Step 1

When the springs are fully compressed you should be completely straight and in balance. Now it's time to start the rotation, by arching your back you will initiate a rotation.
With a bigger arch you will create more rotation but less height. A small arch will give you less rotation but more height.

Step 2

On picture number two on the left side you can see a very good arched take of position.
Make sure that you don't bend your legs in your knees, the arch should come from the back and shoulders. Keep the head in a neutral position even thou it feels unnatural not to look for the ground. The person on picture number two is still looking straight ahead.

Step 3

Now we have initiated a rotation but we need to increase it. The easiest way of doing it is to do a tuck. That means to bend your legs and grab your knees. Try to think of it as bringing your knees towards your torso and grabbing your knees. Not bending your torso down towards your knees. At this point you should still not look for the ground. If you do, your back will arch and you lose your rotation.

Step 4

Cool, halfway thru the backflip. If you got this far at least we know you will not land on your head. So lets concentrate on landing on our "feet". We still need to figure out where the ground is without killing the rotation. Make sure that your head is still in a neutral position. Now start to look for the ground by looking up with your eyes without leaning your head back. Don’t let your tuck open yet so that you can see the ground earlier, it will still be there when it’s time to land.

Step 5

Now it’s just to aim for putting your feet as much underneath your body as possible. Start to open your tuck to slow down your rotation but don’t do it to early so that you under rotate and land on your stomach.

Step 6

Make sure that you are standing straight and in balance as you land. Don’t keep looking at the spot you landed on, that will keep you from standing straight. Try to look straight ahead. If you want to do another one you should bring your arms up to be able to start the rotation for your next backflip.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you learned a few things from it. This isn’t the only way of doing a backflip but I think it is the best one to start with. There is lot’s of videos you can watch on either our page or on youtube so that you can see the different techniques people use. Good luck and be careful.