There is a Japanese Proverb that says “fall down seven times, get up eight”.
Being successful takes drive and determination. If you want to be successful in gymnastics, you have to be willing to make sacrifices in order to achieve your goals. There are many trials and tribulations every day in gymnastics. With that being said, the two hardest skills to master in gymnastics are a back-handspring on floor, and a kip on bars. These two skills can take children years to accomplish. A typical scenario for a gymnast training hard to master a back-handspring on the floor, is doing drills every day in class to perfect their technique. Once a child is close to mastering the skill, without help after months and months of practice, it seems as though all the other children in their class have already mastered their back-handsprings. This is a very trying situation, because the child feels inadequate and left behind by being the last one to conquer their back-handspring. This is where determination comes into play. This is the lesson. DON’T QUIT!!! As the image conveys, success is just beyond splat. Remember, there is never a day that gymnasts won’t make a mistake, or face a struggle. Children fall off the beam more times than they can keep track of, but to be successful a child must get back up and try again.
Losing sight of one’s goals is caused by the frustration described above. So how do you not lose sight of a goal? Understand the process of progression, repetition, and proper training. When the team athletes train, they work on basics every day in addition to their daily lesson plans. These gymnasts intensely work on their flexibility, strength and conditioning. By starting every workout with a vigorous warm up, these athletes are preparing their bodies and minds on the importance of getting their muscles primed and ready for training. Team gymnasts work on their strength and conditioning by consistently repeating drills. Gymnastics is a numbers game. The more repetition a gymnasts does the better their success. It’s just a matter of time for your body to be trained to do what it needs to do. Eventually you are strong enough, flexible enough, and brave enough to conquer new skill sets at a quicker pace.
As a parent, remind your child the key is not how many times they fall, but how many times they get up. The more determined a gymnast is to stay on the beam or get a better score at a meet than they previously did, the more drive they will have during practice to achieve their goal. Keeping gymnasts driven towards their goals, big or small, will help fuel their excitement for their future success. Remind your gymnast it’s important to keep their head up and their eyes on the prize and to purse their dreams.
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