Forceful spotting

[Pineapple_Lump]

Another coach has just taken on a little gymnast into a lower level competitive stream. Now for some reason this child has developed a fear of rolling over the bar. I know some recreation gymnasts are fearful at first or will flat out refuse to do this skill. My way is to have them chin up pullover instead as none seem to have a problem with this. Eventually they come around and will do the skill. My philosophy in this case is that, they come to gymnastics for fun and if they are that scared, forcing them to do the skill is not meeting their needs.

One of the coaches has forced this child through the skill while covering the class. The next week the child refused to do bars at all. When I covered the following week, she would not front support in the correct shape or hold it for long. I could see that she did not trust me (fair enough) I promised I would not make her go over. Her personal coach experienced the same problems the following week with the other coach piping in ‘just force her over’.

My opinion is that this child should not have been forced, she was new to the group, and should have been allowed a bit of time to develop some trust. The personal coach was absent due to reasons out of her control. For the sake of making a child do one skill, this child has been pushed back several steps as she will not get on the bar to do casts now because she lacks trust. What would others do in this circumstance?

 

[MdGymMom01]

This happened to my dd (with the BHS). She was pressured into doing it and wasn't spotted correctly a few times (back in the cheerleading days) which resulted in her falling and getting scared. What is working for dd is rebuilding that trust. Doing drills over and over again and breaking the skill down.

In your gymnast's case, I would go back to basics and make it very fun and relaxed for her. You may have to do some forward rolls on a mat or into the pit for her to start trusting again. She is also probably associating the stress and fearful event with that coach to the bars itself (any skill on bars). A lot of times dd's coach has 20 or 30 minute "mental" private lessons with her just sitting and talking her through stuff. So much of gymnastics is mental and the gymnast trusting the coach is so important. So maybe you can pull the child aside and have a light-hearted talk with her to get her to open up a bit. We all know that an anxious stressed out gymnast, is not a happy one. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Stretchsportguy]

Hi Pineapple Lump. I started a thread about fear and phobias. This is the kind of thing that I'm talking about. I also started the thread on spotting you commented on. These situations come up often and take form in many different ways. Sometimes fear and phobias are difficult to recognize. In this case the fear/phobia is obvious. But maybe not...

Fist rule out medical problems. Could be anything from sores on her body to weird stuff that none of us would imagine. I've seen kids with Hickeys underneath their shirts from suction cup therapy performed by their parents. Big circular marks hidden underneath their clothes. I discovered this one day when the mother had done this on their shoulders and the marks were visible under the leotard. The process had to do with warm glass cups placed on the skin and cooled off to create suction.

First find out if the fear is related to anything tangible like I mentioned. Or something else. Ask questions. Look for clues.


Another possibility is a phobia. Ask the parents if they know of any. If the child is known to have phobias then she may be experiencing a new one or reliving an old one. Phobias are more complicated than terror.

Should you rule out a phobia then you can handle it as a case of terror/fear. This is the most common type of mental impediment a coach will face. And the usual methods of coaxing can be utilized.

Unless you know what you are dealing with then it is dangerous to proceed. If its something weird, then your decision on how to handle it depends on what you discover. A medical problem could get worse and/or not ever go away. A phobia could get worse and/or never go away. But terror you can handle. It might take time but terror can be overcome.

Where I come from, forceful spotting has been highly effective. As long as the spotter was competent and the child not apt to be traumatized, then they learned to overcome the terror readily. Of course, the skill has to be commensurate with the child's experience and ability.

Age is a factor. There is no need to traumatize a young child. They have time and you can take more steps to overcome the fear. If the child is apt to be traumatized by forceful spotting then its a bad idea. If terror leads to trauma then a phobia can be born out of it. Burn out and displeasure for the sport is certainly imminent if this continues. Whether a child can handle forceful spotting is a judgment call and needs to proceed with caution.

Every coach I have ever seen is guilty of forceful spotting. They will be lying if they say they have never done it. Coercion can be included with this even if hands-on spotting was not used. Forceful spotting usually is not traumatic and passes by with the first attempt. After that, the child usually realizes that its not as bad as they thought.

