Women Other coaches stepping in to spot

[Azgymmiemom]

Anyone else have a gymmie that balks when someone NOT their regular coach has to spot them through a skill? My dd is having a hard time letting another senior coach slot her on her robhs double back. Yes, I get that is a hard skill, and he is much tougher than her head coach, but this is the coach that will warm her up at meets. I try to tell her that even though he is different, he would never, ever let her fall on her head, she just cringes when he must stand there. He knocked her on the head hard once last year on a yurchenko and i don't think she's forgiven him. She can do this skill independently, but for warm ups, they spot. What do I say to help her??

 

[mariposa]

She'll get it. Luckily they figured this out before season, so there's plenty of time for her to get regain her trust in him.

 

[iwannacoach]

She's gotta give the guy a break, suck it up, and do the skill. Sure she may figure the coach isn't as good of a spotter as her regular coach after getting smacked on the head or caught a little roughly, but coaches need repetitions with each kid"s skills to get suave and debonaire. Rest assured she's in good hands and he will protect her to the best of his ability at all costs.... including injury to himself.

Anything less is reprehensible.

 

[LucyTRA]

I have one gymnast who will not let ANYONE but me spot her for lots of things. This can be dificult because hse is considerably bigger than I am. It started out over just one skill so I would always just let her have me spot for that skill. Then it extended to lots of skills (that previously she would have let other coaches spot) and now she often refuses to even take coaching points from other people. Don't let this be your kid. I wish now that I had refused to spot sometimes and gotten someone else in so that she could get used to being caught by different people.

All of that said, there are coaches who have dropped me that I would not allow to spot me again, so it's difficult from a gymnast perspective. It's quite likely though that if a coach I DO trust to spot me told me to allow it, I would. Is there a chance of getting her normal and trusted coach to explain to her that he/she trusts the person who is going to spot her and that they wouldn't be allowing him to spot the move if he wasn't capable?

 

[cbifoja]

Our coach does a lot of event coaching for just this reason. She wants the girls to be used to all the team coaches and not latch on to any one coach as "their" coach. Each level has a main coach but they work with all of the team coaches.

 

[my4buffaloes]

Ah, my dd has minor trust issues as well. Minor though. It is more she really prefers one particular coach. This year though she has started avoiding the other coaches stations. I can't tell if that is because she doesn't trust him or if she is just scared of the skill. I keep telling her that he will catch her and to trust him. But so far no luck in getting her to go for it with him.

That being said I think the trust is built up in other ways besides just spotting. The coach my dd avoids is pretty hard on her and she gets in trouble a lot for things. Combined with a few other issues I think she is starting to just not like the coach. But she has always connected well with the other coach who is calm, kind, gentle and wise. So she keeps going to that coach. I guess I think there are frequently more issues than just "he whacked her on the head one time."

 

[raenndrops]

OG has 3 coaches that she trusts to spot her (depending on the skill). HC and 1 other (was her first coach when she started in preschool class... but she was also a team coach all along) are FULLY trusted. The third coach is trusted to spot BT on floor and that is it.
She HAD 2 other coaches that she fully trusted, but they moved away within 9 months of each other It was a rough time for her. The one could literally THROW her through a back tuck... developed a back tuck fear and the only way to get past it was for her to do it.
We only have 5 coaches that spot on floor... but one knows her limits and only spots L3 and L4 (and BT for the tiny girls). One is a guy who hasn't been there very long and has missed most of the summer... he may be moving on to college football, in which case, we will have lost him. The last one (trusted for BT) is actually shorter than OG now, so who knows.

 

[2gymnastand1soccerplayer]

My oldest dd is a lot like that, up until this year she would only let one coach spot her, then when the optional team got another coach she gradually got accepting of that. I think one of the hardest parts for her but I , knew she was trying her best to overcome this fear, she was doing her flyaway without her regular coach ( he was away for a compulsory meet). My dd struggles with this because she is very much a perfectionist and very much OCD about gym, she is also not very good at handling change. So when she gets used to something one way she has a hard time doing it any otherway.

 

[Azgymmiemom]

I read it back this morning, and it sounds like he dropped her on her head during the yurchenko! lol. No, that's not what happened. He stuck his arm out and whacked her in the head while she was flipping. Another thing, this is the coach she prefers to spot her on beam things. I'm not kidding! He helped her get a really great bhs bhs series and he's working her through bhs blo on the beam. She trusts him fully on beam, just not vault or floor!
I will keep encouraging her to trust him on floor, too. Thank you for all the commiseration and tips! Sometimes our kids just won't get out of their own heads!

 

[htimcj]

I have seen it happen at our gym before. Mainly because one of the coaches did miss once and it of course it scared her but she gradually started trust him again. DD definitely has preferences for spotting on different things, the only guy coach she really likes to spot on bars. He's kept her from landing on her head twice on the bars so she TOTALLY trusts him when it comes to doing her flyaway and other release drills.

 

[ivyagogo]

If these kids only knew how scary it is for some of us to spot! I've been hurt way more times then the kids. And while I'm confident in my spotting skills, I still get nervous sometimes when spotting that I'll mess up and someone will get hurt. Actually, it's not me so much that I'm worried about, it's that they will mess up and I won't be able to help them. So far, so good though.

 

[profmom]

It's a funny thing, isn't it? DD has had a bit of a tense relationship at times with the owner (who primarily coaches bars but does other events as well), but I think she trusts him above all others in the gym with spotting. Once the girls start doing flipping vaults, they only work on vault with the vault coach, and he's the one with the spotting issues. A couple of years ago, the L8s who did not make regionals went to a different meet the same weekend, and he had some of them downgrade their vaults because he wouldn't be there to pluck them out of the air if things started to go wrong.

DS is still young enough and at a low enough skill level that he'll happily try anything with any coach who tells him he can do it. I was kind of horrified and kind of amused when a coach told him to get up on the pit rings and do a double back into the pit and he just went and did it. The coach then decided that working on some timers first might be good preparation before attempting the skill by himself again . . .

 

[profmom]

If these kids only knew how scary it is for some of us to spot! I've been hurt way more times then the kids. And while I'm confident in my spotting skills, I still get nervous sometimes when spotting that I'll mess up and someone will get hurt. Actually, it's not me so much that I'm worried about, it's that they will mess up and I won't be able to help them. So far, so good though.

Some of those big kids doing the big skills -- yikes! DS has a teammate who outweighs and is significantly taller than both of the senior boys' coaches. They're trying to teach him to do some release moves on hi bar, and he once came close to landing on top of one of them on a dismount gone wrong. I really hope everyone survives the next season intact! If I were a praying person, I'd be praying right now for the program director's shoulders.

 

[htimcj]

I am constantly amazed at the abilities of most coaches to spot some of the bigger skills. The timing required to help flip girls doing double backs is incredible. You really have to know your girls and how they do the skill to get it right. Kudos to all of you coaches out there who do it day in and day out!

 

[Deleted member 14190]

It's up to the program to insure that a child is not dependent on any one coach for anything.