arms down, your rotation efficiency increases and you can make proper start position more easily.

He puts his arms down so much that his arm and shins make a straight line. 

This is a capture of that.

4 – Summary –

How to connect a round off to a back handspring is just how to make proper starting position and form for back handspring.
For that, you should make your form small, wait for leaning back and put your arms down.