Work Ethic Internal or External?

[Linsul]

muwhahahahahaha...........lol! on linsul's "gymkata" post above bella's.

Chuck Norris is good, Chuck Norris is wise! I should be able to thank my own posts when they follow his laws of the universe.

 

[bogwoppit]

LOL! I bet KT wishes that the past could be erased!

 

[triptwister]

"Once she decides who her rivals are then you can keep abreast of their doings and use that to compare and verbally pit your gymnast's progress against."

Who would do this asked, dunno?

Try Nastia's coach, dunno. That's who. I can show you a video where Valeri mentions this. His focus for his daughter was no one in this country.

Frankly, if you don't keep tabs on the competition and help your elites do it too, and they have the competitive spirit it takes to reach that level, then they probably won't make it to the top. I never met an elite coach that wasn't keenly privy to the competition's doings. And sometimes the elite gymnast knows more about her competition than her coach because of the way an elite gymnast tends to internalize her motivation.

The goody two shoes mentality at the elite level is just plain nonsense. Leave out this element of awareness and coaches like me will take advantage of coaches like you and my kids will win.

 

[bogwoppit]

Leave out this element of awareness and coaches like me will take advantage of coaches like you and my kids will win.

I had understood that you do not coach??? PLease correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

"Once she decides who her rivals are then you can keep abreast of their doings and use that to compare and verbally pit your gymnast's progress against."

Who would do this asked, dunno?

Try Nastia's coach, dunno. That's who. I can show you a video where Valeri mentions this. His focus for his daughter was no one in this country.

Frankly, if you don't keep tabs on the competition and help your elites do it too, and they have the competitive spirit it takes to reach that level, then they probably won't make it to the top. I never met an elite coach that wasn't keenly privy to the competition's doings. And sometimes the elite gymnast knows more about her competition than her coach because of the way an elite gymnast tends to internalize her motivation.

The goody two shoes mentality at the elite level is just plain nonsense. Leave out this element of awareness and coaches like me will take advantage of coaches like you and my kids will win.

no comment.

 

[Coacharella]

I was mostly referring to lower level athletes.. Not really elite ones.

 

[triptwister]

The same applies to lower level athletes, Coacharella. The hyper-intelligent motor genius will get bored with herself doing things that she finds easy. This type of kid cuts out the platitudes and only practices what it takes to win. Pointing toes and knees straight may not be necessary to beat her immediate competition. But she will do it in front of judges when it counts.

If competition gets too boring she may end her career early. Intervention is necessary. She needs to be stimulated and challenged. Even if this means allowing her to work on skills that other gymnasts at her present level do not train.

To challenge the competitive spirit provide competition. Either virtual by keeping abreast of rivals or have mini meets during practice. Such as before the bar workout is over announce that you will be judging each gymnast on one full bar routine. The winner gets to pick and lead the first three conditioning drills at the end of the night. Or they get to lead the warm-up tomorrow. Be creative with competition scenarios. Slow routines? Have races and time the routines. Slow running for vaulting? Have a runner run next to the vaulter and race. The vaulter will do only a front handspring or something not conducive to injuries if they mess up. Or put two vaults right next to each other and race.

Have contests. Who can get to the __________ in three tries or less. Who can do a __________ without falling or who can do five in a row without falling, dropping an arm, teetering, etc. Reward them when they win. Make competition ongoing and keep the fun level high.

I coach when I can. Recently I was teaching free private lessons helping a level 6 gymnast with her basic skills. I put a coaching ad in Craig's List.

 

[Bella's Mom]

I think little miniature competitions like who can do the most or do the longest can be fun. Especially for kids who are naturally competitive. It is up to the coach though to keep negative feelings in check if a gymnast is getting frustrated or angry because s/he isn't "winning". Sportsmanship needs to be taught as well.

I think that it is a parent's drive to teach our children to have a strong work ethic. A work ethic that will apply to gymnastics, school, and eventually a job. Gymnastics can be a tool in this endeavor, an activity to help develop this internal drive..

 

[Midget's Dad]

You might try encouragement based on what high performance gymnasts are doing. Like saying things such as: "While you're standing there chalking your hands for 5 minutes Nastia has probably done a whole bar routine."

You might try sitting down with your gymnast and watching various videos of Olympic or other high performance gymnast's routines and together plan what you might want your gymnast to learn and who you think her competition is. Once she decides who her rivals are then you can keep abreast of their doings and use that to compare and verbally pit your gymnast's progress against.

