WAG I'm afraid to finish my skills! Help!!!

[gotchalk007]

I can do my kip but every time I start to finish it I make a decision to jump off the bar and then I immediately regret it... same thing with beam skills. I'm not afraid of falling, I'm "afraid" to finish/land them. Does anyone know any tricks to get me to want to finish them?

 

[iwannacoach]

Determination and counting the number of gymnasts you've ever seen have this same problem. There may be one or two others like you who top at a safe point in the start, middle, or end of skills, and I have worked with one who had a similar problem, and the best tactic was me explaining that she had hyper sensitive body awareness for skills while moving through them, and even though they looked great to everybody watching, they may feel very "off" and cause her to check out of the skill.

She made a lot of progress after I told her I was a pretty picky coach, and would not be happy with poorly done skill, and would let her know if she'd done any half happy repetitions. If she didn't hear from me they were off, then they were good enough to not just finish, but to do them well.

Kinda like telling her that I'd be the one to complain or reject skills, and her task was to respect my advice, and trust that I coach kids and try my best for them because I care.