Parents Mental blocks

[daisyb0323]

My level 7 competitive gymnast is having a lot of trouble right now with mental blocks. She is on her 2nd year of level 7 and most of the skills she can do in her sleep but all the sudden she is now afraid to do back handspring back layout on floor without a spot. She will have a wonderful beam event one weekend and then the next week cannot connect her series and wants a spot. Nothing happened to scare her or anything that would have caused this. It just happened. She cannot explain why and it is very random meaning one day we have great practice and then the next she has lost the skill again. She is very confused, upset and frustrated to the point I fear she wants to quit. Our coaches have now suggested she see a mental coach or sports performance coach. Does anyone have experience with this? It is becoming very stressful for my daughter and for us watching her struggle with this when she is one of the best gymnasts in the entire gym. We have had to downgrade skills that she mastered a year ago. Help. Advice?

 

[gym_dad32608]

Im sorry to hear. Mental blocks are tricky. My daughter uses Robert Andrews https://tinssp.com/ He has been great in giving her a bunch of mental tools to address blocks or adversity in performance. He is about $250 a session.

 

[JBS]

Here is Doc Ali too...

Link Removed

 

[drwho42]

I am sorry to hear and I hope she gets past it. What worked well for us were private lessons.

 

[Patricia]

My level 7 competitive gymnast is having a lot of trouble right now with mental blocks. She is on her 2nd year of level 7 and most of the skills she can do in her sleep but all the sudden she is now afraid to do back handspring back layout on floor without a spot. She will have a wonderful beam event one weekend and then the next week cannot connect her series and wants a spot. Nothing happened to scare her or anything that would have caused this. It just happened. She cannot explain why and it is very random meaning one day we have great practice and then the next she has lost the skill again. She is very confused, upset and frustrated to the point I fear she wants to quit. Our coaches have now suggested she see a mental coach or sports performance coach. Does anyone have experience with this? It is becoming very stressful for my daughter and for us watching her struggle with this when she is one of the best gymnasts in the entire gym. We have had to downgrade skills that she mastered a year ago. Help. Advice?

Im sorry to hear. Mental blocks are tricky. My daughter uses Robert Andrews https://tinssp.com/ He has been great in giving her a bunch of mental tools to address blocks or adversity in performance. He is about $250 a session.

My level 7 competitive gymnast is having a lot of trouble right now with mental blocks. She is on her 2nd year of level 7 and most of the skills she can do in her sleep but all the sudden she is now afraid to do back handspring back layout on floor without a spot. She will have a wonderful beam event one weekend and then the next week cannot connect her series and wants a spot. Nothing happened to scare her or anything that would have caused this. It just happened. She cannot explain why and it is very random meaning one day we have great practice and then the next she has lost the skill again. She is very confused, upset and frustrated to the point I fear she wants to quit. Our coaches have now suggested she see a mental coach or sports performance coach. Does anyone have experience with this? It is becoming very stressful for my daughter and for us watching her struggle with this when she is one of the best gymnasts in the entire gym. We have had to downgrade skills that she mastered a year ago. Help. Advice?

We are going through the same thing. My daughter is a level 7 and won’t do any back tumbling suddenly so she just moved back down to level 6 for the rest of the season. She is doing a front tumbling pass that is giving her a ton of deductions. Her back tumbling pass was so good - she scored an 9.825 at the level 6 state meet. It’s heartbreaking. It’s like she lost an entire year (if not more) of training. We tried a sports hypnotist and it didn’t help. It’s heartbreaking. If this doesn’t get better she won’t be able to compete level 7 and will have to quit. I feel your pain. I guess I will try some of the sports counselor suggestions next.

 

[daisyb0323]

We are going through the same thing. My daughter is a level 7 and won’t do any back tumbling suddenly so she just moved back down to level 6 for the rest of the season. She is doing a front tumbling pass that is giving her a ton of deductions. Her back tumbling pass was so good - she scored an 9.825 at the level 6 state meet. It’s heartbreaking. It’s like she lost an entire year (if not more) of training. We tried a sports hypnotist and it didn’t help. It’s heartbreaking. If this doesn’t get better she won’t be able to compete level 7 and will have to quit. I feel your pain. I guess I will try some of the sports counselor suggestions next.

It is just so upsetting. I hate to see it happen for her and I feel same - it's like the whole season has been a wash. She doesn't seem happy and I don 't want to make her keep doing gym but I keep hoping it'a phase. Just don't know.

 

[Rockygym]

This was my daughter 2-3 years ago as a level 7 then level 8 (in middle school so curious what age your daughter is). Tried everything and nothing worked. Lots of tears, frustration and stress as the coach was relatively rigid on requirements. This year she switched to Xcel Diamond and her new coach took all things backwards out of her routines and bam - back to the mostly happy girl that loves gymnastics. And over the past several weeks to months she has started to do some backwards skills. She added back her RO-BLO dismount off beam and has been doing some back tumbling on floor.

So short answer is for some this can be a long-term issue and I hope you have coach that will adjust her routines. But the biggest thing as a parent you can do (and this is so hard) is to temper your expectations of what "right" looks like and take all pressure off.

 

[Deleted member 26368]

Coming out of the other side of this with my DD. Yes...time, patience, taking the pressure off (parents and coaches) are the key. Remember, the gymnast has the really hard job in this - working through a mental injury, when everybody keeps telling you "you can do it". These are young people, they want to make us happy, make themselves happy, do the "right thing". I feel like we as parents/caregivers/coaches probably make it harder on ourselves than we should, since we're not the ones out there competing!