Great thread...thanks for posting it.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

"Every coach I have ever seen is guilty of forceful spotting. They will be lying if they say they have never done it."

what???????:shocked::tongue-tied:

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Another coach has just taken on a little gymnast into a lower level competitive stream. Now for some reason this child has developed a fear of rolling over the bar. I know some recreation gymnasts are fearful at first or will flat out refuse to do this skill. My way is to have them chin up pullover instead as none seem to have a problem with this. Eventually they come around and will do the skill. My philosophy in this case is that, they come to gymnastics for fun and if they are that scared, forcing them to do the skill is not meeting their needs.

One of the coaches has forced this child through the skill while covering the class. The next week the child refused to do bars at all. When I covered the following week, she would not front support in the correct shape or hold it for long. I could see that she did not trust me (fair enough) I promised I would not make her go over. Her personal coach experienced the same problems the following week with the other coach piping in ‘just force her over’.

My opinion is that this child should not have been forced, she was new to the group, and should have been allowed a bit of time to develop some trust. The personal coach was absent due to reasons out of her control. For the sake of making a child do one skill, this child has been pushed back several steps as she will not get on the bar to do casts now because she lacks trust. What would others do in this circumstance?

me thinks you're right.

 

[ryantroop]

"Every coach I have ever seen is guilty of forceful spotting. They will be lying if they say they have never done it."

what???????:shocked::tongue-tied:

In all fairness, he qualifies it with "coercion" as included in there.. So basically, all the drills that we do to show them that it is safe is coercing them to do the skill.. so.. guilty


If I get a kid that flat out refuses to do a skill (for rec or otherwise) I try and talk it out with them and help the alleviate the fear. So.. by default I guess Im guilty. I address the issue, show the how safe it is when done right, and help them move on - in a way, I see it as being "forced." Is that bad? No.

What's bad is when a coach literally MOVES a gymnast through a motion they are totally NOT OK with. If a kid doesnt want to go upside down, it needs to be addressed appropriately, not just flipping them upside down and expecting it to be ok. In all fairness, most of those kids usually don't have parents that play a lot with them and turn them over and get them used to that sort of activity. When I get kids like that I tend to be a little more "rough" with them, and show them that they will be just fine in certain situations. I am guilty of making kids cry their hearts out moving through a skill or a scary situation, but only after they understand that they will be ok and I show them how falling into a pile of mats wont hurt them. Generally, these are the same kids that come up and give me a hug at the end of class or giggle after jumping off the end of the beam, because they accomplished something that was difficult for them.

Sometimes fear is just fear. It's psychologically rooted (duh.. read it as "taken root and needs to be uprooted") and it needs to slowly be worked away at. It's a confidence thing, and it's a self awareness thing. On top of that, it takes a lot to build up trust, especially in a new environment. Many times, there is a default level of trust because parents tell their kids "do what Coach so and so tells you." Other kids are a little more headstrong, and rightfully so.

This forum is certainly limited in scope as to what we can reasonably and productively discuss on this topic. From the general tone of all coaches and parents that I have seen post here, I can confidently say that everyone agrees that just pushing a kid through something is a poor choice. Anyone who thinks otherwise may not really understand that when they are successful in this action that there is either an intrinsic trust in that individual, or a (false or psudo) belief that it's just the way it is when in the gym.

 

[Stretchsportguy]

Coaches:
Here's a challenge...put a coin in a jar everytime you coerce a student to do something they are afraid to do or don't want to do. Try this for a week.
Next Thursday tell me how much money I saved you.

 

[ryantroop]

Coaches:
Here's a challenge...put a coin in a jar everytime you coerce a student to do something they are afraid to do or don't want to do. Try this for a week.
Next Thursday tell me how much money I saved you.

I wouldn't save any money. Some kid would inevitably take it and buy a bottle of water with it.


Evidently you missed the sarcasm in that the process of drilling and spotting is, in itself, coercion. Not sure what point you were trying to make there...

