WAG Just a little vent - camps

[gymisforeveryone]

WELL, I have an 8 year old gymnast in my group. She has had hard time the last 4 months. She has anxiety and fear issues and doesn't believe in herself. Her strength level is lower than the others because she is a bit big for a gymnast etc. Well just last week I emailed with her mother about her anxiety at practices and asked about how is she feeling at home and school and has she talked about gym etc. The mom told the girl came home crying that week and said she's the worst in her group and isn't allowed to work on harder skills etc. I'm pretty sure she was crying because of her BHS.

I don't allow kids to do back handspring by themselves before they can do one from trampoline to front support landing soft mats. Well, she wasn't yet able to do that and needed light spotting while SOME of the girsl did them all the way up to standing. I don't want to see a single piked back handspring or back handspring landed on head so I'm very strict about this.

Well, now the girl is at a camp with her mother and a few team mates at different town. The mum emailed me now that the child is full of excitement and mastered a back handspring by herself at the camps. I congratulated her and asked to see a video. Well, I shouldn't have done that. The mum posted me a video. Yes, in that video the girl was doing RO BHS BHS on soft mat. They were horribly piked, legs apart and bent and arms turned outward. I wonder why the coaches at camp allowed that to happen??? Now the kid thinks she can do RO BHS BHS and comes back to home telling that everybody, but I have to put her back to work on those BHSs from trampoline to front support on mats. How do I explain this to the mum and the girl? The worst thing is that now when the girl has finally "learned" something new I need to take that excitement away from her.

Edit: I forgot to mention that NONE of my 12 girls has yet even TRIED a RO BHS at practices! I don't allow them to do them before they can do very good standing BHS and have almost perfect RO. This girl doesn't have either in my world.

Have you experienced anything like this before?

 

[aileenmaryf]

I know its not quite the same but I have had kids learn skills at home or on their trampoline-- usually they can "do" the skill, but it is sloppy, the technique is incorrect, etc. I usually tell them "Oh its great you can do it, but now you need to work on doing it this way... So you need to do some really awesome back handsprings so that when you do your round off back handspring its even better! " That way I don't say that she isn't able to do them, I just say that it could be improved upon.

Hope this helps!

 

[Sasha]

I'm just a parent, but advice from this side of things...

If my DD was proud of herself, and back to being enthusiastic after some fear issues, then it seems the net is positive. I think you should be able to bring her back to practicing good form without negating her efforts.

Just brainstorming how I would frame this to my DD if it were our case....

If you first praise her for getting over any fears of backward tumbling, acknowledge that you are really excited by her progress at camp and her newfound confidence, and find something to praise about her emerging skill (good timing? speed? power? height? nice feet? anything?), and you sound sincerely impressed with something she has done, then she should be able to better take your kind "next steps" that "Now that you have executed the BHS, you just need to perfect that form and you've got the complete package! And I'm excited to help you with some awesome drills." If you act like the drills are the normal path to perfecting form, and not a step backwards from 'learning the skill', then maybe that will be easier for her to feel good about.

I guess the good news is that she hasn't been practicing that bad form for years and years, just a week or so, so maybe not too much to undo?

Hope you are able to build on her new confidence! Good luck!

 

[raenndrops]

If you first praise her for getting over any fears of backward tumbling, acknowledge that you are really excited by her progress at camp and her newfound confidence, and find something to praise about her emerging skill (good timing? speed? power? height? nice feet? anything?), and you sound sincerely impressed with something she has done, then she should be able to better take your kind "next steps" that "Now that you have executed the BHS, you just need to perfect that form and you've got the complete package! And I'm excited to help you with some awesome drills." If you act like the drills are the normal path to perfecting form, and not a step backwards from 'learning the skill', then maybe that will be easier for her to feel good about.

The complement sandwich... our coaches are using that A LOT this past month

 

[gymisforeveryone]

Thank you! I feel a little bit better now. It's just one camp and isn't gonna ruin her future in gymnastics, I get that. But this kid has very strong own will. She always asks if she can TODAY do the back handspring by herself all the way up and I always say "let's see what your BHS to front support looks like today and I'll decide then" and always she squats very low and throws her head back when I start to lighten my spotting and I have to tell her she isn't ready yet. Then she tells me she has gone to open gym with her dad and done tons of back handsprings with him and the dad says they are awesome. I gently mentioned her mum once that it isn't really a good idea to let the dad coach that kid. The mum told me the dad is a former gymnasts and "knows what he's doing, you don't have to worry". On the other hand the mum says she trusts me in everything and understands why I doesn't let her do something quite yet. And then some other coaches at camp let her do those things I don't and I don't want to tell the parents I think those coaches are WRONG when they let kids practice skills ahead of their level.

I also need to clear that she hasn't been afraid of back tumbling. She is scared of high bar, strap bar and high beam.

