Aerial Roundoff

Description: A roundoff executed without the use of placing your hands onto the ground.  Think of it as an aerial where your legs are together throughout the move.  This move can also look like a front flip with a half twist.

Recommended Prerequisites: aerial, roundoff

Recommended Progression:

• Your aerial cartwheel should already be good and that you can do it flawlessly.
• Attempt roundoffs with hands using a running approach.
• Next, try a one-handed roundoff using your usual lead arm as the only arm. 
• Once your comfortable with this, try doing a one-handed roundoff using the opposite hand as the handplant.  At first it will feel funny, but work at it so that you can do it without compromising your body's vertical nature during the move. 
• Next, try taking a hop step and jumping into either one-handed roundoff, ie. instead of planting a hand down and then kicking off the lead leg, kick off the lead leg then put your hand down. 
• Once you're comfortable with hopping into an opposite hand-one-handed roundoff it's only a short step left till the full aerial roundoff. 
• Basically, just do the exact same thing.  This may be easier said than done to many, but for many techniques you really just have to grow a big set of guts, and just do the trick.

Helpful Tips:

• Remember to dip your body down as far as you can and touch your leaping leg before jumping. Also bring up the back leg as high and fast up as you can before you jump.  This way, the torque you create from both of these are far superior.
• Turn your hips to the centre when you throw your legs together so you can land facing behind you (opposite where you started)
• Keep your body as vertical looking as possible, otherwise it'll just look like a really messed up butterfly kick or something and it'll be really ugly. 
• Take a hop step into the aerial roundoff to build momentum. You can run too if need be.
• Jumping high from the takeoff and developing some speed into the aerial roundoff are also very important.
• Have a spotter help hold your waist while you practice flipping over. he/she should only be there to help your legs flip over and not to hold you up.
• Keep your legs apart at the take off but remember to throw your second leg together with your first or it would no longer be an aerial roundoff.
• Throw your arms upward and into the air rather than downward to create more hop into your aerial roundoff. If you throw your arms downward, you won't get as much height.

Variations/ Prerequisite for: 

• Aerial roundoff into splits: An aerial roundoff into the splits.
• Axekick Aerial roundoff: An Axe kick followed by an aerial roundoff from a stationary position.
• Step-back Aerial roundoff: While walking backwards, you do an aerial roundoff after takeoff.

Note on aerial roundoff: Another commonly used name is a barani.