How To Do Giants

One of the Alyssa's final assignments for the 4th grade was to write and present a speech on a topic that she finds interesting. Well, of course the topic she chose is gymnastics.


She really wanted to show a video to demonstrate "How To Do Giants"... so we took the camera to the gym and asked her coach if we could video a part of practice. I helped her put it all together in a power point presentation.

Here is the speech she wrote:

Do you ever wonder what it feels like to fly through the air? Do you like roller coasters? If you do, you will probably want to learn how to do giants. A giant is a gymnastics skill on the uneven bars. The reason I said do you like roller coasters is because it feels like a roller coaster. Also, you can’t really see anything but the bar because of the fast power.

The supplies you will need are grips, chalk, water, a bar, a coach and you. Learning a giant takes many hours of training and lot of strength. The steps of learning a giant are first, learning the hollow body form. Some ways of learning this body position is doing handstands with your stomach facing the wall. You also need to learn how swing correctly. The next step of learning giants is to do them on a strap bar. A strap bar is a skinny metal bar with a white plastic pipe which rotates around the metal bar. You put on a wrist band then put a strap over the bar. You put your hand through the strap and twist your hand around and grip the bar. You are strapped onto the bar so you don’t need to worry about falling. Giants on a strap bar look like this. (show first video)

After you master the strap bar, it’s time to move to the uneven bars. For giants, you need a coach to spot you. You will also need to learn how to use grips. Grips help you hold on better. Grips look like this. (show grips and demonstrate how to put them on.)

First you need to spray water on your grips so that chalk sticks. Then put on the chalk until you can’t see any water. Now you are ready for the bar. The steps of the giant once you are on the high bar are; first, a nice cast handstand. Push away from the bar with your shoulders open. Then fall hollow, which means to not fall arched. As you come around, tap at the bottom of the bar with your feet. Then rotate around, shifting your grip and pushing against the bar. Giants on uneven bars look like this. (show second video)

So if you like flying through the air, you might like to try and learn how to do giants on the uneven bars.


She got her grade back today:  A+++++  (that's right 5 +'s)  Nice work Alyssa!