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Starting gymnastics I was decently flexibly, although the splits did not come naturally for me. Each practice there was time set aside to work on our splits, middle, left, and right. With in the first few weeks, large improvements were seen in my flexibility and splits. As the season continued improvements came but were smaller. By the end of the season my splits were starting to plateau with improvements. I was reaching my splits depth capacity.

My splits flexibility followed the Law of Practice, improvements became systematically smaller as practice continued. If you were to measure and graph the amount of depth gained at each practice throughout the season, the performance curve seen would be negatively accelerated. The most dramatic improvements would be seen at the beginning of each season, especially my first year on the team. Each year to follow would also follow the Law of Practice but starting with more depth than the year previous.

The picture below shows the improvements made by a gymnast's middle splits throughout the season. At the beginning she had a large gap between her pelvis and the floor. As seen in the bottom picture, after practice she was able to become parallel with the ground.

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Before I started gymnastics, I played volleyball. My conditioning for volleyball involved box jumps. For competing the uneven bars in gymnastics, on of the most basic skills needed to learn is the squat jump from the low bar to the high bar. I believe that box jumps practiced in volleyball had a positive transfer of learning to my squat jump in my gymnastics bar routine.

According to the transfer-appropriate processing theory (Bransford; Lee), these two skills have similarities between the information processing requirements. Although they are not the same skill and the gymnastics squat jump requires a lot more strength and balance because of the involvement of more movements in the skill, they both use similar strategies and concepts to complete. For example, while performing a box jump you looking just ahead of where your feet will land and then gain your balance to stand up straight. These technique are used while performing a squat jump on the uneven bars as well.

Below is a picture of a gymnast completing a squat jump on to the low bar and after gaining her balance jumps to the high bar.

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The vault was always my biggest fear of all the four events in gymnastics. Augmented feedback from my coach was important for my learning and confidence to compete the vault. Augmented feedback was used to enhance my vault skill, allowing me to learning more quickly. The use of the sandwich approach was used by my coach to tell me what I did right, then the errors I made, and finally motivating me for the next vault. This technique worked will for me. I was able to learn what mistakes I constantly made and how to correct them. My coach providing positive feedback allowed me to continue without getting down on myself. My coach providing me feedback was verbal knowledge performance. Important factors such as, deciding when to provide feedback was important for my learning ability.

Below is a gif of a gymnast performing and completing a vault after learning from augmented feedback.

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Gymnastics floor routines incorporate almost all of Flieshman's 9 physical proficiency abilities. The three I used most are explosive strength, dynamic flexibility, and trunk strength.

Explosive strength is the ability to expend a maximum of energy in one explosive act. A pass during my floor routine required all my energy to be able to get the height and power to compete the difficult skills.

Dynamic flexibility is the ability to make repeated, rapid movements requiring muscle flexibility. All floor skills tested my ability to stretch my muscles repeatedly throughout my routine.

Trunk strength is the dynamic strength particular to the trunk and abdominal muscles. Without strong trunk and abdominal strength, movements in my floor routine would not be possible. A strong trunk also protects other muscles and joints in my body while competing.

The gif below incorporates all three of Flieshman's physical proficiency abilities, explosive strength, dynamic flexibility, and trunk strength, in a floor routine pass.

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Most gymnasts start as young children, my gymnastics journey started my freshman year of high school. Originally I wanted to become the gymnastics team manager, but with a new coach there would be no managers. The coach said I was welcomed to try out for the team and with the encouragement of a friend on the team I did.

Starting from square one I was in the first stage of learning from the Fitts and Posner three-stage model, the cognitive stage. One of the first events I started practicing was on the beam, starting on the ground and low beam. In this stage of learning my performance was inconsistent on almost every skill, especially cartwheels. There was a lot of trial and error to determine different strategies. Strategies included distance of my hands and feet and speed of my cartwheel. This stage heavily used cognitive and verbal processes. I noticed it would take a lot of concentration on each step to complete my cartwheel, any distractions could throw me off. I would talk myself through each portion to know exactly where my hands and feet should be going. I had great improvements in my skills moving from a line on the ground to a low beam to the high beam.

Soon I transferred to the second stage of learning from the Fitts and Posner three-stage model, the associative stage. My cartwheels became more consistent with gradual improvements. I used environmental cues such as knowing where to put my hands by a mark on the beam I practiced on. I stopped talking myself through each exact skill within my cartwheel and was able to tune others out more easily. While performing a cartwheel on the beam I could feel when I was off but still was unable to correct it during the skill.

With continuation of a lot practice, my cartwheels on the beam started to enter the third stage of learning from the Fitts and Posner three-stage model, the autonomous stage. My cartwheels became almost automatic. I could be having a conversation with a teammate and only have a pause in my sentence to perform a cartwheel and then continue talking. When I felt that I was off on my hand placement, I could alter the next portion of my skill to correct and complete the cartwheel.

As seen below in the gif, a cartwheel is completed on the beam in third stage of learning from the Fitts and Posner three-stage model.