Skill Explanation: Double Back, Hand-Lay-Pike, and Hand-Full

Okay, peeps. Time for another skill explanation! But since I can't come up with a big skill with a long explanation and a cool name, I'm just going to explain my three tumbling passes in my floor routine. They are a Double Back, Hand-Lay-Pike, and Hand-Full. So, without further ado...


My first, the double, is very, very hard. For me, that is. It's a D. It is exactly what it sounds like; Two flips in the air. To gain power, you do a round-off back handspring. The only gymnast at our gym is Jamie Antinori (she has a blog!) I can do it only with a coach spotting me, and was hoping to compete it by myself later on in the season. Sadly, that's not happening this year.

My second pass is what I hurt my knee on. The Hand-Lay-Pike is shortened gymnast talk. Fully, it is a front handspring, front lay, front layout salto, front pike salto. I'm a lot better at front tumbling than back tumbling, so this pass is the easiest of the three for me. I'm very consistent on this skill, which is why it was surprising when I hurt myself. (Whoops!)

In my second flip of my second pass. (Front Pike) Photo Courtesy of: BLP Studios.

My third pass is a front handspring, front full. A full is a layout with a 360 twist. It is a C skill. If you have ever see Aerials  and they do twists, that is a full, so if you just reverse the way they twist, then you have a front full? Well that was a really bad attempt at an analogy but Aerials is the closest thing to gymnastics because the whole off axis flipping of other sports is very different.

During my front full. Notice my beautiful face. Photo courtesy of:BLP Studios

See? They're very different! Courtesy of: Wikipedia

By the way, is there a difference between Ramen and Cup of Noodles? I know it's random, but we were having a conversation, and we're too oblivious to know.

~Rose