We’ve linked to this article before.
Coaching to Overcome Fear, by Alison Arnold Ph.D.
Having the patience to deal with an athlete (most often) irrationally fearful is one of the greatest challenges for the coach.
Balking on skills. Suddenly afraid of “easy” elements like backward handspring or backward giant.
Where does this come from? And how should we handle it?
Fear can arise from many sources. Sometimes it is a result of a past fall, injury, or trauma. Other times, it arises out of low self-confidence. Whatever the source, one major cause of fear in gymnasts is out of control thinking. Out of control thinking leads to out of control performance. The root of most fear and balking are thoughts that are negative and catastrophic. So this means, helping your athletes create disciplined, positive, thinking patterns will lead to disciplined, positive, performance. What are our athletes thinking as they are standing on the beam for 15 minutes trying to throw a series? Most likely, their thoughts are about crashing, falling, or other fantasies of what MAY happen. This out of control, negative thinking is a major cause of the fear/balking cycle.
How to create disciplined thinking.
Alison Arnold Ph.D. is a sport psychology consultant for USA Gymnastics. A former gymnast, she views training the mind as important as training the body.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 