WAG When the gymnast can't stay on the beam...

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Thank you all, for the encouraging words and empathy! I feel so so so sorry for this poor kid. She has not been mine for that long, but her former coaches have shared her past with me. I have talked to her former coaches all year and they all sympathize. It's so weird that this kid is so talented and confident on the other 3 events but on beam everything goes crazy. I mean, this kid is like a shining star on vault. I think that she has very good change to make it to the finals in the Nationals, maybe even medal there. And that would be huge since she only practices about 15-18 hours a week, we are a small club in the middle of nowhere and she has never had a professional coach. She has very good chance to get to the finals on floor also. Her double back is crazy high. I'm 164 cm tall and when I try to spot her on floor on the double backs, I can't touch her with my arm up and standing on my toes! Her twists are straight from a schoolbook, she does double twist and 540. And full twist forward. (She competed with a watered down floor routine in the qualifications because the competition floor was so bad and we didn't want to risk her vault, which was after the floor. She was still 4th with only a full twist and 540 and front layout).

I can only say that she's awesome. Lands the tumbles and vaults like a professional. I'm almost on the edge of asking mercy from our national gymnastics federation. But I know what they would say to a small club like ours. They never make exceptions. They don't care if they lose good kids in the process as long as they don't come from those few "professional" clubs.

We will definitely do the team challenge. And I could try giving her a assignment that JBS suggested, but I can't keep her on beam that long since we have very strict rotation schedule and have only 2 high beams so the other groups would go crazy if she kept one beam for 2 hours.

I can also try to distract her at competition like eucoach suggested. I could make her play a word game on her phone with me, I know that she likes to play this one particular game.

One day she was talking with her teammates about how she would love it if beam didn't exist. She pointed out that if that would not be possible, she would eliminate the requirement of the acro series. It might be the one to make her feel the most anxious. Her acro series now is just cartwheel-round off and she's not scared of it, it's an easy skill, but she's super anxious about having a wobble in between the skills OR falling from the RO. Not having acro series would automatically mean no mobility score for her.
 
Thank you all, for the encouraging words and empathy! I feel so so so sorry for this poor kid. She has not been mine for that long, but her former coaches have shared her past with me. I have talked to her former coaches all year and they all sympathize. It's so weird that this kid is so talented and confident on the other 3 events but on beam everything goes crazy. I mean, this kid is like a shining star on vault. I think that she has very good change to make it to the finals in the Nationals, maybe even medal there. And that would be huge since she only practices about 15-18 hours a week, we are a small club in the middle of nowhere and she has never had a professional coach. She has very good chance to get to the finals on floor also. Her double back is crazy high. I'm 164 cm tall and when I try to spot her on floor on the double backs, I can't touch her with my arm up and standing on my toes! Her twists are straight from a schoolbook, she does double twist and 540. And full twist forward. (She competed with a watered down floor routine in the qualifications because the competition floor was so bad and we didn't want to risk her vault, which was after the floor. She was still 4th with only a full twist and 540 and front layout).

I can only say that she's awesome. Lands the tumbles and vaults like a professional. I'm almost on the edge of asking mercy from our national gymnastics federation. But I know what they would say to a small club like ours. They never make exceptions. They don't care if they lose good kids in the process as long as they don't come from those few "professional" clubs.

We will definitely do the team challenge. And I could try giving her a assignment that JBS suggested, but I can't keep her on beam that long since we have very strict rotation schedule and have only 2 high beams so the other groups would go crazy if she kept one beam for 2 hours.

I can also try to distract her at competition like eucoach suggested. I could make her play a word game on her phone with me, I know that she likes to play this one particular game.

One day she was talking with her teammates about how she would love it if beam didn't exist. She pointed out that if that would not be possible, she would eliminate the requirement of the acro series. It might be the one to make her feel the most anxious. Her acro series now is just cartwheel-round off and she's not scared of it, it's an easy skill, but she's super anxious about having a wobble in between the skills OR falling from the RO. Not having acro series would automatically mean no mobility score for her.

Another thing I've been wondering is....how are her falls? A skill is never perfect if the gymnast falls. There is always a technical mistake. Sometimes the technique goes out the window when a gymnast is nervous and sometimes the technique is never correct - the gymnast just makes the skill in practice because they don't feel pressure. You need to figure out which one it is. Also, you need to figure out which parts of the skills go wrong. Maybe she is always setting up sloppily because she is nervous. Or maybe she is hesitant in her landings because of that. I hope it's not always a different issue. ;-)

And finally.....is it possible that she is feeling the pressure to make it to Nationals because she is from a smaller club? Even if no one is articulating it, she might be picking up on it. Ask her if she actually feels up to competing at Nationals if she qualifies or if she'd rather not go even if she qualifies! It might take the pressure off her if she can decide not to go...
 
