All Progress is Good Progress

GymMomGuru:

My oldest daughter Sam did two seasons of Level 4 AND two seasons of Level 5. Jessie did one season of Level 4 and two seasons of Level 5. Some of their teammates moved up more quickly.  At the time, I was frustrated they were not “staying with the group” and moving up to the next level. However, what I learned after looking back on the situation, is repeating a level was the best thing that could have happened to each of them. They developed confidence, got a taste of success and mastered the basics. They were able to quickly progress through the levels after their slow start. Oh yeah, and they caught up with their group, so that was not a big deal. 

I know it is stressful when the coach tells you that your daughter could benefit from another season at their current level. However, the coach is working with your daughter in the gym at every practice and knows her struggles, fears and maturity in the sport. The coach is usually the best judge as to which level she should compete. My advice is to trust the coach. 

My daughters are perfect examples of gymnasts who benefitted from staying at the levels a little longer and mastering the basics before moving up. They zoomed quickly through Levels 6-10 (although some gymnasts will zoom through compulsories and then get struck at a higher level a little longer). They all progress at their own rate and speed.

The moment a mom quit gymnastics

One gym mom's illumination and insight.



Hat tip:  Flip Zone Gymnastics

Shouldn't every parent do this? ;-)

Good job,  Alla, Stepan and Heather!

I love to watch you play

From your kids:



Hat tip:  JAG

What ER Doctors Refuse to Have in Their Own Homes

Excerpt:

“We see a lot of serious trampoline injuries...upper-body fractures, broken femurs, neck injuries. That’s why most ER doctors I work with won’t buy trampolines for their kids. They’re all trouble. There’s no good kind. Unfortunately parents get a false sense of reassurance; when there’s a net around something, they think their kids will be safe.” — Ferdinando Mirarchi, MD, medical director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

 Related:

are backyard trampolines safe?

 

Today was a Great Day

Lisa's letter to her daughter:

Today was a bad day. You fell on beam. You missed your connections on floor. You didn’t reach handstand on bars. Your execution was low. Today was a day you wanted to quit. All that hard work for what? All those long hours of training, missing out on friends, missing out on parties. Getting up early, struggling with being tired. What was it all for? It was for nothing. A big fat zilch.
Today you wanted to quit. Today you wanted to hang your grips up, you wanted to wipe the mag off your rough and bleeding hands for good. You wanted to throw away all your leotards and be a “normal” kid one again. You wanted to turn your back on something that was so engrained in you, such a part of you that cutting a limb off would be the closest thing to it.
Today was a sad day. The disappointment etched in your face, the hot tears burning your skin as they tumbled down your cheeks. The hurt clearly displayed on your little face for all the world to see.
Today broke two hearts. Yours and mine.
Today was hard. Hard for you. Much harder for me to watch you fall apart. I wanted to swoop in and save you from this heartache. I watched helplessly as you fought those demons that tortured you from inside. I was powerless to stop them. I felt like a failure as a mother as I hadn’t protected you from this hurt.
Today was a struggle. The little voices in your head told you that you were no good. They told you to quit. They tormented you and filled you full of doubt. And with doubt comes failure. I watched you in a tug of war with your mind. I saw the inner turmoil that threatened to consume you.
Today was a battle. Somewhere deep inside of you a war was raging. Would you let disappointment and hurt win? Would you let those mental demons tear you apart? Would you fall and never get up again? No. You gathered your strength, you stood up to those voices. Every fibre of your being held steadfast in your resolve. I saw my little girl fight from the core.
Today was a day of hope. The flame that burns inside you, that had all but been extinguished today, flickered again. You held your head high as you watched other gymnasts, not better than you but who had cleaner routines, stand up and receive ribbons and medals. I watched you hug your team mates, congratulating them, sharing in their victory. The joy that had been robbed from you was soon replaced with the love you felt for your sport. I saw that tiny glimmer of hope light the dark place that was your heart. I saw you banish the voices in your head saying you should quit, you were a failure, that you were no good.
Today was a good day. Today you learnt things that I could never teach you. You learnt how to lose. You learnt how to fight back. You learnt the importance of not always winning. You learnt how to take disappointment and turn it in to a positive. You learnt that love prevails. You made me proud, much prouder than if you had a gold medal hung around your neck.
Today you won.
Today was a great day

Julia Sharpe: MAG competitor and All-Around Mother of Twins.

