WAG Support or help? GIANTS

[gotfaith]

I have been a lurker here for a while. I am unlurking! I guess I am not sure if I need parent support or help, anything we have not tried yet would help...LOL?

Bio: my daughter just turned 11, and is level 7. We had a huge change about 9 months ago and had to switch gyms, very dramatic and difficult. Even though she did well last year (high 36 scores) she decided to stay level 7 because of the change to a new gym. Last year she had all skills and her best event was bars consistently throwing large scores. The gym we moved to has older equipment and when we moved she became nervous about the bars (not adjustable, older then she was use too) From there her fear of giants snowballed, you name it she was scarred. Though she consistently was doing and still does them on pit bar with no problem, regular bars were out of the question. As the season approached us as parents and her coaches tried many methods to help her, I mean everything sports counseling, hypnotherapy, talking about giving 100%, she is even doing the head games program with her team! Her coaches even tried to talk to her about scratching thinking that would get her motivated, seemed the more we tried the more she shut down. So we all backed off. Then visiting coach came up with a new routine that would still push her. It is not necessarily going backwards but not forwards either. Now she does a kip cast hand, free hip, free hip to hand, jump to high bar kip cast hand layout. Recently she has been frustrated with her scores ( low 9's, def getting scored lower because of the two free hips) and has indicated she wants to do her giants once again. She brought this up on her own and was super excited earlier this week when she did her giant on low bar after 2 hours, and with a great big rip ( legs bent but she did it!). Yesterday she was 100% sure and confident that she could do her high bar giants, after being on bars for over an hour she came away devastated, crying and super frustrated. She just does not know how to overcome the fear. I just do not know what to say or do anymore. She has a meet this weekend and then 2 weeks to our State meet, she wants (and needs) to move to level 8. Her coach is really trying to get her doing them before state.

Any help out there? I know she has to overcome this on her own, I am just wondering what methods you as parents/coaches have used!

I feel better just writing this!

 

[Deleted member D3987]

it would be useful to know what bars they do have. name of manufacturer and model. can't understand why they don't have newer generation bars. they could be anything. btw, there have not been "non adjustable uneven bars" since the 60's when men's parallel bars were used for the women.

 

[gotfaith]

I will try and find out, my daughter just told me they are adjustable but they don't adjust easy there old late 80's early 90's. we followed a coach to the new gym and she is slowly upgrading so new bars by this summer. Her old gym had a newer set they adjusted , the set at new gym are closer together then she was use to in the beginning although that issue is now long past.

I would just like to get some suggestions on any thing we could be missing on helping her through this hump!

 

[gymnastbeth]

Can she pinpoint exactly what it is she's afraid of? If she's nervous about the bars being too close together, she could do giants on the pit bar, with a theraband or bungee going across the pit below her, right where the low bar would be. This way hitting her feet on the "low bar" doesn't hurt, and it gets her used to the idea of being between the bars. Everyone gets mental blocks, and they are incredibly frustrating, but sometimes all you can do is keep trying with baby steps and wait it out.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Can she pinpoint exactly what it is she's afraid of? If she's nervous about the bars being too close together, she could do giants on the pit bar, with a theraband or bungee going across the pit below her, right where the low bar would be. This way hitting her feet on the "low bar" doesn't hurt, and it gets her used to the idea of being between the bars. Everyone gets mental blocks, and they are incredibly frustrating, but sometimes all you can do is keep trying with baby steps and wait it out.

spot on^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Deleted member D3987]

I will try and find out, my daughter just told me they are adjustable but they don't adjust easy there old late 80's early 90's. we followed a coach to the new gym and she is slowly upgrading so new bars by this summer. Her old gym had a newer set they adjusted , the set at new gym are closer together then she was use to in the beginning although that issue is now long past.

I would just like to get some suggestions on any thing we could be missing on helping her through this hump!

okay. this means AAI 1200 series. the spreader has 4 holes. small, medium large and extra large. They are more difficult to adjust but still can be done. it may be that wherever you were at set the bars to wide as i see many gyms do. no technique, just men's giants. those old bars can still be spread far enough and adjusted up and down to accommodate giants.

 

[iwannacoach]

An alternative to the "bungee bar", is the (theatrical echo) Virtual Velcro Bar.

The foam pit sling shot was really getting to be a problem. I bought enough 1.5" inch nylon strap to span the pit, cut it in half and sewed velcro to each piece. It worked pretty good, but was a real pain in the neck when someone hit the dang thing, because the kids would have to chuck a couple of mat into the pit to stand on the fix the thing. Other than that it was pretty darn skippy.

Just a thought to the op. Sometimes when kids get their minds in a twist over a skill, they start trying harder so they can get the skill back. Sounds like the right thing to do..... but then again maybe not. Many kids learn skills through a process of doing things the right way while simultaneously eliminating mistakes that prevent the skill from happening. So imagine that the right things have positive values of 1, 2, or 3, and the wrong things have the reflexive negative values. A child who wants to learn a giant must cancel out enough negatives with positives to get the skill. Kinda like 6 goods - 4 bads = +2 score and a giant gets done.

Where kids run afoul by trying harder is they still have some things they do wrong, but have an adequate supply of "rights" to get the skill to happen anyway. When a problem pops up and the child reacts by trying harder, they often put more energy into the "wrongs" than the "rights".

Suggest she talk to the coach about what positives need her attention, and to put her energy into those, and only those things, because that's how you get out of the trying "wronger" trap.

 

[Kiwi]

Interesting point, IWannaCoach. It sounds like the old rule of 'what you focus on expands'.

 

[AlexsGymmyMom]

Can she pinpoint exactly what it is she's afraid of? If she's nervous about the bars being too close together, she could do giants on the pit bar, with a theraband or bungee going across the pit below her, right where the low bar would be. This way hitting her feet on the "low bar" doesn't hurt, and it gets her used to the idea of being between the bars. Everyone gets mental blocks, and they are incredibly frustrating, but sometimes all you can do is keep trying with baby steps and wait it out.

This is how the coach handled my DD's fear. However they took the low bar off completely and replaced it with a velcro bar instead of using the pit bar. (my DD has a fear of the pit bar as well....go figure!!). I am happy to say she has been doing giants most of the season. I believe it was the patience of the coach and the velcro bar that made the difference!

 

[Deleted member D3987]

of course!

 

[iwannacoach]

Velcro! You gotta love the stuff. So yeah, Nicki, I think focus does expand, and kids have a natural tendency to focus on problems as the work to solve them. The same thing happens to us adults! We lose something important like our car keys, and and after a brief and fruitless search of pockets, purse, and counter tops, frame the moment as.... "I can't find my keys".

This launches us into a deeper search where we comically look twice for them in all the usual places to discover the dang things are "totally lost". What we fail to see is the keys sitting just beyond the normal boundaries we've mentally constrained them to. The keys, as it turns out, are well within view, but we don't see them because our focus is a negative (they're lost) rather than a positive one that allows us to expand our vision. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've lost a small cooking dish that was simply on the other side of the kitchen drawer, and is usually found accidentally when I want something usually placed on that side of the drawer.

So in times of panic, you have to calm down and focus on positives with a mind that's open to possibilities and solutions, as simply looking repeatedly with increasing intensity will usually lead to many frustrating round trip tours of the original problem.

Bottom line....... Stay positive, be optimistic, and avoid repeating the same fruitless efforts with a belief that trying harder will get you to better.