Coaches How do you deal with a stressed gymnast?

[catou]

As some of you know, I'm coaching girls who are in their first year of competition. One of them is so stressed by competitions she doesn't even want to compete and she cries about it. Seeing that, we asked her to come and watch her teammates at the first competition of the season so she could see how it is. Well, it didn't really helped. She is now stress at the idea of coming to trainings. Her parents are really nice, not the pushy kind at all, so I know it's not coming from them. We've told the girls multiple times we are doing meets to have fun, to show our progress, and that we don't care if they fall, as long as they have fun and tried their best (we do care lol but as long as they don't know ). So I don't think we are coaches who make their gymnasts feel like they absolutely have to complete every skill perfectly.

So today, this gymnast told me that if she trained well today her mother would give her a surprise (I kind of disagree with that way of proceeding but well..). Everything went well, but it certainly doesn't help us to get rid of the problem. In the long term, it just won't work.

So we thought of having her with us and the girls competing at the next competition instead of being in the stands, but without performing, or performing only the less stressful events. She'll have to compete by the end of the year, the head coach doesn't want girls training with the competitive group without doing competitions, which I understand. We also thought of maybe meet the parents and the gymnast, to see why she's so stressed.

Do you have any tips, as coaches, on how you deal with the stress of your gymnasts? I think it could be very useful for this little girl, she's only 8 and will have many more stressful situations in her life that she won't be able to avoid.

 

[catou]

So I had my answer today... She decided to stop gymnastics. At home, at the mention of gymnastics and/or competition she would just start crying. That's sad, as she just came from rec classes in october and progressed pretty quickly.

As a coach, I have no choice but wonder if I could have seen it coming and do something before it happened. I also learned that the idea of her coming to watch the last meet wasn't necessarily a good one. She was more impressed by it and it was even worst for her. We had done a sort of a mock meet with the girls of our group, they were judged and she had done well. She started to verbalize her stress in december. So we didn't have a lot of time do deal with it before the competition and christmas break and the fact that we had training cancelled because of snow. I had hoped the christmas break would help her but it wasn't the case.

Well, I'll go eat my emotions by eating the chocolate I received from one of my other gymnast as a late christmas gift!

 

[AmandaLynn]

Maybe she is just not cut out for team? Many kids aren't, unfortunately. Even the talented ones. Is she going back to a rec class, at least? Or just quitting all together?

 

[Faith]

Have you had a chat with the HC? Perhaps allow her a year without competing to get her confidence in her routines? Or perhaps ask if she can "compete" Hors concours for one or two meets, so there's no actual placing/winning/losing. If she only came from rec in October that's a very short time to get her head round increased training/harder moves/learning routines...

 

[catou]

I don't know if she'll go back to rec classes. It's the other coach with who I coach who learned the news. Here it's not really possible to compete hors concours, and seeing the state she was in, it would have been impossible. She had a hard time just coming to training last sunday. I don't think it's the winning/losing thing that is stressing her... it's more the fact that there are many people, gymnasts, judges, coaches, etc. Another mommy who her daughter (who is also my gymnast) is a friend with the one who is stressed told me that she was really stressed out just by watching the meet... So we'll see, I hope she'll go back to rec classes or to circus. She has talent, as she learned how to do a squat on, back hip circle, sole circle dismount and many more in just 3 months. I also sincerely hope she can find an activity she has fun doing.

 

[aerialriver]

Its not for everyone. Maybe she will excell at team sports or something else

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[bogwoppit]

There was a girl in my youngest DD's group. Hard worker, beautiful beam, floor and tramp. But she just fell apart at comps, but she still performed well and made it to the challenge twice. In the end she quit gym for two years, I just heard she went back to rec gym this year.

some children cannot handle the pressure, nothing any coach can do about that. I know ours tried lots of things to ease her mind and her team mates were very knd to her

 

[catou]

So I exchanged a couple of e-mail with the mommy. Her daughter really wasn't feeling well. With repercussions and physical symptoms at school and at home. For the moment, it would just be impossible to bring her to the gym. Maybe she'll get back in the gym, but it will take time. The cause of all this is not really known for now, the mommy called us exemplary coaches, so at least, I can tell myself that I'm not putting too much pressure on my gymnasts

 

[OzZee]

My dd hated competing to begin with. The stress of having everyone watching her and her own perfectionist issues meant she just hated her first year of competing. Luckily her complete love of the sport meant she worked through it and with continual suggestions of things to enjoy at each comp (her friends, meeting other gymnasts, then as the fears improved, showing off her routines etc, she now loves it!


At the time I thought not having to compete would help but looking back I think it would have just made it worse - confirmed it was something scary.


so sorry to hear this girl has decided to quit over it, I hope she finds a sport that uses her talents she can love.

 

[Foxy's Leos]

Glad she figured it out sooner that later.....

 

[catou]

I'm glad too, but I'm even gladder her parents respected her decision and didn't try to push her to keep going, even if she really wasn't coping well.