Getting Over Mental Blocks

First of all I would like to thank all the effort and dedication that Coach and his team put into GB, it is just amazing how helpful and detailed this is.

I have started gymnastics about a year ago (I'm 19 now) and I cannot complain about a single thing after I started following the Foundation and Handstand Series.

However I recently stumbled upon a problem that I believe many late-starters struggle with at some point. I can't seem to get over the fear of tumbling backwards. A few months ago I started to learn back handspring and other back saltos which technically don't feel very difficult to execute, yet it is the second time that I get a mental block and can't get myself to do it anymore. The first time I got over it just making myself repeat the skill over and over again until I could make it, but clearly this did not contribute to extinguish my fear of back tumbling, it just made me more kinesthetically aware of that particular movement.

Since I am so impressed with Coach's wisdom and attention to progressing the right way, is there some sort of progression I could follow to ultimately get over this fear and start tumbling backwards totally stress free?

Thank you very much 

If you have a Spotting belt over a trampoline use that. Otherwise have someone you for a few times and then force yourself to do it. It will take a while to get comfortable. I'd say do 20 a day. Keep this up into the out or wherever you are most comfortable. Just make sure you keep pushing forward don't allow yourself to lapse.

The issue appears to be a lack of progressions.  In my opinion you should never proceed directly into a skill as technically complicated as a back handspring; rather the skill should be broken out into its component part with each component learned in isolation.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

You may not like what I will propose here, but I like to use more "old school" approach here. In my opinion spotters or various pulley systems for basic tumbling skills create a weak mindset. I would rather see someone to just go for the skill in relatively safe conditions - put a soft block (in our gym these are approx. 70cm high) in a foam pit, stand on the edge of it and just do a backflip or fall backward over your head. You have absolutely no chance to hurt yourself, if your head hits the block, you won't feel anything because its soft. I learnt both backflips and double backflips this way... in terms of the "mental block" as you say, of course the technique needs to be refined afterwards and it will take a considerable amount of time.

Falcon said:

You may not like what I will propose here, but I like to use more "old school" approach here. In my opinion spotters or various pulley systems for basic tumbling skills create a weak mindset. I would rather see someone to just go for the skill in relatively safe conditions - put a soft block (in our gym these are approx. 70cm high) in a foam pit, stand on the edge of it and just do a backflip or fall backward over your head. You have absolutely no chance to hurt yourself, if your head hits the block, you won't feel anything because its soft. I learnt both backflips and double backflips this way... in terms of the "mental block" as you say, of course the technique needs to be refined afterwards and it will take a considerable amount of time.

You're right.  I don't.  

Technical gymnastics, especially skills that contain rotation, need to be trained methodically and thoroughly.  Pay attention and proceed with care ... or they not only can, they will turn around and bite you.

Sure you may get away with it for a while.  Perhaps even long while.  But you are going to eventually get bitten just the same.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Fran-

Although it's not fine detailed, this and the other post by Coach a couple of posts up in same topic provide a good overview/start point of his approach.

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/13466-front-and-back-walkoverslimbers/?p=131946

Falcon said:

You may not like what I will propose here, but I like to use more "old school" approach here. In my opinion spotters or various pulley systems for basic tumbling skills create a weak mindset. I would rather see someone to just go for the skill in relatively safe conditions - put a soft block (in our gym these are approx. 70cm high) in a foam pit, stand on the edge of it and just do a backflip or fall backward over your head. You have absolutely no chance to hurt yourself, if your head hits the block, you won't feel anything because its soft. I learnt both backflips and double backflips this way... in terms of the "mental block" as you say, of course the technique needs to be refined afterwards and it will take a considerable amount of time.

That is not an "old school" approach.  There are many reasons why I would argue against many points you made but without writing an essay I will just get to the most important.

There is no such thing as "absolutely no chance to get hurt", especially in acrobatics. The safety, health and well being of athletes are your responsibility while you coach them.  To not follow sound and safe progressions is putting the athlete at risk for injury, potentially even catastrophic, and neglecting your responsibility to them. 

Coach Sommer said:

You're right.  I don't.  

 

Technical gymnastics, especially skills that contain rotation, need to be trained methodically and thoroughly.  Pay attention and proceed with care ... or they not only can, they will turn around and bite you.

 

Sure you may get away with it for a while.  Perhaps even long while.  But you are going to eventually get bitten just the same.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I agree with your point of view coach, and I do train basics in terms of tumbling and acrobatics, but in terms of overcoming fear, I don't think there is a better way than just going for the skill. Yes, backward rolls may help, back limbers or walkovers too. However I disagree that they will erase the fear of rotating backward in the air.

