Narrator: It's called a Ginga Salto. It involves flying off the high bar, performing a back somersault, and a half twist before recatching the bar.

Rebecca: Basically, you'll watch them do it first. You can get a general idea of what you're going to be doing and what you want it to look like. And then you'll start the progressions and you'll get a lot of feedback from the coach. And they'll tell you what to do, what not to do, what you're doing right and wrong.

Narrator: Rebecca's coach is Colin Still.

Colin Still: Release the turn. Release the bar. Arms down. What he begins are introducing her mind to the move. Did you see the bar all the way through?

Rebecca: Yes.

Colin Still: Hold the shape.

When we teach a move to people like Rebecca, any gymnast, they must concentrate at the beginning. They know nothing and we have to feel they're at mind with the idea of what we're trying to get across. And then we've got to get their body to follow their mind.

Narrator: It's time for Rebecca to try the Ginga Salto for real.

Colin Still: So this one we'll take from a handstand.

Rebecca: The first time you do it on your own, you have to really concentrate on what you're doing. When you sit there waiting to go, you do get a bit more nervous and you start to think about things that could go wrong.

Colin Still: Well, we're close, which is good. But, you've got to see the bar and you've got to attack the bar with your hands so you actually grab the bar before the weight comes on the hands. Ready?

Narrator: It's just not working. It's time for a more radical approach. It's a learning method called visualizations. Rebecca won't have to move a muscle. Rather, she'll rehearse the entire sequence in her brain. Rebecca stands still and concentrates.

She visualizes every stage of the somersault. The moment she releases the bar, the instant she twists her body, and the second she catches the bar. And she does this over and over again.

Rebecca: The visualization does help you when you're learning a new move. You can go through it in your brain before you actually have to do it and stuff.

Narrator: Scientists have discovered there's a region of the brain that's activated when we imagine a body movement. When Rebecca rehearses the move in her mind, she's creating pathways through her brain cells as if she were actually doing her somersault. All without moving a muscle. It means that when she does perform it for real, she should find it easier. Because the pathways in her brain are already in place.

Will it work? Rebecca has repeatedly visualized each tiny twist and turn the somersault in her mind. But has she established strong enough pathways to make her body do it for real?

Colin Still: Right, nice and positive.

Excellent.

Rebecca: Each time I do the move, it gets better, because it becomes more somatic so I can think about it less and think more about what happened on the last one and try and correct it again on the next one.

When you start to do it in the competition, you do get a bit more nervous. You just have to tell yourself that you've done it millions of times, and you know how to do it.

Narrator: Visualizations helped Rebecca establish new pathways in her mind that enabled her body to complete the somersault.