She has never had "ugly" falls. She just lands a little off balanced and almost like jumps down. Usually she looks like she's not fighting to stay on. I always keep asking her to fight, fight and fight to stay on, not just jump off when she feels like she didn't land the skill perfectly. The skills she is having falls on are full turn, round off, switch leap, split jump. She has fell from a BHS but not this season, I think. The skills are very different, with very different landings. She also has wobbles in between her leap series and acro series, which means losing the CR. And when she knows she lost the CR, she falls down even more. She has a back up plan if she misses the connection in her leap series (she can do split jump - wolf jump) but if she misses the cartwheel - RO the game is over.

She already made it to the Nationals. She really wants to go and it's a separate competition where she competes under the FIG junior rules. We don't care if she falls there. It's her first Nationals so there is no pressure to do well. The pressure is on other competitions, where she competes in the elite stream entry level. And those levels require the 7,5 E score and 5 CRs met on each event during the same season. So iif she doesn't get the beam mobility score she will have to repeate this (easy) level for the third time. She hit all the other mobility scores in her her first meet of the season and has hit them all at every meet meet after that. It's like looking a USAG level 8-9 gymnast compete level 6/7 over and over again without the permission to move up.
 
Today she had her second last change to get that mobility score down. But, surprise surprise, she fell again twice. Two of her teammates got their last mobility score so she is the last one in her level who will not move up.

Beam was the first event and after it she was completely crushed!!! It was devastating. I can't even tell you how sad she looked. She had floor next, and because she has Nationals next weekend she needed to do her double back to get experience. She was such a poor thing and we even thought about scratching her on floor. But she wanted to do it, and she did awesome and did her first ever double back in a competition, and it was super high again! I was SO proud of of her for putting her head back in the game right after possibly the worst dissappointment of her life. And she finished strong on other events too, and all the coaches kept coming to us and ger complimenting her and asking what the heck she does in such a low level?!

This sport is crazy hard. I feel so so bad for her. I hope that she can put her game face back on next weekend for Nationals. She will have her last level 2 competition in June. I texted her mom and asked her not to talk about the beam to her today. And I strongly recommended reconsidering that sport psychologist thing.
 
No they haven't. I guess that they think that accepting that their kid needs help from a psychologist would mean that there is something mentally wrong in their daughter. I don't know. I have to ask again.

I don't know if the mother took it well when I texted her from the competition arena yesterday after the kid had expressed how she does not want to talk about the beam with her parents. I kind of overheard her conversation with her teammate (they were talking about how irritating it is to have a long car ride back home after a horrible meet when the parents want to talk and they don't) and I needed to step in, because I wanted to make sure that the kid understood that she doesn't have to explain anything to anyone, or analyze her performance, or come up with reasons why she fell again. I told her that this is her sport and she doesn't have to talk about it if she's not willing to and if she doesn't find it helpful. After that I texted her mom and kindly asked her not to talk about the beam after the meet with her. And I also pointed out how awesome her daughter was for rocking the floor and the rest of the meet after that horrible disappointment and failure. She answered me that she understood and was planning not to talk about it. After the meet she just warmly hugged, kissed and complimented her daughter and said nothing about the beam.

Her mother is lovely person and I think their family is awesome in general. They have two daughters in my group and the parents are very loving and caring. They are very involved in the club. They don't seem like people who put pressure on their kids on purpose.

Yesterday was the happiest day for two of her teammates, and they were both super excited after their beam routines because they had hit the mobility score and were now allowed to move up. After beam the 4 other gymnasts were all smiling and happy for the ones who did well and this one girl was sitting on the floor far from them alone. I know her teammates felt horrible for her and didn't know what to do. When she went to warm up her double, I talked to her team mates and asked them to show her that they love her and care about her no matter what. They did very good job cheering her up and I was so proud of them for having the courage to face the situation where they knew they had no words to comfort her. They were very mature and lovely for doing so good job handling the situation so sensitively. They gave her space but made themselves available and showed her that they care about her. I think these are the life lessons that we all talk about, the life lessons that they will take with them and use later in life.
 
