WAG no progress - fear, lack of ability or personal stop?

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sportymom

I have a problem with my
niece, who currently lives with is because her dad works abroad and her mom is currently in hospital due to a slipped disk surgery. So she will stay with us for at least 2 months.
My niece Annie is already 14 years old. She has been a dancer and a swimmer from age 5-10, had half a year break and started gymnastics at age 11. So she is doing it for 3 years and is a Level 7. She is the best "looking" gymnast on her team. She hasn't the hardest skills, but her form is really good and she is also the strongest.
Today she talked to me about her current problem and I thought I am going to ask you!

This is what Annie told me:
When she was in the lower Levels (L4,5) floor was her favourite. Skills came quite easy to her. But after she learned RO BH BL and FL FT, she couldn't do more she said. On air track, she can do a back and a front twist and most of the time lands it. But not on floor, she is too afraid that she would mess up and get injures because she has seen many injuries on twists.

Beam was and is something that comes pretty easy to her and needs very little training. She is precise with all her skills, so a BHS or BT was not really a problem and the dance stuff isn't too hard! But she is afraid of BHS BHS.

On VT she can do FH, a tsukahara into pit and she can do a yurchenko with a spot into pit. But she is afraid of landing both.

Bars is now her favourites. She can do giants, free hips and stalders to handstand and a half pirouette (so pretty much the L8 routine). But front giants, harder release moves and double back dismounts also scare her.

She is so unsure now if she should continue ot not. Her RO BH BL on floor is good, but she is afraid of twisting! Same with the other events. She always wanted to get to Level 8.

She is a bit confused why her favourite event makes so many problems at the moment.
She also talked with her coach and she meant that maybe - because she has not the same gymnastics experience like the other girls - it hasn't become second nature for her yet and so she is afraid of twisting and vaulting.

What is your experience with that? Can twisting and landing a harder vault like a tsuk or a yuri be a point where some gymnasts stop?
I see and understand that doing a BHS Series is hard and scary.
Same for harder skills on bars.
But is back twisting really a lot harder than a layout? (I always thought that this was pretty easy!)
Is landing a tsuk or a yuri really so much harder than into pit?

I would appeeciate all your answers!
 
I'm a bit confused as to why you think/your niece thinks she has a problem Doesn't sound like it to me. I can compare it fairly easily to our situation:

My daughter has also been doing gymnastics for coming up to three years and, from the sounds of it, they are on very similar skills. Twisting also took her longer than some of the others - front twisting she found ok, but back twisting she struggled with to start. She definitely found it much harder than a layout. She also struggled with bhs bhs on beam - just had too big a pause between them for what seemed like ages. She's finding aerials easier!

All of the skills just take a bit longer these days. Gone are the days of three new skills in a week and we're more on a steady progress with occasional big firsts schedule. I think that's normal at this level. So it's hard to tell whether any skills will be 'the one' that stops progress or is just taking longer.

So similar situation but in contrast I think she has done brilliantly in such a short time and she thinks she's done pretty well too. Most of the girls at her level have been doing gymnastics much longer. Her coaches think she's progressed very well. No-one thinks she should be going any quicker!!

And my daughter has the advantage of being younger - she was around her 7th birthday when she started and will be 10 in three months, so she hasn't had to deal with the natural fear and awareness of danger yet and the horrible hormones are only just starting.

To do all that between the ages of 10 and 14 just sounds really great to me. Fast progress and good skills. No way I would be thinking she should give up unless she is no longer enjoying it.
 
No twisting is required at L8. There are other ways to satisfy the value parts. DD had a couple of her teammates who did not twist at L8 last year and scored very well. There may be a small up to level deduction but clean routines can score very well still.

Has she had recent growth spurt? That can throw a gymnast off.
 
I'm a bit confused as to why you think/your niece thinks she has a problem Doesn't sound like it to me. I can compare it fairly easily to our situation:

My daughter has also been doing gymnastics for coming up to three years and, from the sounds of it, they are on very similar skills. Twisting also took her longer than some of the others - front twisting she found ok, but back twisting she struggled with to start. She definitely found it much harder than a layout. She also struggled with bhs bhs on beam - just had too big a pause between them for what seemed like ages. She's finding aerials easier!

All of the skills just take a bit longer these days. Gone are the days of three new skills in a week and we're more on a steady progress with occasional big firsts schedule. I think that's normal at this level. So it's hard to tell whether any skills will be 'the one' that stops progress or is just taking longer.

So similar situation but in contrast I think she has done brilliantly in such a short time and she thinks she's done pretty well too. Most of the girls at her level have been doing gymnastics much longer. Her coaches think she's progressed very well. No-one thinks she should be going any quicker!!

And my daughter has the advantage of being younger - she was around her 7th birthday when she started and will be 10 in three months, so she hasn't had to deal with the natural fear and awareness of danger yet and the horrible hormones are only just starting.

To do all that between the ages of 10 and 14 just sounds really great to me. Fast progress and good skills. No way I would be thinking she should give up unless she is no longer enjoying it.

Hm I guess you are right! Maybe she is a little spoiled because in the past skills came so quickly!

But is it true that twisting really takes some work? My DD will start twisting soon and I always thought that it won't take longer than from back tuck to layout... it tool DD from
tuck to a good layout maybe 4 months. so just that I can be prepared: How long does it usually take from layout to twist?
 
