Being new and asking for advice

[veryrookiegymnast]

Well like stated before I'd like to introduce myself and also ask for your advice. I'm totally new into the "small" world of gymnastics even I've never heard about of it until last year (believe it) but when watching the Olympics and seeing that men and women doing that inhuman feats well the thrill of feeling free and powerful like them filled me and enough to say that almost next day all I wanted was to enroll in classes but in my hometown there are only three places offering classes, two of them at very expensive fee and with not-so-great equipment and the last where I joined has little equipment: the apparatus, few mats, no pits and small trampoline. Anyways during the first week of classes I did good doing forward/back rolls,cartwheels and ok with handstands plus my flexibility is at top level for being a guy doing splits, but panic came to me when just with two drill lessons coach attempted to make us do a back handspring I say to him that I wasn't ready for that and he told me that that was an easy skill but anyways I don't feel safe doing one, because in my gym I see that coach has problems spotting us, the older ones, since we're heavier than the regular 6-8 years old kid in gymnastics and that adds more insecurity to me when doing harder skills so to finish what should I do? Should 16 years old still give a try? How gymnasts overcome the fear of falling and nearly killing themselves? any help is well received...

 

[gymmomtoo]

If you love gymnastics, then I think you should definitely continue! Just build up to things--a back handspring if you've never done one is scary--even more so if the coach isn't able to spot you properly. Talk with your coach about being afraid since this is all new to you--maybe he has suggestions on smaller steps. (and I've coached rec gymnastics before and, trust me, it's scary for the coach when a gymnast throws a back handspring with no build up or preparation, so I'm glad you're going slow!)