This article is about “The Psychological Problem” that I see in the Danish gymnastic gyms and competitions.
In my younger days I did Apparel Gymnastics, Acrobatic, Rope Skipping, Trampoline, Recreational Gymnastics and TeamGym. All of them have gymnasts with physiological problems, and that is actually very normal.
Example of “Psychological Problem”:
- twisting on all skills unintentionally (aka. twisting flip)
- spotter has to be on a certain side when spotting
- has to be quiet in the gym before they can do their skills.
- anybody doing gymnastic exercises in close approximation is a problem
- gymnasts can not jump if they don’t have a gymnastic shoe on or heel support
The list goes on and on… but I think you get the idea.
What is not “normal” is the degree that it shows up in the different gymnastic areas. One area in particular stands out… and that is “TeamGym”. TeamGym is a very popular sport in Denmark, but I have also noticed it is the sport that has an incredible amount of gymnasts with “Psychological Problems”. There are man factors that contribute to the gymnasts in TeamGym having these problems, but the main one is actually the coaches themselves that reinforce these problem indirectly.
I’m going to step on a lot of peoples toes now and I’m fine with that, because I see no problem voicing my opinion on a subject I believe is holding the development of gymnasts in Denmark back. You are always welcome not to come to my website.
Problem 1 – Failing
Every year at the SpringCup Silkeborg I see 100′s of gymnast crying after they did a pass. Either because they made a mistake or because it wasn’t good enough. These gymnasts all suffer from “Psychological Problems”, falling down or not doing a skill at their best level is normal and they should understand that. What I see when the gymnast starts to cry is that either the coach or a group of gymnasts all come to the gymnast and start to hug and give support, this is were it fails! When they do this they are only reinforcing the gymnasts “Psychological Problems”.
Problem 2 – Spotting
Spotting,.. unnecessary spotting is a very big problem in Denmark. Gymnastics in Denmark is at a very amateur level and so is the people coaching. What I see is that coaches spot too much or do it for showing off. Please read my article about “Spotting for Safety or Showing of f for Glory“.
Problem 3 – Runway
In the gym were I train my team we usually train together with 1 or 2 other teams in the gymnastic center. TeamGym gymnasts have the option to use 18 meter runway to a 15 meter tumbling track when they compete. What happens is they also train with 18 meter runway, which is ridiculous to a training. There is no way they are going to accelerate all 18 meters. Again their coaches let them do this and thereby build up a “Psychological Problem” that they can not do a back handspring without a runway that is 18 meters long. (This one specially bugs me because my gymnasts would like to use 5 meters and we always have to fight about this in the gym, because the “Psychological Problem” TeamGym gymnasts can’t not train with 12-13 meters runway…. RIDICULOUS!)
Problem 4 – Music
I don’t mind having music in the gym, background music fills the quiet void and creates a nice mood in the gym. The problem is that TeamGym gymnasts use music when doing their tumbling passes and mini-trampoline passes (which is also ridiculous). What I see in the gym is that they can not do their passes if the music isn’t played at 120 dB. What they forget or actually egoistic do is ignore everybody else using the gym. All these TeamGym gymnasts have the notation that they can only tumbling and jump the mini-trampoline if there is very loud music playing. Again the coaches reinforce this by turning up the music every time they are going to do a pass.
Problem 5 – Concentration
A lot of gymnastic centers in Denmark have combination pits, which means the pit can be jumped into from more than one sides. In this example we have a trampoline, pit and a tumbling track. I actually was a part of this episode which happened at our gym. My team were practicing back-handsprings in the trampoline and not using the pit. The problem is the TeamGym gymnasts were using the tumbling track and pit and could not do their exercises, because we were practicing in the background…. come on! TeamGym gymnasts really need to work on their concentration on what they are doing, and not what others are doing.
Problem 6 – Equipment
This is one of my favorite psychological problems. I teach my gymnasts that good gymnasts can adapt to all types of tumbling tracks and bad gymnasts can only jump on one type. At our gym we have 4 types of tumbling tracks; fasttrack (trampoline-track), power tumbling track, team-gym track and an airtrack. The only track you will see a TeamGym gymnast jump on is the team-gym track, well they also use the trampoline-track of course it is easier, but you will never see them jump on anything else. There coaches have psychological made it a problem for the TeamGym gymnasts to jump on anything else because they only train on that type of track.
Conclusion
Like I started the article with; All have some kind of “Psychological Problem”, but TeamGym stands out. It is a problem and it is a problem for the gymnasts development. I could care more or less about this since I teach power tumbling and I’m very aware of these problems, but when it disrupts other teams training, then it isn’t just there problem anymore.
