Once you've mastered the various jumps and moves that involve taking off and landing on your feet, what comes next? Well, mastering the basics should have given you a good feel for bouncing on the trampoline, and it's time to move on to more complicated jumps.
Seat Drop
The first movement to learn after the basic feet bounces is the seat drop. This is because it's a movement we're already familiar with, having sat down in numerous chairs through our lives, and also because your bottom is well padded. So learning a seat drop helps you to feel comfortable about bouncing something other than your feet on the trampoline. Start in the middle of the trampoline, legs pointed, and drop back towards the trampoline. Your arms should be behind your torso, with the hands facing towards the feet, not away from the body. This is so that your elbows are in the right position to flex when you land. Your body should form a V-shape, with your bottom acting as the bottom of the V. You shouldn't bounce with your legs flat on the trampoline and your torso at right angles, because when you bounce back upwards it's hard to control your body. Always begin simply by performing the seat drop, without any preliminary bouncing.
Knee Drop
In this move, you drop onto the trampoline and land on your knees. Your knees should be spread to about the width of your hips, to give extra stability. Your upper body needs to be at right angles to your knees, so that all your weight is passing in a straight line down through your knees. It's important to keep your body in this position as you bounce, otherwise you will get thrown either forward or back on the rebound.
Hands and Knees Bounce
Contrary to what most people think, you do not perform this bounce with your body parallel with the trampoline, but with your body resting back on your calves. So your body is in fact tucked. Your hands need to land just beside the knees, not far out in front. This gives maximum bounce and helps the jumper to impact the trampoline in one movement. If you try and separate your hands and knees, you end up with two separate impact points, which can cause two independent recoils. The back can also buckle in the middle, which can result in injury.
Many people think that it's easy to just get on a trampoline and start performing these drop moves without needing to think about performing them correctly. This is a mistake, and unless you pay attention to landing the correct way, you can risk injury while performing the drop or when your body recoils awkwardly from the trampoline.