She stayed in shape throughout her pregnancy; and competes in men's artistic gymnastics.  Watch her.



Hat tip:  JAG

What Parents are Really Paying for

I've seen this linked by multiple sources- Why I don't pay for dance and gymnastics:

The other night someone asked me "Why do you pay so much money for your girls to dance?" Well I have a confession to make, I don't pay for dance. Personally, I couldn't care less about dance. I grew up in a family of 4 boys and no girls. The "Nutcracker" was something you did on a dare off of the high dive at the pool or something you unpleasantly surprised your brother with. Up until the day I met my wife if I were asked to go to Swan Lake I would have asked if we were water skiing or fishing. So if I am not paying for dance what am I paying for? I pay for those moments when my daughters become so tired they want to quit but don't. I pay for those days when my daughters come home from school and are "too tired" to go dance but go anyway. I pay for my daughters to learn to be graceful. I pay for my daughters to learn to take care of their body. I pay for my daughters to learn to work with others and to be good team mates. I pay for my daughters to learn to deal with disappointment, when they don't get that part they hoped for, but still have to work hard at the part that they received. I pay for my daughters learn to make and accomplish goals. I pay for my daughters to learn that it takes hours and hours and hours and hours of hard work and practice to create something beautiful, and that success does not happen over night.

Read the rest at the link.

Also blogging:
GymnasticsCoaching.com

Well.....Duh?

More recess and play helps to improve productivity:

But ask the adults and they'll tell you it's because Eagle Mountain is part of a project in which the school day is modeled after the Finnish school system, which consistently scores at or near the top in international education rankings. The project's designer is Texas Christian University kinesiologist Debbie Rhea.
"I went over there to find out where they've come in the last 20 to 25 years. Yes, their test scores are good, but they are also healthy in many regards," she says.
The biggest difference Rhea noticed was that students in Finland get much more recess than American kids do. "So, I came back with the idea to bring recess back to the schools. Not just one recess, but multiple recesses."

Read (or listen) at NPR.

Polishing Your Soul

Last Friday night was pit-cleaning and Saturday, Spring cleaning.  For the latter, it was pure coaching staff.  However, I feel team parents and athletes should have participated.

5-9-2015

The following is a reprint of a blogpost I wrote on my other blog, April 29, 2013:

Polish the floor and you polish your soul

-Zen saying

While out for my morning run to the park this cloudy morning, I was doing sit-ups at a station and watched a woman randomly picking up trash as she was walking.  As she passed by me, I told her she was awesome and thanked her for the act and the inspiration.  I was done running, and walked to the next station for push-ups, picking up some litter along the way.  Not much of a trouble, either, considering there are trash cans conveniently placed throughout the park.

During summer and winter camp in previous years, other coaches and myself would on occasion, give a speech to the girls after noticing how not everyone was pulling her own weight in cleaning up after lunch.  Some girls would be pretending to clean; or making a concerted effort to not put in much effort.  Other gymnasts would occupy cleanup time with mostly socializing.

And then there were the few teammates who were actually engaged in quality work on cleaning.

Is this fair to the teammates who are shouldering most of the workload?  Does the job get done more efficiently when more people help or when less people help?

Is it ever fair when a person has to clean up after herself, and the mess left behind by others?  Who benefits?  The person working hard, disciplining herself to do the right thing?  The person being lazy and inconsiderate of others, not pulling her own weight?

When I phrase it in those terms, the answer is quite obvious. 

The girls have been talked to as well, regarding the state of the gym, in general.  At the end of the day, used athletic tape is discarded in a twisted mangle; paper wrappings to chalk blocks litter the floor by bars; defrosted peas in plastic ziplocs mine the gym like IEDs, ready to be stepped on and exploded....

12-21-2012 pea'd on the floor

The gym is like a second home.  How do you treat your home?

If you see trash lying around, do you pick it up?  Or wait in hopes that the responsible party will return to do it, himself?  Or trust that someone else will do it?  Just not you?

When it's time to move mats, either to set up drill stations or clear some space; or to move mats to make it easier for the evening clean-up crew to do their job of cleaning up after us, I notice who is helping and who is not helping.  Your coaches might not always say something.  But they notice.

