Parents How to deal with dd's tumbling mental block?

[momstrong]

Another update. I was collecting dd last night and when I went into the waiting room one of the mums told me she saw dd do her floor sequence on her own, I asked was she sure no one was spotting dd and she said she yes she was sure The mom also told me saw saw dd do fab yurchenko sp? Into the pit but landing them really well. Then while waiting I watched her on the tumble track and she was doing her sequence on her own and finishing it off with a beautifully formed straight back (which is a new skill for dd, I think they are also known as layouts?)

Gymtigermom I think you could have been right and she just needed to adjust to her new routine of school and gym.

I still feel a bit uneasy as I think I need to see her sequence on the floor for myself but definitely things look ALOT more positive now than a few days ago. I'm still taken a back with this whole mental block issue, how easily it can happen and how difficult it can be to overcome. You never know when it's going to strike and you have no guarantee that it's not going to happen again.

Hope you don't mind all my updates but I would like to give others hope as when I was researching mental blocks I came across alot of horror stories which totally freaked me out

Thanks everyone. X

Yay!! Definitely love the update! Fingers crossed she's past it and moving forward!

 

[meganliz77]

Just as I feared she's still not out of the woods. I was talking to the coach over the past couple of days and she said dd still needs help on floor. She is fine on softer surfaces at the moment but still struggling on floor. She said her main priority now is to prevent it getting worse. So she is still working hard with dd on floor. Fingers crossed things will workout.

It is very normal for there to be times where things appear to be getting better, than whammy... the fear is back. We have been dealing with this in our gymnast the last year or so with backward related skills. She had overcome her fear of BT on floor, but was still dealing with her backwards skills on beam last year.... then at state meet, she wigged out and refused to do her floor pass with BT... she finally agreed to do it along the length of the floor instead of the width -- why? Because coach could stand on the edge and she mentally needed to know she was there in case something went wrong. Of course she was too powerful in that pass to stay in-bounds... but she did it. And sometimes you take what you can get when dealing with fears. We have realized that some of her fear is rooted in gym related/perfection driven/pressure related anxiety. (that was a mouthful!! haha) But that is also why we told coach to leave her at the same level this year... to increase her confidence and lessen the pressure!

It's hard not to be frustrated as a parent - wanting to help your kiddo and not knowing how. Patience and support. Just know its all rather normal and hopefully will all work itself out! But don't be surprised if fear creeps its way back in even when you *think* it has been resolved.