I suggest that you employ a subtle demeanor and be patient and measured. The more internalized the motivation becomes the less you will have to remind her how hard to work.

Ok I have some mixed feelings on this and some of Trip's other posts. The little competitions I think are always great. It is an awesome way to get all levels of athletes involved and motivated.

But the last paragraph and the first paragraph quoted above pretty well directly contradict each other in my opinion. The first paragraph is hardly subtle and is NOT encouragement. That is a negative feedback style and while it can work it will usually only work on athletes that already have a high degree of internal motivation.

The true trick to coaching in any sport is through building the right relationship with each athlete and determining how to motivate them based on that individual relationship.

Also, the initial question was geared more towards kids I thought. Trip, I get the feeling you are only looking at this from the upper level mindset. Most kids will not get the back-end sarcasm behind your Nastia comment and the point will be lost.

Every athlete is an individual and you cannot motivate them all by some hard and fast, all-inclusive, method.

 

[Sarah'sMom]

Warning, long post - sorry.

My daughter is probably somewhat of an A. Sometimes she has really great days and other times some more A days. I found may of the posts in this thread to be helpful but I wonder if it is so simple as all of these children who you see objective evidence of having these type A traits lacking motivation. The Type B students sound like they would be your dream because they are easier to teach. And, the type A I am sure require a lot more patience and effort. But I wonder if its not so cut and dry that a Type A student must be thinking "xyz." And, although you have your expertise in teaching gymnastics and have made observations of kids over the years, you still only see the child in class, so there might be some things you don't know about the child and the child's motivations. And, so if you haven't done so, you might want to talk to the parent/parents.

In case it helps, here's my story (but long) -

My daughter is just 6 1/2. She tells me she really wants to be on a team but she has these type A behaviors. I have been trying to figure her out for some time and I think I understand a lot of it, although some I am still trying to figure out. And, I agree that she may not know how to internally motivate herself all the time and sometimes needs some help. For instance, she sometimes does not do all the circuit activities or if she does they are not always done well. She also does not always listen like she should and sometimes she even plays. She likes a lot of feedback and attention from the coach, which is also hard, because the coach has a full class of students.

If she were in a private class she would probably do her best, but that's just not practical and classes don't work that way. When she's challenged, she does her best. And, when there have been competitions in class she has risen to the occasion. Sometimes it has been who can hold their handstand for the longest. Just recently it was a beam competition where the girls were put into two teams. The teams were given a certain amount of time to complete like a handstand on the beam to dismount (not sure of the name), cartwheels and some other beam moves. Each girl was given a certain number of tries before she had to let someone else try, and spotted attempts were counted as well so that the girls who needed some help could still be counted. The contest was not for each girl but which team could do more in that time period. Once again my daughter rose to the occasion and was excited to be helping her team out.

I can see some internal motivation in my daughter. For instance, she had a test this summer to see how far she was (after just 2 months of preteam) and she was told level 1 because she did not have her pullover and that has motivated her a lot. After the test I had a hard time getting her off the bars to go home because she wanted to prove herself and then she cried, and cried hard. Now, she is taking every moment she can to hang onto bars, like the horizontal ladder at the park and the bars at gym. She has me feel her arms now and she asks if she's getting stronger. She was afraid that they would not let her stay in her current class.

One other thing though....I noticed that one of the coaches stated that the type A will only do just enough to get by and won't do the tasks assigned on the circuit at all or will do them sloppily. My daughter does that a fair amount too. But I'm not sure what is going through her head then - so I'm not sure I can write it off to a motivation problem entirely. I think there's a few things going on for my daughter. One is that when she started at 3 1/2 with a huge amount of energy, the instructors set up a circuit to keep the girls busy while the instructor spotted on one station. At that age, my daughter with her high energy thought it was a race and would go through it fast, and did not understand that she needed to go slowly and think about it. I think also she might have thought it was all about finishing the circuit. So, I think some of the sloppy at times comes from that and I am trying hard to do my part to slow her down and explain that it is each move that is important. We have also been talking alot about how she needs to think about what she's doing. Sometimes, though, I think she's forgotten what she was supposed to do and is afraid to ask - she's had some instructors not tell her because "she wasn't listening." Also, I've found that she does better when the circuit is not based upon doing the task once and moving to the next (setting it up for racing mentality) but when each girl is set to a station and told to the move to the next station after a time. This stops the race, and also only gives her one thing at a time to work on.

