Parents Losing confidence on the beam

[glad2bgymmom]

My dd is a 9 year old level 7 that had a pretty scary beam fall in December. (Missed her hands on her bhs bhs series.) She became very scared after that. She seems to have lost all of her old confidence after that fall and her beam scores have definitely suffered. She actually has fallen off the beam at every meet since then, even though she stays on during practice. She was amazing on the beam until the fall. Have any of your gymnasts been through this? If so, please say the confidence comes back. Any advice?

 

[Fliptwisttumble]

It comes back. DD had issues with the same series. Had to go back to the low fat pad and work it back up. December is 6-8 weeks ago. Give it time.... It'll come back and likely even more solid than before.

 

[glad2bgymmom]

Fliptwisttumble, she does have the series back for the most part. Just not in front of the judges at meets. Maybe too much pressure, who knows. Overall, everything on the beam has suffered though because of the fall. She used to look so happy to be up there and now it looks like she is miserable and afraid. It is amazing how her confidence helped her do everything that much better.

 

[Fliptwisttumble]

For DD the outcome of an entire practice or meet is a result of how she does on beam. Good beam day, good practice. Bad beam day, bad practice. I completely hear you.

DD fell on her aerial for the first three meets of the season, but was consistent in practice . I knew if she could land it once at a meet, she'd be fine thereafter. It happened and I was right. She hit it the next competition too. I hope the same for your daughter.

Confidence on the beam is almost everything

 

[gracyomalley]

DD 11 "lost" the same series after a rather scary out of control fall with a layout step out accidently thrown in...this was after spending months getting confident on her BHS-BHS. Coach's answer at that point was BWO-BHS until after states then back to the "old", harder series for Level 8...confidence is climbing back up slowly on beam overall, and her scores are leading to placements even when she does occ. fall so you can tell she's getting her old self back....our meet season is very short (5 total meets), so laying off the progressive skill to build the confidence makes perfect sense for us.

Gotta hate it when they start to realize how scary this stuff can be - she fell much worse as an old Level6 but it didn't faze her one bit!

 

[glad2bgymmom]

Fliptwisttumble, I sure hope she has a successful beam routine at the next meet. It has been so hard watching her struggle and then be so disappointed afterwards. Thank you!

 

[glad2bgymmom]

Gracyomalley, that is part of the problem. I guess she realized how scary it can be. I know girls go through this, I was just hoping mine would escape it all. I know it will eventually make her stronger, right? Her coaches are still having her stay with the same series as she is actually better at it than a BWO BHS. We only have a few more meets before states. I hope the confidence returns before then. If not, I guess there is next season. . Thank you for replying.

 

[bookworm]

My daughter , who is currently competing on a D1 team in college , has always said that the BHS/BHS is the "scariest" thing to do , and hates it ...always has landed it well but prefers the layout to the second backhandspring because "you don't have to worry about getting your hands on the beam a second time" ....uh, ok ....she's done a lot of what I consider scarier things than that series in her time as a gymnast but from a gymnast's POV , that's how she sees it....

 

[MeetDirector]

Trust me, skills go away and then they come back. My Lvl 9 dd never, ever liked the BHS-BHS series; she even went so far as to find anything else to take its place. Now she would much prefer her RO-Back Tuck series than anything else.

Good Luck.

 

[gasrgoose]

My dd is a 9 year old level 7 that had a pretty scary beam fall in December. (Missed her hands on her bhs bhs series.) She became very scared after that. She seems to have lost all of her old confidence after that fall and her beam scores have definitely suffered. She actually has fallen off the beam at every meet since then, even though she stays on during practice. She was amazing on the beam until the fall. Have any of your gymnasts been through this? If so, please say the confidence comes back. Any advice?

This happened to my 9 year old level 7 last year. She never got it back during the season, she fell every meet but 1. That's the bad news but I don't think it typically takes that long.

The good news is this year she's a level 8 with the highest scoring beam routines in any age group. She has her back tuck and almost her handspring layout. Her BHS/BHS looks like she is on the floor it's so easy. She just never falls and many times will go an entire practice and never fall. It took a while but after the pressure of the competition season ended she regained her confidence. Part of her problem was her coaches and it just wasn't handled properly for my daughter. They did what had worked previously for them. We switched gyms in November (I know really close to competition season) and the beam coach at the new gym is just an amazing fit for my daughter.

So yes she'll regain her confidence. But it is something to tread lightly around. Many people believe once a kid stops going backwards they never can recover. But it doesn't sound like she has stopped going backwards, just doesn't have the confidence she had.

Good luck, I know it is difficult to watch.

 

[2gymmies]

If you could buy confidence at Wal- Mart then everyone would have it. Confidence is the most complicated part of sports - each person gets (or doesn't get) confident in in their own way and at their own pace. You can't tell someone to be confident, they BECOME confident. As others have said, hang in there and be patient! It will happen!

 

[iwannacoach]

Kids get a little better on every skill each week, month, and year. Falling happens and while we'd all like to say pain won't happen, it does, so we can't say it won't happen again. What we can truthfully say is that their ability to learn provides them with increasing proficiency over time, and that they will be less likely to fall and get hurt with every passing week. That's the way it works, there's no guarantees other than continuing to work will pay off.

Let me add that once a child falls, they begin to think about more than the proper skill sequence and often distract themselves by starting the skill and then diverting their mental energy to taking in signals that the skill is going to happen safely. In other words, they put themselves at a disadvantage by taking much of their mental energy away from what needs to be focused on. The same thing happens in a meet when they hope to hit a skill and use mental energy on hoping for the outcome rather than creating the outcome.

It's an abstract and very indirect sport in almost every respect.

 

[cbifoja]

My daughter , who is currently competing on a D1 team in college , has always said that the BHS/BHS is the "scariest" thing to do , and hates it ...always has landed it well but prefers the layout to the second backhandspring because "you don't have to worry about getting your hands on the beam a second time" ....uh, ok ....she's done a lot of what I consider scarier things than that series in her time as a gymnast but from a gymnast's POV , that's how she sees it....

My daughter's coach is also having her skip the bhs bhs combo and already has started her working bhs blo. Personally, they both look like suicide missions to me!

 

[LizzieLac]

My DD has been struggling with the BHS for months and hasn't even been able to compete it yet. It is mental, however. She has not said this, but I believe she worries about falling, so it is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. She has just started to make a little progress, so for her the progress is going to feed her confidence and that will help her progress further. But, @gargoose, it is going to be a very long time before she can be as smooth and consistent as you describe. Just very frustating for her as she has never really struggled for this long on any other skill...

 

[glad2bgymmom]

The coaches did end up changing dd's routine to include a BWO BWO. She stayed on the beam for the first time this meet season! I hope this helps build her confidence back up. She still needs to get everything else back to where it was before her bad fall, but I think she finally will head in that direction now. At least I sure hope so!!