Nerves!!!

[nicci1999]

I'm just wondering, what do you guys do for nerves before a meet? My last meet, I was so worked up, that I messed up super easy skills on bars, it was a little embarrassing! So how do you cope? It didn't help that I had to wait for what felt like forever before I was ok'd to go

 

[haggy]

What level are you?
My first season of competing i had the exact same problem!!! for me, the best way to get over it was to pretend it was just a regular practice. while i'm waiting, i always try to visualize my routine, stay calm, and remember that i'm there to have fun.
another thing that helped was to not care so much about the scores. judges change and so do the scores. some judges will be tougher than others, some judges may like a certain style more than others (at least in my experience), so remember that. also with the scores, don't let them get to you in a bad way. one bad score doesn't mean its all over. at my state meet i left my 3rd event, beam, with a lower score than i wanted. i was so mad about it that when i got to floor i decided that i would do the BEST. i scored a 9.6 and got 2nd place
so i now my advice sounds cliche and people have probably already told you it, but try it! just remember that you're there because you love gymnastics and you want to have fun! good luck!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kiwi]

Good question! I usually get some nerves, but not really bad. But this year at Masters I did quite a good beam practice, then when I started my real beam routine I suddenly got an attack of nerves and my legs turned to jelly. You can't do beam with jelly legs! All my jumps and leaps were tiny and pathetic and my turn was terrible. I was very disappointed in myself. But by the time I went to floor I was fine and did a good floor routine. Weird as other years I did okay on beam.

 

[SuperGirlmlm]

What I do is kind of weird, my friend thinks it's distracting for her. I go through my favorite song in my head while I go through my routine. It helps me forget about the pressure.
In the gym, when we do routines, sometimes, we make distractions on purpose, without telling the gymnast, so it makes her more mentally tough to block things out. Like, we walk around, sometimes we turn on her favorite song, that kind of thing.

 

[Kiwi]

I go through my favorite song in my head while I go through my routine.

I don't think I could concentrate properly on what I was doing if I tried this!