Babies

Forward Rolls, something that people often thinks nothing of it. They will come up with stuff like:" Aiya so easy, babies also can do." But to me it is something very sacred, it is the basic of gymnastics and also cheerleading.

I admit that my gymnastics skills are lousy, but still, forward roll is the first proper gymnastic skill I learned and it followed me all the way till now, even after I can do round off back handsprings and round off backtucks albeit not so nice, I still go back to practice my rolls. Without learning how to roll and still being able to orientate yourself after a roll, one can try long long about doing any flips or tucks. To me forward roll is the "mother" of all gymnastics moves, and to me I emphasize alot on "what babies also can do".

To do a proper forward roll, it actually is not as easy as one thought. A nice forward roll consist of a nice body posture that is nicely curled or tucked, and not something that looks loose or opened. The legs has to be together, knees not apart. And after the roll, one should be able to land on their feet, with hands in front, and not using the hands to push off from the ground to get their butts up. These are just some of my lowly, lay-man way of putting across what is a good roll.

I am very happy to say that in my team, proper basics are always very well inculcated. We always emphasize on basics before moving on. During our off-season, the team does forward rolls everyday as part of our warm ups. It is no shame if one have not mastered the proper basics to move on and kept working at their forward rolls. Lets just say that we are so proud of it that we even included it into our skills tape, where the girls did forward rolls. A skills tape is to show what your team is capable of doing, not neccessarily something so amazing and jaw dropping. If basics is only what the team can do, show it and with pride. Well I admit that my team's gymnastics capabilities are poor, but in proper progression, we felt very proud to showcase our humble basics.



PS:
(We won Cheerobics 2007 doing real mass forward rolls, not only girls, try to beat that. As our friend would say it: "You set the standards each year and people follow you in the next." He never point out I also never notice. I am really glad that we practiced on our rolls, AND most importantly, we won in 2007.)