Coaches 14 year old struggling with back somersaults

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Jym

Coach
Proud Parent
Hi

I have a 14 year old girl who learned tuck back somersaults fairly late, at around the age of around 11. She took a long time to learn the skill and has never been completely confident with it, nor has she got great form. The skill is safe though and she has performed the skill regularly over the last 3 years.

Over the last few months she is finding the skill increasingly difficult to do - not physically, but psychologically. She completely refused at one point and there were lots of tears etc as she insisted that she couldn't do it. She won't accept additional spotting and says that makes it worse.

She is managing to do a couple per week however this is taking lots of enouragement and she is getting more and more reluctant, and increasingly stressed over it.

My gut instinct is to leave the skill for a few weeks and then revisit it, however she needs this skill for the level she is competing and can't afford to 'lose' it. My worry with letting her leave it is that she'll stop doing it altogether.

Any ideas?
 
When you say 'tuck back somersaults', are you talking about standing or connected from like a back handspring? Is this on floor, beam, or trampoline? If you are her coach, then I would back up her progression to the last point of success, and rebuild from there. Usually, I will give the girls a few extra spots if they are a little short of confidence, but that is weird that she feels that only makes it worse. Don't be afraid to ask her about what it is that she is afraid of, and see if there is something you can do to relieve those fears. Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.
 
It's a round off back handspring tuck back somersault on floor.

Yes, ordinarily I would spot, but she insists that this makes it worse. This makes it hard to take her back to the last point of success as that would involve spotting her.

The only explanation she can give for her dislike of doing the skill is that she doesn't like the feeling of not being in control - her approach is without much power as the faster/higher she goes, the more it scares her. This in turn means she hasn't got much height and her form isn't great. She doesn't like going backwards full stop.

Thanks for your reply.
 
My guess is that this is a psychological problem. However, the psychology of this shortcoming may have physical manifestations. For example, perhaps she is doing something physical which frightens her. If she is closing her eyes then perhaps this may give her a feeling of being lost. Perhaps she is throwing her head back and keeping her arms low in front of her on the take-off which may feel like she can't get off the ground in time before her head hits the floor. In other words a physical manifestation may be causing a psychological reaction. The coaches will need to examine the technique to see if this is indeed a factor.

Another psychological possibility is a paranoia in which she is not being forthright. In other words she is paranoid about something and is not telling anyone about it. It could be a fear of under rotation-over rotation. It could be something along these lines. Perhaps it could be a secondary paranoia such as a fear not of the skill itself but rather of what may come after. She may be afraid that in that gym she will be expected to do the same skill on the beam where her fear is paramount. Or perhaps she is simply afraid of what she will be expected to do after she can handle the present skill.

Perhaps until this phase of gymnastics in her life there was nothing that scared her like a back tuck. Hence, the feelings and emotions of discovering that gymnastics is not all fun and games but can actually scare you has traumatized her. In other words it the first skill that gave her a reality check and it has filled her with doubts about whether she really wants to continue to do gymnastics.

If this is not a psychological problem then you might try to zero in on pain or discomfort she is not admitting to. It could be dizziness, eye distortion, ear ache, or almost anything the body is capable of feeling. She may feel like she wants to vomit every time she flips over. Spotting her and hence making her flip over even faster would exacerbate the feelings. Her big hint is that spotting her makes it worse. Maybe she is trying to tell you something. It a huge hint. But you have to get to the bottom of what it is about spotting that would make this problem worse.
 

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