Do you think it is ok to cry?

[gymnast4life1032]

So I have a HUGE meet next week and so when I was a practice today and I kept putting more and more pressure on myself to get the skills perfectly and I was doing really badly and I started to cry because I just could not get the easy skills I usually get and I fuss traded with myself and I got to go back tomorrow and I hope it will go better then today, so like I said I am just really upset with myslef. So do you think is is ok to cry at practice?

 

[Kendahl08]

Well I see why you would cry. Its has to be very frustrating not to get the easy skills yesterday I couldn’t even do a forward dive roll.
Its really hard for me to say if you should cry or not. I raised in a family where emotions are better kept to your self. When I was 4 I was pushed to play classical piano daily and I wanted to cry but was under the impression that it would make me look weak and my family wouldn’t love me. What i would say is just hold it in and let it out without tears. I scream (really load) try harder and harder if that fails me I hang upside down on the bar and clear my mind. Meditation always helps. To find a part of you that calms you into doing better will make you a better gymnast.

 

[Robindq]

i think it is fine, as long as you don't cry like every practice. There's lots of pressure on you, everyone has those days when they feel like they can't do anything, I'm sure it was just an off practice. Just go into practice positive tomorrow and I'm sure you will do better.

 

[NYgymfan]

I like Robin's advice.

I think it is OK to cry once in a while. Sometimes girls in my gym do. Its bad to hold your emotions in. But you can't let it consume you. So if you are always crying, thats bad, but once in a while is ok.

 

[Rosalie]

i think it is fine, as long as you don't cry like every practice. There's lots of pressure on you, everyone has those days when they feel like they can't do anything, I'm sure it was just an off practice. Just go into practice positive tomorrow and I'm sure you will do better.

I think that too

 

[Aussie_coach]

It is totally ok to cry during practise, crying isn't a sign of weakness it is a sign of strength. You only cry about things you are truly passionate about, if you didn't care so much about your gymnastics you wouldn't cry and if you didnt have such high expectations of yourself you wouldn't cry. So it is a sign that you are a passionate gymnasts who puts full effort into everything you do.

 

[Valentin]

Hi

I don't believe that crying is ok. Clearly there are occasions where crying is ok.. when you are injured, and require to stop practice. (However even than crying actually makes things worse) its acceptable to a degree with nasty (non injuring) falls eg of a beam, you hurt yourself, it hurts..so you shead a tear, but you quickly get back up. However crying because you are under pressure from yourself or someone else is NOT! good reason!.
1- Emotions under pressure situation usually result in lack of focus. Just cause you crying and you want to do better doesn't mean that you are actually focused on doing anything better. You are essentially feeling sorry for yourself. This does not actually help you.. you become the proverbial...'crying mess'. Have you ever seen peiple doing illogical things when they are crying?? haha yeah you have...so why would crying help you to become better?
2- It is a sign that you are not able to control your emotions. This means that you are liable to collapse under pressure situations.. Imagine you are last on beam to perform at big meet, you cannot afford a fall, if you do its over, if you dont its a sure win. What do YOU focus on? The pressure? well if you do its clear what will happen to you, you will become emotional, your thoughts will be impaired, your muscle will get tight and you will end up focusing on the outcomes, and the uncontrollables. This is great recipe for falling and failure. If on the other hand during trainings you have taken such situations where pressure is crushing you and you have used it to condition yourself to regain composure, stabilize your breathing, control your heart rate, and focus on the task "which is the skill or combination you have to do NOW! in the moment" than you are much much!!! more likely stay on and win. Mental conditioning

Just because crying is natural doesn't mean you should do it. There is a difference between crying because genuinely need to, and between crying for the sakes of crying. It may seem harsh, but the fact is that in trainings EVERYTHING! is practice. You fall of the beam you hurt yourself (bad scrape). Do you get back up? or do you go to the corner and sob for 10-15min till you feel better? Those that get back up go on to accomplish much better results, because they are mentally tougher, they are prepared for such situation when they arise.

I am not advocating that you bottle emotions, but learn to control them, rather than have them control you. Do what you need to do first! finish it and than resolve your emotive issues. talk to the coach fix the problem. Crying has never helped anyone learning anything new i tell you that much, you have to get up there and do it, crying or no crying (no crying prefered).

Try to teach yourself and develop self-coaching strategies to regain your composure. DO NOT!!!!! focus on outcomes! BIGGESTS mistake!.. Focus on the TASK! that you can control. eg... in a beam dismount... don't focus on the stick, on the no wobbles, on what the judges are going to say, and mark. Focus on how to do it correctly and what you can and must do in order to perform the skill correctly. Its clear how this approach focuses on the performance rather than the uncontrolllabe outcome. Just like in your case..you are focusing on doing the skill at a meet..but you are at training WHY! are you focusing on something in the future that you cannot control. That is an example of you being there but your mind is somewhere else. Of course you can't do the simple things that you can normaly.. you are not focused!.
I tell my kids DON'T TRY, FOCUS!. Trying is an excuse for lack of result. Its a safety blanket in order not to take responsibility for lack of focus. If humans were like machines and could 100% focus on what needed accomplishing..we would improve in everything that needs practice SO MUCH faster... but we are not, and thus we need to condition the mind to learn to focus.

In short cry after its over, that is a sign of a strong athlete. Learn to mentally disassociate all negative toughs during the performance, and focus on task. All the way until its over.

 

[maddiekate]

This is the gymnasts forum. You can create a parallel thread in the coach's forum if you want to put your $.02 in. Thank you.