Have some character and integrity:  Do the right thing.  Clean up after yourself and others.  Don't wait around for a coach to tell you; don't expect to be recognized or praised, either.  Do it because it's the right thing to do- and do it especially when you think no one is looking.  

Take ownership of the gym.  It reflects who we are.  Respect it.  Think of others.  Don't expect the cleaning crew to do as good of a job as you can do.  (And please take the time to thank them when you see them). 

When you're at an away meet, how do you behave?  Treat the host gym with more respect than you are willing to treat your own gym.  How you act and behave is a reflection of the kind of athletes that are groomed at BGS- athletes who know how to conduct themselves on and off the competition floor.  You represent yourself; but you also represent your family, your gym, your state, your country....the human race.

I once did an off-site for BGS at LMU.  The rec director Laura was in charge.  When it was time to pack it in after several hours of promoting gymnastics and making sure no children died on our obstacle course, Lara said something that made me proud of her and the gym:  "Clean up any trash you see.  We represent the gym and our standard is to leave the premises cleaner than we found it."

 When you are cleaning up, and doing so with enthusiasm and pride in doing it well, you are doing so much more than just cleaning up physical trash....


If everyone would clean up after their own mess, and the mess of others here and there, it would be a much cleaner world.

[/soapbox]

“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” 

~ Aldous Huxley (paraphrased)

The following sequel post was published June 15, 2014:



Read more »

Ban and a Hex on W Sitting

Kill it wherever you see it:

I had a patient recently ask me if it is okay for her thirteen-month-old daughter to be W-sitting during playtime. The short answer is: absolutely NOT! 
It is never ok to be sitting like this for a prolonged period of time, and should be stopped immediately whenever you see it. There are a few postural and developmental reasons for this, and I'll go into some detail on all of them:

• Hip Distortion

• Knee and Foot Distortion

• Poor Development of Core Muscles

• Lack of Cross-Body Coordination

Read on...

How do you coach your gymnast at home?

Spoiler:  You don't:

Your gymnast does gymnastics at home. All the time. In every room. And you’ve watched enough gymnastics to know that certain things she’s doing are incorrect. So how do you make these corrections at home? You don’t. Let me repeat that. Do. Not. Coach. Your. Child. At. Home. Nothing will make your child’s coach cringe internally more than hearing that you worked on x, y, or z at home. You are not her coach. Don’t do it. Don’t even tell her to point her toes.

The bottom line is that gymnastics is your daughter’s (or son’s) sport. She puts in the work at practice, she feels the pressure at every competition, and all those little mistakes you see that you’re sure you could fix if they’re so obvious even you see them? Yeah, her coach is trying to fix them. I promise. Being a gym mom or dad does not qualify you as a coach at home.

I would know because my own parents were, in fact, elite gymnastics coaches at the same time I was making my way through the optionals program at our gym. In fact, if you followed gymnastics in the 90s, you’ve probably heard of my parents, Tom and Lori Forster.

Read Asha Forster Grebenik's blogpost.

Hat tip:  "Dunno"

Leave the Coaching to the Coaches

Former Olympian, Wendy Bruce Martin:

I made sure that she wasn’t fooling around during practice and that she listened to her coach. So when I saw her fooling around I would yell across the pool “stop fooling around and listen to your coach”. (Yelling at my daughter from across the pool did NOT make her listen to her coach, it made her turn her attention to me and wonder what the heck I was trying to tell her). She of course couldn’t hear me, so I moved my chair close to the diving boards. One month later my daughter was improving at an accelerated rate. She moved her dives up to a higher diving board. My daughter walked right up to the 10 ft. diving board and got in position. She did an amazing front dive. I could feel myself fill up with pride. That was MY daughter. Every dive she did seemed perfect to me and she kept proving to me that she had a chance of making an Olympic team. I was in a cloud. She made me feel like I was a better mom. I wasn’t just a mom; I was a mom of a child prodigy. I created that, I was a supermom. I checked into more diving classes, I talked to her coach about future plans, and I bought her new swimsuits without ruffles. It was time to get serious.

Read the post.

