Okay, so if you had a coach who asked a girl to do a skill 100 times, and at the completion she was told "You did them all wrong. Do them again." would you consider that firm or negative? If this was a girl who regularly slacked, I would say firm... but this girl really doesn't slack. My opinion is that if she was going them wrong, she should have been stopped and corrected in the beginning so that the first 100 would be correct. If she did indeed do the 100 wrong (and I highly doubt the coach watched the entire set), why was she allowed to continue them incorrectly? How did that benefit her? I think it likely had the opposite effect... doing something 100 times wrong probably taught her body to do it wrong.
Opinions?
I just ordered a dvd on positive coaching that I hope will help. Any resources you might recommend would be appreciated.
And any additional thoughts on the conditioning issue are appreciated as well. I agree that the coaches are excited and they definitely are doing what they are doing to help the girls be better, stronger gymnasts. Their hearts are in the right place, no doubt. But if the conditioning is too much, too soon and it kills their love of the sport, then it's not helping them.
Thanks!