Sounds like my daughter! She’s always telling me how she sticks 4/5 or 5/5 at practice but then in the last 3 competitions has fallen twice on beam. In her latest comp it meant she narrowly missed the score to move up a level so was heartbroken. Before this I’d mentioned talking to a pyschocologist about her nerves but she’d refused, she’s now come round to the idea.

I do hope you can help this gymnast, I know how hard it is when they start beating themselves up about it.
 
Now the mother called me, and we had a long conversation. She said that she had a talk with the gymnast about the sports psychologist but the gymnast said she doesn't want to go, at least not right now. They had talked about strategies she could use to hold her nerves.

The mother said that she will try to talk about the psychologist again after the competition season ends. The gymnast didn't knock the idea completely out, so the mother is willing to try to talk to her again later.

Now we will focus on the Nationals, that are on Friday. The mother told me that she's very excited to go and compete there, not nervous at all.
 
This is finally the update I always wanted to write!!! She STAYED ON THE BEAM! It was the last competition of the season and somehow she did it. I don't know how. At the last practice before this comp she started to cry because she was so upset and anxious. She never cries, so this was a big thing. Maybe it helped her process her feelings somehow.

Now she stayed on the beam and didn't even wobble. She actually placed 4th on beam and her score was something like 3 points higher than her previoud record. Now she is officially level 3! Yayyyy! We could not be more proud. This is the happy ending that we never saw coming.
 
This is finally the update I always wanted to write!!! She STAYED ON THE BEAM! It was the last competition of the season and somehow she did it. I don't know how. At the last practice before this comp she started to cry because she was so upset and anxious. She never cries, so this was a big thing. Maybe it helped her process her feelings somehow.

Now she stayed on the beam and didn't even wobble. She actually placed 4th on beam and her score was something like 3 points higher than her previoud record. Now she is officially level 3! Yayyyy! We could not be more proud. This is the happy ending that we never saw coming.
What an amazing update! I am SO happy for her!
 
This is finally the update I always wanted to write!!! She STAYED ON THE BEAM! It was the last competition of the season and somehow she did it. I don't know how. At the last practice before this comp she started to cry because she was so upset and anxious. She never cries, so this was a big thing. Maybe it helped her process her feelings somehow.

Now she stayed on the beam and didn't even wobble. She actually placed 4th on beam and her score was something like 3 points higher than her previoud record. Now she is officially level 3! Yayyyy! We could not be more proud. This is the happy ending that we never saw coming.
That is amazing news! She must be absolutely thrilled! Way to go to both of you for sticking with it and not giving up, this is such a very well deserved victory!
 
This is finally the update I always wanted to write!!! She STAYED ON THE BEAM! It was the last competition of the season and somehow she did it. I don't know how. At the last practice before this comp she started to cry because she was so upset and anxious. She never cries, so this was a big thing. Maybe it helped her process her feelings somehow.

Now she stayed on the beam and didn't even wobble. She actually placed 4th on beam and her score was something like 3 points higher than her previoud record. Now she is officially level 3! Yayyyy! We could not be more proud. This is the happy ending that we never saw coming.
This gave me goosebumps! Congratulations to your gymnast and to you!!
 
Wow!!! Yay! Congratulations to all of you. You have done a great job supporting her. Thanks for the update.
 
Oh my. It's incredibly good to read that post! I think we have all been suffering along with your gymnast here. I hope you had opportunity to celebrate accordingly. Conquering her fear under such pressure is so impressive, she must feel invincible now!
I can immage that it'll go uphill from here :)
 
This is finally the update I always wanted to write!!! She STAYED ON THE BEAM! It was the last competition of the season and somehow she did it. I don't know how. At the last practice before this comp she started to cry because she was so upset and anxious. She never cries, so this was a big thing. Maybe it helped her process her feelings somehow.

Now she stayed on the beam and didn't even wobble. She actually placed 4th on beam and her score was something like 3 points higher than her previoud record. Now she is officially level 3! Yayyyy! We could not be more proud. This is the happy ending that we never saw coming.
Holy cow, what a roller coaster! But these kinds of experiences end up teaching us a whole lot, don't they? Heck, I actually learned some things reading your post! Thank you so much for sharing; I may have let out a loud "YES!" upon reading your update! :D :p

I'd also like to say you are a fantastic coach for sticking with her and showing her that you are always on her side, and for fostering a wonderful atmosphere with all the other athletes; it seems like you've created a real sisterhood in your gym. The sport needs more coaches like you who will push it forward into a new era where positive cultures are the norm. I just wish your national federation had better qualifying procedures! o_O
 

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