My daughter just finished her level 4 season and is now starting on level 5. She works out 3 ½ hours 3 days a week. The last half and hour is conditioning. The last thing she does is a pike hold and a straddle hold on parallets with her feet rose over a panel mat. On her 30 second straddle hold her feet dropped at 29 seconds. Her coach accused her of cheating. Then she stayed after to do 10 more 30 second straddle holds and 10 more 30 second pike holds. Her teammates came and got me because she was in the locker room and she could not stop crying. She said her stomach hurt and she could not feel her legs. This is a girl that does not cry.
She worked out for 2 weeks with a broken growth plate and only complained to me when away from practice. When the doctor put her in a boot she was dropped from tops testing. She begged to take the boot off until after the testing was done. (Of course, I said, “no wayâ€.)
I am not sure it was the pain or the humiliation and anger. She says she did not cheat; she just accidentally dropped her legs a half a second too early. Her teammates said she did not cheat. Her coach says she could have pushed through. Now her work out requires that she does double holds until her coach decides otherwise. My daughter, who once loved gymnastics, wants to quit. She says it’s all because of this coach, and that she should be fired. In the last week she has had other problems with her. She cannot quite do two full rope climbs in a pike. So she does 1 ½ and then comes back and does a full. The other day on her second full she was one pull from the top when she slipped. She caught herself, and came down. Her coach’s only response was, “now you have another half.†Also, she did what looked like beautiful leg lifts. Her legs were straight, her toes were pointed. But she had to do extra because at the end the girls have to touch their toes to the bar and hold. When she did the hold, her toes were too high. My daughter would not be this first girl driven away by this coach.
I am sorry that I am rambling. Please, any feedback would be nice. If this is just good coaching, please let me know. Thanks.