Coercion != force
end statement

 

[Bobby]

Coercion is usually defined as either: a) physical force which cannot reasonably be resisted, or b) an unreasonably aversive consequence that a person doesn't have a reasonable opportunity to refuse. As a parent I occasionally use coercion for significant behaviours which are not negotiable.
PineappleLump I think you have very good instincts.
PS: The most common cause of phobia is being forced to confront a fear.
PPS: The most common reaction to being forced to face a fear is significantly increased fear.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Coercion is usually defined as either: a) physical force which cannot reasonably be resisted, or b) an unreasonably aversive consequence that a person doesn't have a reasonable opportunity to refuse. As a parent I occasionally use coercion for significant behaviours which are not negotiable.
PineappleLump I think you have very good instincts.
PS: The most common cause of phobia is being forced to confront a fear.
PPS: The most common reaction to being forced to face a fear is significantly increased fear.

I agree completely with this post.

When a kid is afraid of a skill, the best response is not, in my opinion, to push them forward, but rather to take them a step backwards. Once they are comfortable with the basic building blocks of the skill, only then will they develop comfort with the skill itself.

I will confess to occasionally talking a kid into doing a skill they don't feel fully comfortable with, but I view this only as a last resort. If at all possible, bit's better to take a step back then to force a kid forward.

 

[MdGymMom01]

What helps my dd with fear is exposing her to more fear-inducing situations and skills, but let her work with them in her own time. The more skills that she does that are scary to her (and invoke a fear response) helps lessen her overall fear in other situations. She likes tumbling into the pit and experiementing with different skills (all of them are safe for her) but it allows her to have some freedom and take risks that she is comfortable with.

She is getting better with the ROBHS fear and she has figured out that the actual "putting her hands down on a hard surface while diving backwards" is the part that is scary to her. So her coach has her work on BHSs on a mat that is placed in the pit so that she gets used to the hard surface but still feels safe because of the foam that is under the mat. She is gradually also dealing with the fear associated with the flyaway off bars--sometimes she does it and other times she balks.

I guess kids deal with fears in different ways and what works for one gymnast may not work for another. For some reason my dd overcomes her fears on skills after she dreams about doing them the night before. She dreamed about doing her BHS on the floor by herself one night and the next day she went into the gym and did it!! Same with the flyaway--she dreamed about it and then the next day she went into the gym and did it by herself. So, I guess dd's dreaming is her own way of boosting her confidence and giving herself the courage to try skills on her own. The mind works in mysterious ways!

 

[gymcoach34]

I think its imporatnt to rember that the OP was talking about a very young low level kid- who was afraid of doing a forward roll over the bar. This child should NOT have been forced! If the coach had just taken some time-had the child first lay over the bar, them move to a little roll over w the coach holding her, then most likely they could have progressed w/ the forward roll over the bar. Yes, older higher level kids sometimes have to be Pushed, but not very often if you have spent the time on the proper progressions. (Pushing the older level kid has more to do with adolescence and less to do w/ gymnastics, IMHO)

I feel pineapple lump should report this to whoever is in charge. If this coach (the one who forced the kid over the bar) wants to be a good coach- the head coach or owner should teach them how to use progressions and move slowly-because you do get a better result at the end! I hope there is someone who can teach the coach in question this! Pineapple, I would also let the regular teacher know so that child can get some TLC and have someone work with her to SLOWLY build things back up to where she is comfortable.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

I feel pineapple lump should report this to whoever is in charge. If this coach (the one who forced the kid over the bar) wants to be a good coach- the head coach or owner should teach them how to use progressions and move slowly-because you do get a better result at the end! I hope there is someone who can teach the coach in question this! Pineapple, I would also let the regular teacher know so that child can get some TLC and have someone work with her to SLOWLY build things back up to where she is comfortable.

I have spoken at length with the personal coach about this, she was on the same page as myself. She has let the child know that it will not happen again and that she will leave specific notes for anyone who covers in future. I also spoke to the head coach on behalf of the personal coach, and expressed my concerns. He agreed it was not a good way of handling it, he will deal with the situation.

Happyfacetwin - I loved your way of explaining fear/phobia I have shared that with the coach and we are both going to keep that in mind while coaching.