Personally I don't think it is ok to cry at gymnastics unless you are injured. I have only cried once at gymnastics and I was pretty embarrassed.
I think one of the reasons that I think crying at gymnastics is dumb is because a few years ago there was a girl on my team who cried all the time just to get attention. Whenever she was having trouble with a skill she would just sit on the floor and start to cry. It really got on everyone's nerves.

 

[tumblerK]

For the most part we are all young teenage girls. Sometimes crying is unavoidable and we can't control our emotions. It's one of the lovely joys of growing up. Most often it's due to frustration, a sign that we are putting everything we have into what we are trying to do.

I've been known to cry at practice once in a while, usually around competition season. I realized after my coach left I didn't cry for a long time, and I found that I would cry when she would come back and coach for a day because she knew me really well and pushed me a lot harder than my other coaches because she knew me better.

Crying out of frustration means that you are putting out everything you've got, and as growing girls it's bound to happen once in a while. As long as there's a fairly good reason for it, crying at practice is okay.

 

[sgnsp235]

I agree with tumblerk
And I think its better to get all of your frustration and crying out in practice, rather than have it come out in the middle of a meet
And like robin said, you were probably just having an off day
As long as it doesnt become a habit/every day thing, I dont think its a problem

 

[Epomanic]

In moderation

Everyone cries sometimes especially under the high levels of stress gymnastics requires! Don't let it get you down. However try to keep it to a minimum, just because lots of tears can negatively effect your teammates. Also I've seen girls cry in the middle of competition and it really brought down their level of performance! In moderation, however, some expression of emotion is only human.

 

[gym4life915]

Everybody gets frustrated every now and then and sometimes the water works just turn on. But if you do begin to cry at practice don't make a big deal about it. Also don't put so much pressure on yourself for the meet...take it one skill at a time and you'll do fine.
My coaches say that we can only cry at meets when were hurt. They don't want us to be crying over getting bad scores. Wen people cry over one event they feel like giving up on the rest of the events. Just remember the you can't change the past so give the future all you've got.

 

[Kendahl08]

This is the gymnasts forum. You can create a parallel thread in the coach's forum if you want to put your $.02 in. Thank you.

Personally I don't think it is ok to cry at gymnastics unless you are injured. I have only cried once at gymnastics and I was pretty embarrassed.
I think one of the reasons that I think crying at gymnastics is dumb is because a few years ago there was a girl on my team who cried all the time just to get attention. Whenever she was having trouble with a skill she would just sit on the floor and start to cry. It really got on everyone's nerves.

Oh, please don't be rude .The question was for everyone. Yes Valentin's answer was almost a rant and very long but he gave his opinion. Thought it doesn’t seem like a very bad idea for Valentin to open up a forum thread of his own to his "2cents" can be further explored, and commented on.

 

[nicci1999]

I think it's ok to cry, but as everyone else said, don't turn it into a big production of screaming and sobbing. A few tears of frustration is acceptable, it happens with almost everything, school, gymnastics, even work sometimes, and for some of you girls and guys, gymnastics is a full time job. If you need to take a few minutes at practice, shed a few tears, have a sip of your water, and compose yourself, then by all means, there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[CookieBarn]

Unfortunatly, I am easily upset with stuff at practice. Some advice is that is you do cry on the first or second event (early in practice) don't let that hold you back, because I did and I wish I hadn't. Sometimes I still cry at practices, but, overall, it's not the best thing. If you can, wait until you get home or something.

 

[gym_girl]

Oh, please don't be rude .The question was for everyone. Yes Valentin's answer was almost a rant and very long but he gave his opinion. Thought it doesn’t seem like a very bad idea for Valentin to open up a forum thread of his own to his "2cents" can be further explored, and commented on.

i agree !

 

[ShootingStaRr]

When you get frustrated, try writing down your emotions.
or write poetry about how your feeling.

When you are doing your routines, don't think about getting everything perfect as this puts unnecessary pressure on you ! just think of a few things to try and fix at a time.

I think that crying in practise is o.k in moderation but not all the time. Sometimes it can't be helped, we're all human! when you get annoyed take a deep breath count to 10 and try again.

hope this helps

 

[meng.luvs.gym]

look, dont stress so much. our coach only allows us to cry when we hurt ourselves but its ok to cry. its all part of gymnastics. just before a comp i had a mental breakdown but i had a reasonably good comp. everyday is a new day so no matter what your practice was like the day before, the next day will be different. make a fresh start.

 

[toriluvsgym0618]

I try not to cry becus i hav a hard time expressing my emotions and saying how i feel. But sumtimes wen i hav to cry i go to the bathroom and cry in there. i no it sounds silly. but i get embaressed wen people see me cry. unless i get hurt or sumthing.

 

[JennMene]

I have to say that while I agree with Coach Valentin, sometimes crying is unavoidable. However I do not think that crying under the circumstances that you described is ever "ok". Because you are frustrated already, crying is only going to further hinder your ability to do a skill correctly. If you become that frustrated before a meet, what will happen if you have a fall at the meet - will you go to the next event thinking about the fall previously? If you do, you will surely have a bad meet.

Taking control of our emotions is an important lesson that every female gymnast has to learn. In the teenage years, that can be quite a bit more difficult than it seems, but nevertheless it is important to the development of proper gymnastics.

If you are having an off day at practice, try taking a few moments to refocus yourself. Go get a drink of water and sit for a few minutes. Don't think about how frustrated you are - instead, picture the skill you are attempting in your mind, and picture how it is meant to be done in detail. Sometimes this can refocus your mind and you can have an easier time at practice. Letting yourself get so upset that you feel you need to cry is not good for your gymnastics or your emotional health.