If you’re like me, you’re definitely missing sports during this pandemic. As a gymnast, I find myself doing splits in the living room, cartwheels on the edges of sidewalks and backflips on my sister’s trampoline.
While I definitely miss the tumbling and competing aspect of gymnastics, I actually miss coaching the most. Watching my students’ smiles grace their faces as they complete a new skill for the first time brings me more joy than performing that skill myself.
In a few weeks, my gym will open back up and I get to watch them succeed again. In the meantime, here are five things I learned from my coaching experience.
Trust yourself as much as they trust you.
For many gymnasts, a back-handspring is the first type of backflip they learn. We start learning this skill by jumping back onto flat mats, then over barrel-shaped mats, then on trampolines with coaches “spotting” (helping) them perform the skill. For some, jumping backward to their hands is the most terrifying thing they can do, and if done incorrectly, can seriously injure them. As a coach, you will essentially have to catch them as they jump back for the first time, and then flip their legs over their body. This requires a lot of arm strength. Much like tumbling, a coach can have all the strength in the world, but if they are terrified, they will fail. The student trusts the coach with their life in gymnastics. As a coach, you have to trust yourself enough to be able to catch them when they jump back. You have to trust yourself enough to never doubt that you will catch them when they jump back.
Their success is your success. Enjoy it.
I mentioned earlier how much I enjoy watching my students successfully perform a new
skill for the first time. When they finally get that skill they’ve been working on for months, they will smile and squeal and pump their fists and ask you to film it and do it a million times. It takes a lot to learn a new skill — they spend weeks building up the physical ability to do it, and on top of that build up the mental strength to get over the fear of doing something completely unnatural. As a coach, I found myself ready to push the student to the next skill once they achieved the one they finally performed by themselves. It’s good to push your students, but don’t push them too fast. It’s important to celebrate the new skill with them, because this encourages them to continue with the sport. If you’re always moving on to the next skill, they will become impatient with themselves, which keeps them from enjoying gymnastics. And if they aren’t having fun, they won’t see you as a good coach.
The longer it takes for them to learn a new skill, the more you will learn as a coach.
Many times you will find a student who will take way longer than normal to successfully
perform a skill for the first time. (I was this student.) When this happens, you will often have to try brand-new coaching techniques with this particular student. Sometimes you will even have to invent new coaching techniques. While this is definitely more difficult, it will make you a better coach in the end by allowing you to build a more interpersonal relationship with your student, adapt to the challenges this student presents to you, and allows you to learn new coaching styles that prepare you to work with many other students.
You are more than just a coach.
Gymnastics is very much a psychological sport, so when your students are suddenly
failing to perform a skill they are normally good at, then you know something is wrong. I’ve had students tell me everything from their best friends moved away to their family members dying. When these unfortunate situations happen, you won’t just be their coach. You’ll be their shoulder to cry on, their therapist to vent to, and their friend they can trust. The Coach-Student relationship is much more interpersonal than many realize, and that is a good thing.
They’ll coach you.
Whether they’re 5 or 20, your student will teach you something you wouldn’t have learned unless you were a coach. Embrace that. From 5-year olds I learned to treat every small step as the best thing ever. I had a student one time who became so ecstatic when I told her she got one leg all the way up while doing a handstand. Celebrating the little things will make you just as ecstatic. I had a 7-year-old student who told me that you have to visualize yourself doing a task in order to do it successfully. She was right. I had a 10-year old tell me weight doesn’t matter when it comes to tumbling. A 15-year old once showed me how to be kind to yourself when you fail. A 20-year old showed me how to never give up. They’ll coach you.
Coaching is just as eye-opening and challenging as tumbling, and I can’t wait to see what else is in store for me when my gym opens back up.
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