A random girl's random gymnastics ramblings.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Patterson: a Breakdown

The Patterson.  A difficult and innovative skill, this dismount is like the souffle of gymnastics: when done right, it is a true delicacy.  When done wrong, you want to kill yourself. 

Let's start with the master of the skill, Miss Carly Patterson herself.  It was her namesake, her trademark, and it clinched her Olympic win.  Let's discuss.

*click to enlarge, you're not stupid and already know that*

Now, it must be noted that Carly did her dismount out of a roundoff back handspring.  The back handspring allows her to keep her body square as she pushes off for the arabian.  She gets a significant amount of height off of the beam before initiating the twist.  The cowboy position leaves a bit to be desired, unless you're a pervert, but most of the girls show the same level of cowboy in their Pattersons.  (OK, that really sounded bad.  Get your head out of the gutter, assholes.)  She is still at beam height when opening up, which allows her plenty of time to really prepare for the landing.  Even with the intense momentum she generates, she doesn't need a super deep squat to absorb the landing. 


Aly Raisman is another high profile example of a good Patterson dismount.  Unlike Carly, Aly uses just the roundoff to initiate her dismount.  This presents the opportunity for her to cheat the dismount and twist too early, at the end of the roundoff.  Fortunately, she doesn't seem to take this opportunity.  Like Carly, she keeps her body square to the end of the beam, and gets a good set before she starts the turn.  She cowboys a tad, but has plenty of height when she opens up for the landing.  This is a dismount I have never seen her miss, and I never worry for her life.  

And then there's Bross.  Now, in fairness, I felt the need to compare a hit Bross dismount, and then a cannonball Bross dismount, or a Cannonbross.


Like Aly, Becca chooses to do her Patterson out of a roundoff.  However, unlike Aly, Bross always seems to initiate the turn in the roundoff, so she her feet would land almost sideways as opposed to square with the beam.  Instead of a half turn into a front tuck, she seemed to do kind of this sideways flip into her front tuck.  It's bizarre.  Despite the wonky takeoff, Bross manages to get huge height off of the beam.  Like the rest, there's a bit of a cowboy, and Bross isn't as high as Carly or Aly when she opens up for the landing.  Despite that, she manages a good solid landing.  

One wishes Bross always did her safe, clean Patterson, but alas, it is not to be.  


Unfortunately, we see way more of this cannonball type of dismount than we'd care to.  It's easy to forget that Bross has ever done a decent Patterson, and demand that Valeri pull it from her routine.  But isn't that what we love about Becca?  She doesn't seem the type to water down, even at the cost of her knee or our sanity.  

Notice again how early Bross twists, before landing her roundoff.  Instead of reaching up and back behind her to set for the dismount, she reaches up and to the side.  She doesn't get anywhere near the needed amount of height off of the beam, and as a result is still holding that delightful cowboy position until she is well below the beam.  Now, this is when her dismount goes one of two ways.  She opens up too early, and jams her locked-legs into the mat as hard as humanly possible, and ends up falling backwards.  Or, she holds on to the tucked position for an eternity, and ends up diving to her face.  So she gets to choose, either a busted ACL, or a knee cap to the eye socket.  

Another athlete with a seemingly 50/50 hit ratio is Viktoria Komova.  Her low stats seem more a result of not competing the skill often enough, but there still is a little gnarly technique.  I haven't seen her compete it much at all, but for the sake of argument, I picked a recently landed dismount. 


Komova's is tricky.  Even though she does a roundoff back handspring into the dismount, she twists before her feet land at the end of her BHS.  So, like Bross, she is facing the side as she takes off of the beam.  This limits the amount of height that she is able to generate from the set, which all contributes to her landing the dismount lower than she should, and inevitably catapulting herself forward.  It's intriguing, however, that she seems to have more height on the second salto than she does the first.  So what do I know?  

These two garner far less attention than those mentioned above, but both Kytra Hunter and Yulia Lozhechko had perfectly serviceable Patterson dismounts. 



I know Courtney Kupets also competed a Patterson at one time, but I could only find one video and the quality was super shitty, so you'll just have to use your imagination.  

So there you have it.  The Patterson.  Another beautiful skill that has high potential to be a complete knee buster. 

25 comments:

  1. Before Bross takes off her hers everyone just holds their breath hoping she won't get injured on it..a lovely double tuck has to be better than her record on the Patterson this year. I love Kytra's, it doesn't seem near as cowboyed from that and from another video I've seen of hers.

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  2. I absolutely love the soufflé analogy! It suits this skill (and probably a number of others) perfectly!

