"Gymnastics is 90% mental."

My coach tells us this quite often. I'm assuming the other 10% is just the muscle to do it.

He also says that if you can do 1 circle then you can do 100.

Well the most I've ever done is 7. I'm sure I'm hitting a mental block because i think i feel myself stopping myself from going for another circle...Why am i being a baby about this? I mean it's not only with the circles because my coach says my circles are nice. But learning knew tricks, I punk out. I'm currently trying to teach myself a moore on a floor buck, and occasionally I get my hand back on the pommel, but my feet stop me.

Then if I'm doing circles for like 10-15 minutes after that i just can't do one.

Any help on getting rid of the mental block? I mean i know gymnastics is scary...but pommel horse is the least scary out of all the events.

I am a horse specialist and have been for 3 years now...I should be swinging like a pro now. So anything would help right now.

-Eric "The Horseman"

I wrote something similar to this here not too long ago

You just have to go for it. Man up and throw yourself head on into it. It's hard to do, but you know that

The 90% mental that many coaches like to say could also be referred to as 90% technical. So for twisting, flipping etc it's more about having the mental feel of the timing and technique than having the strength. Ofcourse you need endurance to do circles though but your situation seems weird

I mean i have the endurance to keep circling until the palms of my hands start tingling. But as soon as i feel my circle feel the least bit bad, in my hand placement or that im leaning wrong, i kinda just throw myself off the pommels.

Hi. This is what i believe is your problem

I believe your thinking too much. When I am training and I think too much, I lose a lot of control of my body and make more mistakes. When I am blank and just let my muscles do it, I have better results.

You need to empty your mind of everything except the picture of the move your trying to do.

If your trying to think about technique whilst doing a move, you will eat shit (excuse my language haha)

I believe you must blank out, picture what you need, say ok and let the muscles do it. They know what to do, let them do it.

Another thing, you can't correct technique mid movement, so don't think about it. You should Feel an error and then you correct it next time after you finish your sequence, but your mind should be blank during the movement, and if its not blank, it should be picturing you doing it perfectly.

Thomas I really like your theory around it. I'm going to try this tomorrow at practice.

I did notice if I focus on one point on the floor i do circle longer.

I guess now I need to apply this to learning new moves and actually slow my circles down instead of flooring it. The judges can't see the beauty of it if it's being rushed.

(that's another problem i tend to rush.)