*UPDATE* 12/1/2014

Comment #65 at ChalkBucket Forum:

Since we stopped talking about gymnastics her enjoyment of the sport has multiplied 10 fold! I previously wanted to know everything and actually thought I was helping. The breaking point for me was at the end of a practice when I caught myself "coaching" my daughter on beam insisting that she do several more reps. I would take the 30 minutes of practice I saw twice a week and decide I knew what she needed. Her "real" coach was much nicer than she should have been to me. I backed off 100 %. And when I did she started loving the sport again.

Sunday Funnies

Cultivating the growth mindset from age 1

Via Gym Gab Blog:

The way I praised her effort took a little effort on my part. If I hadn't known better, I might have just said, "Clever girl!" (Or even "Here, let me help you with that.") What's so bad about that? Read on.
Stanford researcher Carol Dweck has been studying motivation and perseverance since the 1960s. And she found that children fall into one of two categories:

• Those with a fixed mindset, who believe their successes are a result of their innate talent or smarts
• Those with a growth mindset, who believe their successes are a result of their hard work

Fixed mindset: 'If you have to work hard, you don't have ability.'
Kids with a fixed mindset believe that you are stuck with however much intelligence you're born with. They would agree with this statement: "If you have to work hard, you don't have ability. If you have ability, things come naturally to you." When they fail, these kids feel trapped. They start thinking they must not be as talented or smart as everyone's been telling them. They avoid challenges, fearful that they won't look smart.
Growth mindset: 'The more you challenge yourself, the smarter you become'

Kids with a growth mindset believe that intelligence can be cultivated: the more learning you do, the smarter you become. These kids understand that even geniuses must work hard. When they suffer a setback, they believe they can improve by putting in more time and effort. They value learning over looking smart. They persevere through difficult tasks.
What creates these beliefs in our kids? The type of praise we give them -- even starting at age 1.

Read more on the research.

Questions to ask your athlete on that car ride home...

Gym Gab:

“How was gym today?” is a question every gym parent wants to ask their kid on the car ride home. Unfortunately this age-old, open-ended question loses it’s importance when the word “fine” become the oh-so common answer.  Here is a list of 25 questions to ask your athlete (not all in the same day of course), that will provide some welcome variety to you and your athlete!

1. What were you most proud of at gym today?
2. What was the hardest thing you did today?
3. What correction do you remember the most today? And why?
4. What compliment do you remember most today?
5. What muscles do you think worked the hardest today?
6. Were you proud of any of your teammates today?
7. Who was a great example to you today? And why?
8. What was the funniest thing about gymnastics today?

Go to the blog to check out the rest of the list.  Any questions of your own?

I posted this elsewhere last September:

The 6 words parents should say to child athletes:



Read more »

Why Children Might be Fidgety

Fidgeting is a real problem. It is a strong indicator that children are not getting enough movement throughout the day. We need to fix the underlying issue. Recess times need to be extended and kids should be playing outside as soon as they get home from school. Twenty minutes of movement a day is not enough! They need hours of play outdoors in order to establish a healthy sensory system and to support higher-level attention and learning in the classroom.

         In order for children to learn, they need to be able to pay attention. In order to pay attention, we need to let them move.

Read the piece from the beginning at TimberNook

Work Harder

Proactive Coaching:

At age 13, I went to my dad to complain about a situation where I didn’t think I was being treated fairly by a coach. My dad listened very closely to the whole story and then looked at me and told me something that stuck with me for the rest of my life… He simply said, “Work harder”, and walked away. Lesson learned. Stop whining and get to work. Instead of rescuing, excusing and enabling our kids by blaming others and fighting battles for them, or going immediately to the AD, principal and school board to demand the coach be fired… think about teaching our kids the simple wisdom of taking responsibility for your own situation.

Sunday Funnies

Marc Jacobs

Happy Mother's Day

"𝙈𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙂𝙤𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙣." 

- 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗺 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲

I grew up listening to The Carpenters. One song that had always stood out in simplicity and efficacy is one by Henry Mancini called "Sometimes". The lyrics were written as a simple poem by his daughter wanting to express her love and gratitude for her parents. Mancini set it to music. Karen Carpenter brought it to life with her voice.

To all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day. This song always makes me reflect upon my relationship with people; upon how much everyone who has ever crossed my path has meant to me, in one form or another. I feel gratitude and love, even for your simple "Hello"'s.

And I reflect upon my own mother today who has given me everything she could possibly give. I hope I have given her as much happiness in return, and then some.

Thank you, Mom.