No twisting is required at L8. There are other ways to satisfy the value parts. DD had a couple of her teammates who did not twist at L8 last year and scored very well. There may be a small up to level deduction but clean routines can score very well still.

Has she had recent growth spurt? That can throw a gymnast off.

Oh ok, didn't know that! Yes, she grew like 3 inches in the last months...
 
^^^^^ that will make a huge difference. That's what I meant by the age thing - she's handling a lot of changes in her body and learning skills hard skills :)

In answer to our question - it seemed to take my dd no time at all to get her layout (straight back). In fact she found it easier than a tuck and her coach had her move on pretty quickly because she wasn't tucking neatly/tightly enough and her tucks looked more like pikes and her pikes looked more like straights and so a straight seemed natural. It looked as though it took a week, but obviously there had been drills - landing on tummy on a stack of matts and so on for while, so hard to say for sure.

Twisting took a lot longer - maybe three or four months. Although she got her front twist in a session :confused:. So very hard to tell! There's a girl in her group who took a while to get a decent layout and it still needs warming up a few times to get the form, but she seemed to be twisting overnight and went from half twist to a lovely full twist in a couple of sessions, literally.

No two are the same. That's all you can know for sure. She'll get there.
 
I think that you can't say that a girl who went from zero to level 7 in 3 years is stagnating in any way. Yes, skills come slower at this level... for everybody but especially for those who are a little older. My DD is a 13-year-old level 8 (who has been doing gymnastics for 8 years, btw) and progress has slowed to a crawl. Even crawling might be a little fast to be the correct analogy. Maybe more like dragging itself along the floor. Like your niece, once she gets something she makes it look beautiful, but gosh it has become slow going. As you said, your niece is used to things coming easily and it's just not going to happen from here on out. She has to decide if she loves gymnastics enough to stick with it when it's not easy, because it will likely never be easy again.
 
honestly first off, back twisting is weird and confusing. I'm just now starting to do halfs and I've been doing LOs for almost a year. Once you get it though, it stays with you.
 
I have a problem with my
niece, who currently lives with is because her dad works abroad and her mom is currently in hospital due to a slipped disk surgery. So she will stay with us for at least 2 months.
My niece Annie is already 14 years old. She has been a dancer and a swimmer from age 5-10, had half a year break and started gymnastics at age 11. So she is doing it for 3 years and is a Level 7. She is the best "looking" gymnast on her team. She hasn't the hardest skills, but her form is really good and she is also the strongest.
Today she talked to me about her current problem and I thought I am going to ask you!

This is what Annie told me:
When she was in the lower Levels (L4,5) floor was her favourite. Skills came quite easy to her. But after she learned RO BH BL and FL FT, she couldn't do more she said. On air track, she can do a back and a front twist and most of the time lands it. But not on floor, she is too afraid that she would mess up and get injures because she has seen many injuries on twists.

Beam was and is something that comes pretty easy to her and needs very little training. She is precise with all her skills, so a BHS or BT was not really a problem and the dance stuff isn't too hard! But she is afraid of BHS BHS.

On VT she can do FH, a tsukahara into pit and she can do a yurchenko with a spot into pit. But she is afraid of landing both.

Bars is now her favourites. She can do giants, free hips and stalders to handstand and a half pirouette (so pretty much the L8 routine). But front giants, harder release moves and double back dismounts also scare her.

She is so unsure now if she should continue ot not. Her RO BH BL on floor is good, but she is afraid of twisting! Same with the other events. She always wanted to get to Level 8.

She is a bit confused why her favourite event makes so many problems at the moment.
She also talked with her coach and she meant that maybe - because she has not the same gymnastics experience like the other girls - it hasn't become second nature for her yet and so she is afraid of twisting and vaulting.

What is your experience with that? Can twisting and landing a harder vault like a tsuk or a yuri be a point where some gymnasts stop?
I see and understand that doing a BHS Series is hard and scary.
Same for harder skills on bars.
But is back twisting really a lot harder than a layout? (I always thought that this was pretty easy!)
Is landing a tsuk or a yuri really so much harder than into pit?

I would appeeciate all your answers!

I am a Level 9 gymnast, and you basically described my situation after Level 7 verbatim. There are skills that your niece will be scared of, and there are some that will come easily for her. She just has to know to trust her body, her coaches, and her best judgement. If she sticks with it, she'll be fine. She won't be made to try any new hard skills without the proper preparation, i.e. drills and conditioning. Good luck to her!
 
As far as vault goes, yes, it is harder and scarier to land tusks and yuris than to do them in the pit. It is much easier to get injured landing them (ankles, knees, etc) than just doing them into the pit.
 
There is a measure of embarrassment when a person has managed to write themselves into a script that calls for grace and ease when suddenly after long term competence neither grace nor ease seems possible. The cause does not matter. What matters is how the impediments are overcome. Whether the impediment is fear or a shifting center of gravity it is important that the learning curve is bent in such a way that perpetuates the previous comfort zone of ease and grace. This is where the coaches come in. They need to be made aware of the gymnast's concerns so that the coaches can properly set up the conditioning, stretching, and lead-up drills which will maintain the gymnast's previous grace and ease of learning new skills. Over time a gymnast learns how to deal with acquiring new skills and new routines and reaching new levels. He/she learns what to expect from themselves concerning what it takes to make it to a threshold where fear or physical challenges are overcome and feel confident. Both the gymnast and the coaches need to work together to get to a point where confidence has been vetted.
 

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