My Mental Block | Teen Ink

My Mental Block

October 10, 2019
By Anonymous


Mental block; an inability to recall some specific thing or perform some mental action. Whether you’re in school presenting, or in a sport. Well, I’ve had a few of these, some were not so bad and I got over it in a week. My mental blocks were in gymnastics, over a fear that I would hurt myself performing a certain skill.


Balance beam; a narrow horizontal bar raised off the floor, on which a gymnast balances while performing exercises. A beam that is 4 inches wide. Having to do flips and land back on the beam. It sounds crazy but it was fun to do, and trying new skills on the high beam got your adrenaline running and it was exciting, until it wasn’t.


 Last summer, I arrived to practice late because I was driving back from Fredericksburg with my family. I missed the warm-up and conditioning, which I wasn’t complaining. The coaches greeted me with, “Why are you late?” I had to explain to them why and then they told me to get warmed up and then go to beam. Starting on beam is the worst because everyone is half asleep and the gym always feels like Antarctica in the morning. To make it worse, I hadn’t done the skills that make me nervous for a couple of days, and for some gymnasts, it’s hard to do a skill that makes you nervous when you haven’t done it in awhile. You get scared that you’ll forget how to do it, or do this thing called bocking. That’s when you’re doing a skill, and all the sudden you just stop doing it while you’re upside down or something and you can seriously hurt yourself. When I was ready for beam, my coach told me and my teammates our assignment was to do 5 of each skill we wanted to compete. I decided to start with my back handspring back layout, but before I do anything on the beam, I warm it up on the floor first. I probably did like 10 on the floor before my coach told me that I had to get on a beam or I would have rope climbs. 


As I got onto the beam to do my skill, I could feel my hands start to sweat and I got really nervous, more than usual. I stepped up to do the skill, then froze. I stood there for about 5 more seconds then decided to shake it out, clear my mind, then try again. I got back up to do the skill. I was going to count down from three because that usually helps me go.  When I got to one, I froze again. I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want my coach to be mad or disappointed especially since I’ve been doing it on the high beam for about a month now. I hopped off the beam and my mind went straight to the worst thought. Not being able to do the skill ever again. 


My coach saw that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed too. She asked what was wrong and I told her that I need to do a couple on a lower beam since I hadn’t done it in awhile. I did not want to mention that I was to scared to do it. I didn’t want to get hurt doing this skill which is what crossed my mind every time I got up to do that skill.  I thought once I did it a couple of times, I would be fine and I wouldn’t be scared. Well, I was wrong. I would only do this skill on the lowest beam, which wasn’t scary at all. By the end of the day, I knew I had a mental block on that skill. 


It was around August when this happened, so I had a month before school started to get over this mental block. When school started and fall training began, the assignments got harder and I didn’t want to fall behind, but by the time fall training began, I didn’t have my skill back and my coach made me do it on the high beam because she knew I could. Well I ended fracturing three toes. This happened because I went too cautious on the skill. I was out of gymnastics for 5 weeks and during this time I learned that I had to make a commitment to beam because it would be october and I would have to get all my skills back. While I was out, all I did was bars and some beam. I did back handsprings on the tramp, and walks and kicks on the beam. By the time my boot came off, I really had to be dedicated to make sure to work hard to get it done. It was really hard for me, but by the time I was ready to compete, I was one of the best on beam. 


The author's comments:

This piece is about my experience in gymnastics and how I overcame my mental blocks.


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