What are the progressions for teaching a back flip in gymnastics?

Answer 1

The first thing to be able to do is a simple backwards roll starting from the ground. Then you start from standing, still only sitting down to do a backwards roll.

From there, you'll want a cheese mat. You stand at the thick part of it, sit down on it, and roll backwards.

Next would be a backbend. Start from pushing yourself up from the ground. Once you have that done, practice bending back into a backbend from a standing position. Once you've go that down, start kicking over. From there, work on going into the backbend from standing and kicking over as you go over.

From there, you stand on the top of the thick part and jump up, twisting your body backwards. (MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A SPOTTER.) Once you've got it on the cheese mat, you can progress to the floor and try doing it there. (MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A SPOTTER.)

I know when I learned we also had the pacman mat, which we sat in, pushed back, and then naturally rolled off of, to help us learn what it felt like, and that step is somewhere in the beginning stages.