Garden Trampoline: First Flips
From safe bouncing to your first flips — the classic backyard progression. Master each step before moving on.
Back bouncing is the fundamental of repeatedly landing and rebounding on the back in a controlled flat position. The base skill for all back-drop tricks.
💡 Control before airtime — clean back bounces set up everything.
A front drop lands the body flat and face-down on the bed — belly roughly where the feet took off — then rides the rebound back up to standing. The jump goes straight up rather than forward: the head and shoulders tip slightly ahead while the hips lift behind, and the body opens out just before touchdown so everything from chest to knees hits as one hollow line. The hands fold into a triangle under the chin instead of catching the fall, the knees bend to about 90 degrees, and the feet stay held up so they never kick the bed. Coaches start it from a hands-and-knees table position and extend out flat from there long before trying it from standing, because diving forward or landing arched and hips-first is what strains backs. It is a foundation skill: codys, cruises and the other stomach-takeoff tricks all begin from this landing.
From a back landing, pull backward over your head and land on your feet — a classic first trampoline trick.
💡 Your first over-rotation — a backflip in disguise.
Drop to your back on the trampoline and rebound straight into a front somersault back to your feet.
The backflip is the gateway inversion on a garden trampoline: one backward rotation from feet to feet, made far more approachable by the bed's rebound. Coaches converge on the same progression — bouncing flat onto the back, then tucked back landings, then the pullover (a bouncing backward roll) — so the body learns to go upside down backwards long before the full flip is thrown. At takeoff the arms drive hard overhead for height, the hips push up, and the knees pull to the shoulders into a tight tuck; leaning back early instead of jumping up first is what sends the flip travelling across the bed. The rule every coach repeats: once the flip has started, stay tucked and commit — bailing out mid-air is how people get hurt, while a committed flip lands on the back at worst. Spotting the bed on the way around tells the body when to open for landing.
💡 The milestone. Commit, spot the bed.
A forward tuck somersault taken off the bed of a garden trampoline. From an upright stand with the arms overhead, the arms throw up and forward and then drive down while the chin closes to the chest, the hips and heels pull up, and the shins are grabbed with the knees apart to tuck tight and spin fast. The tuck opens as the ground comes back into view so the feet can be found for a stand-up landing. The trampoline's bounce makes the rotation easy to get, which is also the trap: leaning on the bed lets the arm throw and hip lift stay lazy, so the flip stalls or under-rotates the moment it moves to a firmer surface. Losing the chin, tucking with the legs squeezed shut, or opening early are the usual causes of a flat or short landing.
Frontflip with a half twist, landing facing the way you came.
Backflip with a half twist on the garden trampoline, the classic first backward twist.
A back full is a backflip carrying a full 360-degree twist, taking off and landing on the trampoline bed facing the same direction. The bounce of a garden trampoline buys enough air that the flip can be set first — a tall lift with the hips driving a layout — with the twist added only once rotation is underway. The twist itself comes from pulling one arm hard across the body toward the chosen shoulder, dropping that shoulder and turning the head into the spin. Coaches build it up either from a back half, adding a little more rotation each session until the full comes around, or from a layout with a progressively harder arm throw. Committing to the entire twist matters most: opening up or bailing halfway through is the usual cause of crooked landings.
A cody is a backflip taken from a stomach landing: the body bounces flat off the stomach and the bed's rebound plus a hard leg snap carries it backward over the top to the feet. The rotation comes from the legs winding back and snapping down while the shoulders pull back and the hips swing underneath, with the core braced so upper and lower body move as one piece. The feet must never brush the bed on takeoff — kicking the bed is the number one reason a cody stalls mid-flip. The head stays neutral throughout: staring down at the bed traps the chest in front of the hips, and throwing the head back to spot early opens the body into a slow arch. Coaches build it from straight-body stomach-to-back bounces and low pullovers landing on the stomach, and have the sideways bail-out — looking over a shoulder and collapsing flat — practiced before the full rotation is ever attempted.
💡 Bounce off your back into a flip — opens the whole cody family.