Parents Cartwheel on beam fear..

[ollieblueeyes]

My dd is having trouble with her cartwheel on beam. She has it but split the beam about a year ago and is scared to try again. Any thoughts on getting past the fear?

 

[iwannacoach]

I honestly think the best thing is for her to do the skill in an setting that's safe yet challenging. Here's what I mean....... We all like to do things on our own terms and at a pace we set. If either the terms, or the pace are changed by some external force... like say a coach, or a supervisor at work, we react more often with negative thoughts than positive. I hope you followed that, because I'm going to turn that notion inside out just a bit.......

I like building confidence with a child by giving them increasingly difficult challenges. My favorite challenge is the number of repetitions in a 60 second interval, so lets say the kid gets told to do 6 cartwheels in the minute I'm watching, and that minute comes entirely without notice. Yeah, you're right, I must be crazy to do that to a kid, except this all starts on the floor beam where things are relatively safe. I add one repetition to that expectation each each week until they're up to 10 repetitions per minute times 4 sets.... so 40 per day at that point.

The neat thing is the kids get so winded they can hardly do anything for a minute or so after they're done, and that's when it sinks in. They realize that they can do the skill at a moments notice, while out of breath and on legs that are beginning to get a little shaky, all while being prodded by an impatient coach who wants it done with correct technique, and always in less time (of course the coach is very pleased and vocal about their fine efforts). By the time 5 weeks pass these four day a week kids will have done close to 650 cartwheels, and they're itching to move up to a medium beam where the number drops to 4 sets of 8 repetitions, and a few weeks after that they want to do them on the high beam where they only have to do 4 sets of 7..... just because I'm a real softy at heart.

This process, with numbers appropriate to the difficulty, works for all the basic, single movement tumbling skills right up to back handsprings, but not including the single foot take off skills with flight, like front and side aerials, kick over bhs. Those are bad ones to learn with shaky legs, so the numbers get cut by half, and more weeks are planned into the "process."

So urge you dear daughter to really "get after it" every chance she gets on the height of beam she's ok with. If she can bargain with the coach for a couple of warm-up turns "her best beam", she can try to get as many done as possible, and then she just may be ready before her coach has time to figure it all out.

 

[Aussie_coach]

Break it down to all the steps is
1. Cartwheel on floor
2. Cartwheel on foam beam
3. Cartwheel on low beam with mats over and around the beam
4. On low beam with mats around the beam
5. On low beam no mats
6. On high beam with mats under and over the beam and coach spot,
and so on until you have it on high beam on their own.

so,e people think its a waste of time to include the easiest steps like cartwheel on the floor, but it helps. The kids can see that they are not right at the beginning and have at least mastered quite a few steps. It also means they can see steps to progress even if they are petrified.

then get your Dd to say at which step she feels comfortable, go to the step and do a hundred until she feels comfortable to move on. If she gets to a point where she freezes, take it back to the last step she feel comfortable to do it.

 

[JMACAZ]

My daughter is facing the same fear, thanks for the suggestions. I think starting with the basics will work best for my DD.

 

[JoyAvenueMom]

DD just went through this. Had the cartwheel for 8 months, then split the beam two practices in row. Couldn't do the cartwheel for nearly 5 months. I don't see much of practice, but when I did see, dd would do perfect cartwheels on the floor beam and low beam. As soon as she went to mid-high beam, she started "cheating" and not hitting a full vertical. Obviously it was all mental. In the end, she did her cartwheel again when she was "ready". She can't tell me why, or what pushed her over the edge...but she had to decide on her own she was ready to do them again. There are lots of posts on this forum about fear, and I read tons of them, trying to decide if dd's career was coming to an end, LOL. (I thought, if you're too afraid to do a cartwheel on beam, there's no way you'll ever do really hard stuff). Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Learning to work through fears is truly a part of the process. More importantly, there was nothing I could do to help her. Doing a million cartwheels on the floor beam at home didn't help, nor did any of my "pep talks". In dd's case, I did schedule a private lesson with her L4 coach, who had taught her the skill originally. This coach claims she didn't do anything, but simply said, "get up there and do a cartwheel, we both know you can". So, it wasn't her magic coaching, but probably a strong desire for dd to please her old coach that did the trick. I'm sure your dd's cartwheel will return. Encourage her to focus on other skills in the meantime, the cartwheel just might get jealous and show up.

 

[ollieblueeyes]

Thanks for your suggestions! The cartwheel may be the only thing that will hold her up from moving to new lvl 4 this summer. I guess time will tell!

 

[Gymmommy71]

typo

DD just went through this. Had the cartwheel for 8 months, then split the beam two practices in row. Couldn't do the cartwheel for nearly 5 months. I don't see much of practice, but when I did see, dd would do perfect cartwheels on the floor beam and low beam. As soon as she went to mid-high beam, she started "cheating" and not hitting a full vertical. Obviously it was all mental. In the end, she did her cartwheel again when she was "ready". She can't tell me why, or what pushed her over the edge...but she had to decide on her own she was ready to do them again. There are lots of posts on this forum about fear, and I read tons of them, trying to decide if dd's career was coming to an end, LOL. (I thought, if you're too afraid to do a cartwheel on beam, there's no way you'll ever do really hard stuff). Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Learning to work through fears is truly a part of the process. More importantly, there was nothing I could do to help her. Doing a million cartwheels on the floor beam at home didn't help, nor did any of my "pep talks". In dd's case, I did schedule a private lesson with her L4 coach, who had taught her the skill originally. This coach claims she didn't do anything, but simply said, "get up there and do a cartwheel, we both know you can". So, it wasn't her magic coaching, but probably a strong desire for dd to please her old coach that did the trick. I'm sure your dd's cartwheel will return. Encourage her to focus on other skills in the meantime, the cartwheel just might get jealous and show up.

DD went through a similar thing w/ her cartwheel on beam oh so many moons ago, and she never split the beam!, just had a fear of doing it on the high beam (would do it perfect on the low, and then would get up on the high and adjust her hips so she fell off almost like it was a dismount - this went on for MONTHS!). She eventually got over it when her coach refused to let her do them on the low beam anymore if she wouldn't do them on the high beam the same way. Took a couple of tearful practices where she wasn't allowed to use the low beam at all and had to instead stay up there on the high beam not hitting any of them (which embarrased her I guess cause her teammates were doing them in both places). Eventually she just started doing them right on the high beam and never stopped.

 

[tooootsie]

My DD split the beam on high beam about 4 months ago. She is still not back up to the highest beam, only mid-high. But what helped her was after she split the beam her coach had her get right back up on the beam and continue practicing. We also had her practice her cartwheels at home with masking tape on the floor to practice straight line. Maybe that would help?

 

[ollieblueeyes]

She does the tape and has a floor beam at home. Does them just fine. Its a high beam thing. She will get it when ready...