 

[aileenmaryf]

I understand where you are coming from. When I have kids asking me if they can work on something (such as a round-off back handspring), I say you can do it IF you can show me it with your head in and your legs together...

Also

she squats very low and throws her head back when I start to lighten my spotting

maybe she doesn't realize she's doing this. I have a lot of problems with this when I am teaching back handsprings and I find it works best when I say "here's what you are doing" and physically put her in the position she does right before she jumps off the ground. Then I say "this is what you should do when you jump" and move her so that her body is in the correct position. I ask if she can feel the difference and they always say yes. Then every time after I point it out to them that they do it again I say "oh shoot you are doing it again!" so they can tell how it feels when they jump the correct way vs. the wrong way. Eventually, they can feel it when they do it right or wrong.

Hope this helps!

 

[Aussie_coach]

We do to have those summer camps here in Australia and I am quite relieved. I often see videos on the Internet with kids working on skills at summer camps or showing what they have learned and it is clear that the aim is to teach them brand new skills.

These coaches at the camps don't know the kids from a bar of soap. They don't know what skills they have been doing, they don't know what physical prep they have been doing. But to sell the camp and get the kids coming back year after year they try to teach them new skills.

The skills always seem to have dreadful form.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

aileenmaryf, I have told her thousands of times and she has watched it from video and we have done just simple jumps to resi mat to fix that and she is improving but not just ready yet. But thanks for input

Aussie_coach, I actually wish we didn't have those camps either. I like camps when I can go with my team and control a little what they are doing and I think it's great the kids can sometimes work with other coaches and I can get new ideas. But I don't like those FUN camps where they go with a parent and the focus is on learning new skills, not perfecting the form.

Actually strap bar giants were introduced to these kids at a camp last fall for the first time. I would have wanted to scream when I heard about it. These kids were not ready or repaired to try them yet, they didn't have decent tap swings or giant drops on floor bar and they had just started to learn assisted cast handstands. But the kids were absolutely thrilled when they came back to our gym and told me they had worked on giants.... And I had to tell them sorry, we'll have a good six months of work on basics before doing them for the second time.

 

[thefellowsmom]

This is the exact reason that our coaches discourage summer camps that they don't personally approve or take the girls to. It is also against the rules to attend open gym past level 2.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

WELL, I have an 8 year old gymnast in my group. She has had hard time the last 4 months. She has anxiety and fear issues and doesn't believe in herself. Her strength level is lower than the others because she is a bit big for a gymnast etc. Well just last week I emailed with her mother about her anxiety at practices and asked about how is she feeling at home and school and has she talked about gym etc. The mom told the girl came home crying that week and said she's the worst in her group and isn't allowed to work on harder skills etc. I'm pretty sure she was crying because of her BHS.

I don't allow kids to do back handspring by themselves before they can do one from trampoline to front support landing soft mats. Well, she wasn't yet able to do that and needed light spotting while SOME of the girsl did them all the way up to standing. I don't want to see a single piked back handspring or back handspring landed on head so I'm very strict about this.

Well, now the girl is at a camp with her mother and a few team mates at different town. The mum emailed me now that the child is full of excitement and mastered a back handspring by herself at the camps. I congratulated her and asked to see a video. Well, I shouldn't have done that. The mum posted me a video. Yes, in that video the girl was doing RO BHS BHS on soft mat. They were horribly piked, legs apart and bent and arms turned outward. I wonder why the coaches at camp allowed that to happen??? Now the kid thinks she can do RO BHS BHS and comes back to home telling that everybody, but I have to put her back to work on those BHSs from trampoline to front support on mats. How do I explain this to the mum and the girl? The worst thing is that now when the girl has finally "learned" something new I need to take that excitement away from her.

Edit: I forgot to mention that NONE of my 12 girls has yet even TRIED a RO BHS at practices! I don't allow them to do them before they can do very good standing BHS and have almost perfect RO. This girl doesn't have either in my world.

Have you experienced anything like this before?

stick to your guns.

 

[gracyomalley]

DD first "learned" her BHS on a mattress at home at age 6...coach smiled, told her how much she loved her enthusiasm, then showed her what was wrong with what she was doing, and it took another year before she did another - at gym, and correct this time....Clear rule set down about no new skills work at home, just splits, conditioning, etc.

Would have been harder to convince her to backtrack after a camp experience...but as a parent I was happy to see her back-tracked for safety and long term progression...

 

[gymisforeveryone]

It's all better now! I answered the mum's post and kindly told I'm happy she's learning but asked her to tell her daughter to turn her hands inward and explained that fingers turned outward can cause elbow mislocationg. The mum replied by sending a new video of her daughter doing those BHSs with safe hand placement and actually one of those BHS's she did had straight legs together. Yes, it was piked at the end, but that can be fixed and I can just tell her at practice that this is the last big problem and can be fixed if she keeps doing them to front support and maybe then to knees. I asked her to tell her daughter I'm proud of her and she can show her skill at practice and then we'll find out how to make it look awesome!