catou
Coach
- Mar 7, 2010
- 384
- 330
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.

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.