Another thing is that my daughter is a dreamer and makes up her own routines in her head and I'm not entirely sure if she some classes she has decided what *she* thinks is what she needs to train in the sense of not needing to listen to the instructor. I'm working on that too, in particular by telling her how her instructor used to be a gymnast herself and the only way to learn is to listen to her and do what she asks. She also is sometimes really excited to be at gymnastics, so that plays a part at times to in the attention issues, etc.

And, sometimes she does something she already knows how to do and not the harder thing assigned. But I'm not sure that's all a lack of motivation. I'm wondering if she's afraid she'll fail. We've been talking about how the most important thing is to do your best and she has been asking me what if she tries and she can't do it. I'm working on that with her too.

Lest you think my daughter does not want to do this after describing her as your type A in detail, if I ask her if she wants to stop gymnastics or stop pre-team and go back to regular classes she tells me No emphatically. And, she gets very upset if she is taken out of class or made to sit out for a few minutes, which btw, is an effective tool with her if used correctly. And, she's constantly asking me if its gymnstics night because she wants to go.

Also, she's making her own floor routines at home with her cartwheels, roundoffs, jumps and poses. She also does her own "tumbling pass" in her mind at open gym which is running and doing a roundoff. She gets up on the beam at open gyms and makes up her own routines on the beam, with some hops, poses and a handstand to dismount. So the dream is there. She just needs help learning how to make it happen.

Her main coach gets it, although it takes a lot of patience on her part. I've seen other coaches, though, start to neglect her in class because they don't understand her and she's a bit more work at times. But when she gets neglected, I can tell you that the problem gets 10 times worse because she's not dumb - she realizes, so she starts to fool around more and gets away with it more if the coach starts to ignore her altogether. It also makes my job harder, and discourages her and actually ends up reinforcing the conduct.

I have started an incentive for her under which she gets a sticker for each class that she has listened well in and followed her coaches instructions. When she has a certain number of stickers she gets an open gym.

I'm sorry this post is so long, but this thread really struck a chord for me. I think every child is different, but I thought it might help to provide one parent's perspective on one child. At the moment, I am extremely grateful that her main coach is working with her and I will do all that I can to help on my end. I think it has to be on both ends to work, and I have been thinking so much about this and trying to figure out what I can do to help my daughter with what she tells me is a passion for her. It's a work in progress though. And, after all, she is just 6 and I have to be careful not to kill her passion and joy for this sport.

Btw, since I've been focusing on this issue with her, I have received a comment from the coach that she's getting better and more focused. So there is hope . . . I hope.

 

[Bella's Mom]

I think gymnastics is helping Bella build internal work ethic and discipline. When she made preteam last spring/summer, she was introduced to the concept of conditioning. At first she wasn't sure if she like it but I guess at some point, she began understanding the purpose behind it. I assume her coach explained.

About a month ago, she came to me with a piece of paper and markers asking for my help in making a conditioning chart. She made a list of twelve conditioning exercises and I made her a grid that had the days of the week that she didn't go to gymnastics.

She's pretty good at doing it too. I never mention it but I see her quite frequently working on her conditioning chart. I credit that motivation and discipline 100% to gymnastics. It makes me very proud of her and hopeful that she will transfer this over to studying/academics and other areas in her life.

Sarah's Mom.....Bella does the "feel my muscle" thing too. Except she sometimes gets confused. She'll do a ton of sit ups and then ask me to feel her bicep. *sigh*

 

[GymGirl's Mom]

The same applies to lower level athletes, Coacharella. The hyper-intelligent motor genius will get bored with herself doing things that she finds easy. This type of kid cuts out the platitudes and only practices what it takes to win. Pointing toes and knees straight may not be necessary to beat her immediate competition. But she will do it in front of judges when it counts.

This is my DD to a T (well, not so sure about hyper-intelligent part, but I think she's pretty smart ). Her practices often look sloppy, but when it comes to competing all her i's are dotted and t's are crossed if you know what I mean. It's like she has two sides, her everyday practice side (which looks more than a bit unmotivated at times) and her competition side. Even if it's just an inter-team competition like who can hold a handstand longest, or climb the rope fastest--- my kid who looks slow as a turtle at practice doing these things, when the idea of *winning* is introduced can usually place 1st amongst her teammates. It works for her lat level 3, I'm not sure how it will work for her as she advances. Only time will tell, I hope with age she will begin to see the importance of good form and trying your hardest all the time- not just when it "counts" for something.

 

[Sarah'sMom]

To Bella's Mom:
That's great!!!