Parents Should Gymnast compete with a Mental Block?

[petersam]

I posted on here a few months ago about my daughters back tumbling mental block, she is 10 years old. It got better for about 2 months and unfortunately came back again . It has really affected her confidence in general and has affected all pieces. She can still do the tumble but couch has to be standing on the floor with her. She can do all her movements on the other pieces but they are not as smooth and confident as they used to be. She has a big comp (nationals in our small country) next weekend and needs her tumble on floor. I don’t know whether to stop her from competing? I don’t know if it’s too much pressure for her. She is used to doing well in comps comes home with a medal more often than not and would have been one of the best in her gym until this happened (please don’t think I am bragging I’m just trying to set the scene I honestly couldn’t careless if she is the best as long as she is happy and confident doing her gymnastics which unfortunately she is not at the moment) I don’t know what to do, do I let her compete and her confidence knocked further? Do I ask her what she wants to do? What if she Balks and can’t do the tumble on floor? And that knocks her confidence for the rest of the pieces? Or maybe if she does compete it might show her she needs to try and get over this mental block? Please help I’m in an awful way can’t stop worrying about her, i feel so helpless it’s an apparatus comp by the way 3 places for each apparatus.

 

[petersam]

I’d also love the point of view from a gymnast or coach

 

[Mommyo2az]

what does her coach say? At our gym if a gymnast cannot tumble/compete safely without a spotter than they do not compete that apparatus. It is about safety not medals. As you said, you don't know what will happen under the pressure of competition. I personally as coach and parent would not want my daughter to compete unless she can do so safely, confidently and consistently!

 

[Deleted member 18037]

She and her coach should decide.

 

[e'smum]

ugh - i'm sorry your kiddo is going through this. mine went through it with bars. the last practice before our meet she still couldn't get over the block on bars (lvl 7). they were going to have her compete with only a partial routine or try as much as she wanted to. she was crying and didn't even want to go to the meet. it was awful.

i would definitely leave it up to her and her coach. maybe talk to her about leaving behind any disappointments at each event. i didn't have a choice except to scratch her entirely from the meet. she competed all 4 events or none.

it's awful as a parent though. to sit on the sidelines and watch it go down is horrible.

 

[petersam]

Awful to see your once confident gymnast, so unsure and scared thanks for the advise. We are heading down in a while for a private lesson to polish a few things up. I know I won’t be able to talk to coach then but I will ring her after. I did say it to her at after training yesterday but she was just hopeful dd would be ok by competition as she has just starting a course of hypnotherapy. Has anyone done this btw?

 

[trampolinemom]

My exoerience with DS mental blocks is that he somehow in some way manages to pull it all together in competition. Like three days before competition he didn't do anything and in competition he won. That isn't uncommon according to this http://completeperformancecoaching....hlete-competes-well-but-doesnt-practice-well/ So you don't really know what is going to happen. I would leave it up to her and the coach to decide if she competes and what routine and see what happens.

 

[petersam]

She had a disastrous session this evening only got it every 4 times with coach standing there all the time, and towards the end couldn’t get it at all, the rest of her routine suffered too. I spoke to the coach who said she didn’t have to compete on floor if she really didn’t feel up to it. It’s so heartbreaking watching her and also frustrating not at her but knowing she can do it perfectly when all goes well. She can do it no problem in the tumble track but not on floor for some reason.

 

[gymdoc]

YDD has had a mental block on back tumbling for about 6 months. Managed to get her BWO on beam back but still can't do BHS on beam or floor.
Her coaches opted to change her floor tumbling passes to FHS-FT-RO and FHS-FP (for level 6). It wasn't super smooth in practice but at her first meet last weekend it looked great! She was supposed to compete L7 this season, but can't do her back layout in any kind of combination so she is repeating 6 for now

She has tried hypnotherapy in the past which helped her get over it for a while. Unfortunately, when it came back, the hypnotherapy no longer helped. We also tried acupuncture which improved the anxiety that started to build up. Visualization is a technique that seems to help some too - she watches past videos of herself doing the skills right before bed

Good luck! It is so hard to see them struggle, especially with skills that you know they have

 

[petersam]

It’s heartbreaking she has done it the last few days without any spotting and no coach on the floor which is great but I’m afraid to count my chickens yet as I know it could be gone again today (obviously hoping it’s not) coach has ask me to come look at her floor routine this evening and I’m sick just thinking about it. I wish this weekend was over, the stress!!!!