Parents Stubborn Gymnast!

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Beetle is having a pretty good summer so far. She is training 5 days a week and showing some progress on L9 skills. We are still up in the air if she will compete L8 or L9 ( I think we will do another year of L8 but dont want her to stop uptraining)

She is stumped on BHS BHS on high beam. She will do them all day on the low beam. Put her up on the high beam and she does bhs, (swing arms) bhs. She will lose the connection bonus. We both know it is a mental challenge, not a physical challenge. She just needs to 'go for it'.

She 'refuses' to work progressions. She just wants to DO IT.. Her coaches and other teammates are trying to help her and telling her to put big blocks under the high beam, then work the skills there. Once she gets the connection she can remove the blocks.

It seems logical to me... but she said "I hate progressions, I know I just need to do it, so why would progressions help - at some point I am going to be right back here on high beam in the same position?" I can see her point, but it is very frustrating to see her get upset because she wont 'just go for it'. I feel like she needs to have some small victories to gain confidence. But I dont know what those would be without progressions.

She is getting more and more stubborn about the whole thing. To the point where she doesnt even want to warm up on low beam any longer. She just does the same thing over and over on high beam. BHS.. swing arms... BHS... I think it is almost getting worse since she has been doing this for 2 weeks now. I think the muscle memory is kicking in..

Anyone have any thoughts on how I can help her see progressions as a good thing? That she isnt giving in, or moving backward?

Thanks in advance!
 
How frustrating for her. I know our coach sometimes says to girls if you keep practising it wrong you will learn to do it wrong. Something to do with teaching the muscle memory so she does need to practise with the connection on floor or low beam abit. her coaches probably need to work out a plan with her. Hope she cracks it soon.
 
Hmmm...sounds a little like my dd but the reverse!!! What made Dani do her BHS on floor by herself was the progressions. So she understands how important they are. What also helped Dani was watching a videotape of the skill. To her it didn't look that hard so it prompted her to try it at the gym. Maybe you can find some video on youtube and have her watch it over and over again.

Since she is adamant about doing the skill without the progressions, then maybe you need to tell her, "Ok you have 2 chances to do the series on high beam. If you hesitate or balk at the 3rd attempt, you must come down and do the series on a lower beam." Like you said, you don't want the muscle memory of the bad habits sinking in and creating more of an issue. I know how frustrating this can be so just hang in there.
 
There was a level 8/9 gymnasts at my daughters gym with the same problem. Her coach tricked her and said lets work on 3 part combo. Had her put a back walkover in between her two bhs for a week. She did some other 3 part combos too. The next week she said lets try just back tucks. The next day she said okay do bhs bhs. She just did it. I think she got caught up in doing some other things for a while and she really didn't think about it when coach said now do it.

With my daughter and new skills on the beam she does her cop out fall a couple times first. Her coach is on to her now though lol. With her bhs she had a good fall and found out that she will survive. For her it's just knowing that she will survive.

Her struggle now is the bars - giants! AWW is all I can say. Any suggestions?
 
This situation sounds a little frustrating, I'd have a big chat to her about how the progressions teach her body what to do some it becomes natural and gets rid of fear and mental blocks. It seems like she may be embarrassed to go back to progressions on the drill because she see's it as something that people who 'can't do the skill', would do to teach them again. She needs to be encouraged to look at doing the progressions more like a warm up for the skill, to get her mind in the right place, rather than as something that people who are learning the skill do.

See if you can find other places in the gym where they use progressions to get their eye in, and their body ready before they do a skill. Like practicing their back handsprings on floor before going to beam, like doing handstands before tumbling, like holding body shapes before going to bars, like doing kip-cast to handstand drills before doing full bar routines.
 
The idea of putting in a third skill like a BWO is a great idea.
 
In dd's gym what they do is what you mentioned, they will stack mats on the high beam and as they gain confidence they peel away the mats until basically it is just the high beam.

You know that she can do it, she just has to build the confidence in herself to do it. By stripping away the mats she would be building confidence. She's right she will eventually be faced with just the high beam, but she will be coming at it with a newfound confidence so it really will be a different situation!

GL
 
Yeah, my girls are all about the progression too--they may know that they can do it on the low beam, so high beam shouldn't be a big deal, but it IS and the progression with mats, etc. helps!
 
kristilyn - Just wondering how beetle is doing? Has she made any progress with her series? Hope she is over the bubble on this one...

Give an update if you can!
 
Thanks everyone for your replies.. no real change. Although, I was able to finally say " you do it your way for x amount more days... if it doesn't work... you do it with progressions" she was okay with that.

Keep your fingers crossed and send some open minded fairies her way! LOL
 

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