Matt JC said:

That is not an "old school" approach.  There are many reasons why I would argue against many points you made but without writing an essay I will just get to the most important.

 

There is no such thing as "absolutely no chance to get hurt", especially in acrobatics. The safety, health and well being of athletes are your responsibility while you coach them.  To not follow sound and safe progressions is putting the athlete at risk for injury, potentially even catastrophic, and neglecting your responsibility to them. 

Getting hurt while jumping from a foam box into a foam pit? Sorry, but that's just hard to do even for a very untalented person. I know that, because I'm one. I do see safety as a priority, but trying to do everything safely is in my opinion impossible in such sport as gymnastics. If someone is scared, or views jumping into 2m deep foam pit as something dangerous, I would suggest they seek out different sport, swimming for example.

As Coach said, preparation is key. Each of the component parts of the movement should be so easy for you that you don't even have to think about doing them. That way, you can put them all together at once and do a more complex skill. This is crucially important, so that you know it's safe to push yourself. 

Assuming you have reached the point where you've trained all the proper progressions and you're ready to start mastering a new skill, you may still experience some fear, especially if it's a new kind of skill. They key to overcoming fear of a skill is to not allow yourself time to become afraid. Once you get in position to perform the skill, don't let yourself stop and think. Just do It. After you've performed the skill, immediately do it again. Don't get a drink, don't take a rest, don't even catch your breath: immediately return to the starting position without givinig yourself time to contemplate what you're about to do. As you become more comfortable with the skill, you should start being able to do more and more in rapid succession. For something like a back tuck or back handspring, you should be able to work up to doing 8-10 in a row without much trouble. 

This is why it is critical that you've mastered the previous skill progressions: if you have to think about the skill to perform it correctly, then this technique puts you at serious risk of hurting yourself. 

Falcon said:

I agree with your point of view coach, and I do train basics in terms of tumbling and acrobatics, but in terms of overcoming fear, I don't think there is a better way than just going for the skill. Yes, backward rolls may help, back limbers or walkovers too. However I disagree that they will erase the fear of rotating backward in the air.

 

 

Getting hurt while jumping from a foam box into a foam pit? Sorry, but that's just hard to do even for a very untalented person. I know that, because I'm one. I do see safety as a priority, but trying to do everything safely is in my opinion impossible in such sport as gymnastics. If someone is scared, or views jumping into 2m deep foam pit as something dangerous, I would suggest they seek out different sport, swimming for example.

Gymnastics, and acrobatics in general, is never 100% safe, but that doesn't mean you should take unnecessary risks. If you do back tucks into a pit before you've learned to properly set and tuck, you're much more likely to hurt yourself. Attempting back tucks into a pit before you've mastered the prerequisites doesn't give you any advantage, but puts you at higher risk of hurting yourself (and also at risk of developing bad habits that are hard to shake). 

You're correct that in order to learn a skill, at some point you have to simply go for it. But this should be recommended only with the caveat that you've first taken care of business by mastering all the prerequisites. 

...and Confucius said 'Knowledge without practice is useless, and practice without knowledge is dangerous'.

Taken from 'The Slight Edge' book I am currently reading.

Thank you everybody for your advice, it is much appreciated and I will try to apply it to my training.

However I wanted to clarify something regarding what Coach said. I did not just started doing back handsprings with no preparatory exercises. I tried to work on the first half of the skill by doing drills where you start as in a back handspring and then lay back or jump onto an elevated surface keeping a slight arch in your back. Then I worked on the second part by training handstand snap downs from an elevated surface. I also tried to link the two parts by using a barrel and it all worked fine. But when I try to do it with no equipment I just freeze. Is there anything I haven't done that I should be doing? 

Why in the world would you land jump backs with an arched back? These should land completely flat when performed jumping up an incline.

Th error is in the progression you used. It should have been jump backs up an incline mat, then (with a spot) jump back down the incline mat to a handstand, then jump back down the incline mat to a long hollow pushup position and then finally jump back down the incline mat to a full backhandspring.