    "Cannonbross" is also my new favorite gymnastics term. It totally sounds legit.

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  3. GetAGripGymblog did a story on Rebecca Bross's Patterson. She said Rebecca had a 67 percent hit rate. But five of those are post knee injury. Where she has missed 3/5. She missed at Woga Classic, Secret Classic, Visas day one. Barley hit in Jesolo & Visas day two. So she actually has a much higher, hit rate than people think. Especially, before the injury.

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    1. While I agress that Bross' "Cannonbross" hit rate was better before the knee injury, 67% is still not an impressive figure. I mean, the point is for gymnasts to do skills they're comfortable with and have mastered. She should be making that skill at least 90% of the time to keep it in her routine.

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    2. *agree, not agress (apologies for the typo)

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    3. And the issue is her round off does not generate enough power and she has to twist early leading to poor rotation. She would be better off doing a backhandspring double back.

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    4. Actually, it was a 57% success rate :(

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  4. Thanks for the breakdown of this skill, I was really hoping you would do a post on this. Agree with Prince Troll regarding Rebecca's percentages on this skill. I am so tired of holding my breath waiting to see if she's going to fall into a coma after landing this skill, stumbling and smacking her head or if she's going to be tossed backwards on the mat, possibly breaking something or incurring some other injury.

    I am sure there is a reason she continues to compete this skill, but it's so depressing to know that it's hit or miss (pardon the pun) on whether she will make the skill or not. That is not the way gymnastics is supposed to be. As Prince Troll stated, you are supposed to have mastered the skills (or be damn close to mastering them) when you are competing at this level.

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  5. The Cannonbross from Visa day 2 is just too many levels of horrible - the potential for injury, the technique is not pretty and when she goes a "good" one these days her landing looks like the emergency brace position demonstrated in the safety briefing on a plane.
    Oh and she did all of that in one of the most hideous leotards I've seen. (If WOGA were parenting with the humanity in which they chose leotards, their metaphoric kids would have been taken into care of the state by now).
    For heaven's sake Valeri, make the girl do something else to get from beam to landing mat.

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  6. Nice comparison :)

    One of Komova's other problems is her right shoulder/arm as she opens up for landing - she leaves it behind.

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  7. Although she (igck) cowboys, Patterson always got a ton of height on her arabian double fronts, on floor also.

    You mention Rebecca Bross twisting early. Watch her beam routines from 2012 nationals and you'll notice that she seems to be landing sideways on most of her beam acro skills as well. It's weird, but she does, and I believe it's the reason why she had so many balance checks on beam at nationals. She finishes her acro skills with her feet close to facing sideways on the beam. I don't know if this is a habit stemmed from the way she takes off for her dismount, but it seems to be a problem.

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  8. Wow, I'm a dude and I NEVER had any perverted thoughts of cowboyed somersaulting positions, except that I HATED THEM. Thanks spanny.

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  9. I personally feel the same way about the Patterson as I do abOut the dragalescu vault, that no one can do it better than the originator. Although some have come very close, no one mastered it like they have!

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    1. Yes, that was such a beautiful landing in Athens in the AA competition...she absolutely rocked it and as Spanny said, that was what clinched it. Great stuff. Really wish she could've avoided that little step on the beam EF and gotten that gold as well but you can't have everything.

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    2. Except it wasn't first done by Carly, Carly was just the first to bring it to a competition level high enough where skills could be named after gymnasts who do them. It was actually done by Cory Fritzinger. Carly's is my favorite though!

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  10. Kennedy Baker has a really nice Patterson.

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    1. That's true, but she probably doesn't have video of it because NBC REFUSES to show her...

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    2. Here's a video of Kennedy's Day One Beam routine at Nationals this year. :)

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucmvur-0pI4

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  11. Can you do more of these? I LOVE reading these:)

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    1. I think a great suggestion would be the triple twist off beam...undoubtedly my FAVORITE dismount when done well especially with an extra RO+FF series before it, and one of the most EGADAWFUL when done poorly with a taste of 2.5 devalue.

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  12. Becca has a crazy funky approach/hurdle to her round-off on this dismount. It's like she brings her arms back and over her head - instead of hurdling with them in front of her or at her ears like a normal gymnast would. It baffles my mind - weirdest technique ever. And creepy.

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  13. I learned something today Spanny! That Patterson's should never, ever be viewed from the front.

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    1. Oy. That apostrophe doesn't belong there.

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    2. Yes it does.

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  14. amanda jetter actually did the patterson in 2010, her routine had an arabian, standing full, and patterson dismount and she still only had a 5.3 D score...

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