To Set or Not to Set, going up or whipping back is the question

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Isn't Chellsie still the Technical Lead for USA WAG? Can she do anything to fix Hezly's block?
She and the rest of the NT leadership can give all the suggestions and recommendations they want, the athletes' club coaches have to do the actual hard work of implementing. And it's well know that certain coaches refuse to take recommendations from anyone.

In situations like Roberson and Rivera, at this point those bad habits and techniques are so ingrained that it's almost impossible to fix, short of starting all over from the beginning and re-teaching things correctly. Coaches don't want to do that. Gymnasts don't want to do that. Parents paying very expensive tuition and fees definitely don't want to see their daughters miss an entire year of competition to do nothing but relearn basics.
 
Isn't Chellsie still the Technical Lead for USA WAG? Can she do anything to fix Hezly's block?
I've posed a similar question before. USA WAG has had this semi-centralized system for over twenty years and they never took full advantage of it with having sessions to strengthen gymnasts' weak spots with the coaches who are better suited for a particular weakness.
 
Setting is a tricky thing for sure. I come from a tumbling and trampoline background and learned to set like Chellsie: stand tall, head neutral while spotting something in front of you before flipping/twisting. It worked well with double tucks and pikes (I would basically go straight up in the air), but I had to have a different technique with double layouts and full ins/double doubles. It was more of a whipping motion for double layouts to open my hips and generate momentum, and with twisting double flips I had to throw my head back a bit to spot the ground through the twist. Double doubles became infinitely easier when I threw my head back a bit because I could essentially spot the ground the entire time!

It kind of makes sense to me why so many women throw their heads back on back tucks and pikes on beam: when you keep your chin neutral it's basically a blind skill. Throwing your head back makes it easier to spot the beam. Chellsie is amazing in that she could stick those double pikes so well, because it feels like a blind skill when your chin is neutral vs thrown back! Also, notice the technique she used for her back tuck on beam vs the dismount.

 
I've posed a similar question before. USA WAG has had this semi-centralized system for over twenty years and they never took full advantage of it with having sessions to strengthen gymnasts' weak spots with the coaches who are better suited for a particular weakness.

I think the issue really is the cult of the coach. The national team seems to have pretty good vault coaches, at least. But the kind of coaching that would be needed requires more consistency than a couple of days per month will be able to provide. In an ideal world, the vault coach would do an intensive session with the gymnasts and provide an individualized training plan to the coach to reinforce long term. But if the coach doesn’t ensure that the gymnast actually follows this plan at home, nothing will happen.
And the incentives are really stacked against this. Even if you do not have MAJOR issues to correct, you are likely to spend significant time to rebuild skills. In that time, gymnasts often cannot do the difficulty they could do before, so they basically take themselves out of contention for major teams, especially since even internationally, technique is not penalized as much.

The Leo-biting girl is an extreme example. She had a DTY, but with needing to fix her technique, it took a long time to get back to a FTY only. If your gymnast already is on contention for teams, being consistent with these kinds of corrections does not seem worth it. This is probably even more the case if you believe an elite gymnast‘s window is only a couple of years at the most.

I think the semi-centralized system worked better when the national team coordinator had much more power. Martha was able to dictate a lot to coaches (unfortunately, most of that dictate was terrible). I think we need to hope for coaches to wise up at this point, which does not seem likely…
 
Nothing will change unless they effectively implement a minimum E score requirement for team selection. Many national programmes now look for the gymnasts with the best e score potential and develop those gymnasts to increase their D score which is why we tend not to see juniors with big flashy routines nowadays. This is why I have my doubts about Patrick and Daymon succeeding in the US longer term because their strengths are not what the US is looking for
 
I grabbed some comparative screenshots.

Chellsie--how long she stays straight, the very start of the pike, and when she finally hits a pike position. Head position is noteable:

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Hezly at the same three points:

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And for bonus fun comparison, the difference in how Chellsie sets for her back tuck on beam:

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Way less rise, head back so she can spot the beam the whole time. But also, way, way less sheepy than Shawn's:

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And Nishiyama, the thread starter--this is right after her feet leave the beam, her shoulders are already a quarter twisted. She only gains about another six inches in height on the skill from here.
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The highest point (as best I can tell--the beam goes out of frame after this, but she's starting to descend):
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This thread is pretty crazy. Shawn's feet are pointed and she keeps her legs parallel. It's hardly a bad skill. Memmel's feet are askew and she never brings them together (whereas Shawn does) and she lands in the same .1 low chest deduction range as Shawn.

On Memmel's double pike dismount her chest is also rather low on the landing — although slightly high enough to sometimes avoid a low chest deduction — and her legs are very separated both in the air and on the landing. If someone needs to do a "worse" set in order to keep their legs together throughout a skill, they are benefitting.
 
Cowboying wasn't harshly penalized back in the day but Chellsie's legs don't look bad to me. But whenever online people are "I miss when beam was elegant..." and I go back and watch older BB routines they have jumps that barely get off the beam and cowboyed legs on dismount. There is good stuff in there too since they could take the time to do a unique hold move or a just-because dance skill, but nostalgia is a powerful drug. Just watch Dominique Dawes do a bhs on beam and then tell me old routines have better form than modern ones.
 
Is poor setting technique the reason Produnova had trouble with the double pike and triple full? Or is that more of an issue of air sense going backwards? I noticed many Capital athletes (Heenan, Postell) preferred forward tumbling as well. I'm no technician so I'm genuinely curious. Thanks!
 
Is poor setting technique the reason Produnova had trouble with the double pike and triple full? Or is that more of an issue of air sense going backwards? I noticed many Capital athletes (Heenan, Postell) preferred forward tumbling as well. I'm no technician so I'm genuinely curious. Thanks!
mental issue with produnova when it came to backward tumbling. Preference for forward or back isn’t down to technique, it’s all in the head but of course that can then cause poor technique and rushed skills. Obviously there are some exceptions like Nastia Liukin who had no issue going backwards but just found double front easier than double back.
 
This thread is pretty crazy. Shawn's feet are pointed and she keeps her legs parallel. It's hardly a bad skill. Memmel's feet are askew and she never brings them together (whereas Shawn does) and she lands in the same .1 low chest deduction range as Shawn.
I can do a lot of things with my feet pointed and my legs parallel, but it doesn't mean what I'm doing is either mechanically correct or aesthetically pleasing. Are you Elfi Schlegel?
 

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