And if at anytime you committed a technical error, you should have been required to move backward to the very first drill.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Now I understand the mistake I was making, I will immediately correct my approach. I used to perform those drills with an arched back after many videos I found on youtube, but I am aware that not everyone is as qualified as you are, so I thank you very much for the clarification. I have just one more question, how should the incline mat be positioned relative to the body while performing the progressions you mentioned above? Happy New Year to you and your family 

Your starting position relative to the incline mat will depend upon the strength of your jump.  Most adults will find that they need to stand approx 2-3 feet in front of the incline mat so their upper body does not overshoot the mat on their landing.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

What shud one do when they cant progress with the very basics? Im talking about SL/P1 stuck on it forever, now after 2months im back at square one ;(    

Jure Rakuljic said:

What shud one do when they cant progress with the very basics? Im talking about SL/P1 stuck on it forever, now after 2months im back at square one ;(    

When you have a question, you should follow these steps:

1. Check the FAQ to see if it's answered there.

2. Use the search function to try to see if your question has already been answered. (Hint: if you'd searched, you'd have found this, this, this and this, and many other threads).

3. If you don't find the info you're looking for after trying either of the above two methods, post your question in a new thread, rather than hijacking another unrelated thread. 

Coach, in your experience what % of blocks are actually faulty progressions/technique or lack of physical capacity?  Are true psychological bocks at all common?

Falcon said:

I agree with your point of view coach, and I do train basics in terms of tumbling and acrobatics, but in terms of overcoming fear, I don't think there is a better way than just going for the skill. Yes, backward rolls may help, back limbers or walkovers too. However I disagree that they will erase the fear of rotating backward in the air.

 

 

Getting hurt while jumping from a foam box into a foam pit? Sorry, but that's just hard to do even for a very untalented person. I know that, because I'm one. I do see safety as a priority, but trying to do everything safely is in my opinion impossible in such sport as gymnastics. If someone is scared, or views jumping into 2m deep foam pit as something dangerous, I would suggest they seek out different sport, swimming for example.

I'm at a very low-level in all this but I feel that I've come a long way and I'm certainly not naturally suited to it all, so I think I have some useful experiences. The method you propose is very common these days, all the good trickers I know learned by "just doing it" and that's the only advice they had for me. Clearly if you can "just do" something then you don't genuinely have the fear at all, and the reflexes that would prevent you from making your body do what you want are sufficiently weak or maybe not present at all. If one can not do something, they can not do it - it can be hard for people who can do something, perhaps easily, to comprehend and accept that some people can not do it, but in all fields this is the case and the understanding teacher must accept it and find a way around it.

I feel as though I wasted years, my best physical years, under the impression that the "just do it" method was the only approach possible and if I couldn't do something the first time I tried it (or near enough) then I was fated never to be able to. It DOES work for some people - undeniably - and they are almost always the ones who have the most potential in a given field, since their brains and bodies are already wired up for it. The later consequences for their technique and longevity I don't know and perhaps most don't care (I wouldn't, personally, being a mere hobbyist) but either way it does get them the skills and they progress. It's like how some people can learn decent handstands by "just doing them" - kicking up repeatedly and pretty soon they've got them. Others, like myself, lacked the physical/neural/whatever capacity to hold a handstand and so no amount of "just do it" practice could possibly have ever got me the position. When I finally had the sense to start with easier positions and relevant exercises to strengthen what needed to be strengthened I had rapid progress indeed.

The same was true for basic tumbling - after I suppose eight years or more of banging my head against the wall, probably hours in total of standing on the grass (even with a spotter) trying to make myself "just do it" and only making the fear 10x worse, I found a gym and used the slowest, steadiest possible progression I could come up with - involving about ten steps on the trampoline, ten on the tumble track, again on the fast track, and then finally the floor. This took a period of months - one little step each session. One of my friends is an acrobat, we might say - brilliantly talented and a professional performer, no doubt he could have been a high-level gymnast had he been trained as such, but he's mostly self-taught. He was frustrated by my intentionally-slow progression towards moves that he got in five seconds (in other words, he had them all along, just hadn't tried it yet) and said it was a waste of time when I could just do it instead. But to me the waste of time was letting years go by without getting anywhere trying to follow a method that in theory could be faster, but in practice just isn't. For me.

Everyone's so different, I suppose.

The just do it method is great for selecting people, for identifying potential and for weeding out weakness (think of military fitness training - hardly ideal for an individual's progression, but largely intended to identify those who just can't hack it). It's also great for looking tough on YouTube and berating struggling noobs. But for an individual's own progression, I really don't think there's much to be said for it. When you get into the right flow of progression in something it comes so easily, there are no massive challenges to overcome or barriers to smash down. You just walk calmly around each barrier and keep moving forward - using a number of easy, manageable steps instead of trying to clear it with a single bound.

Thanks for all