Relationship Between Mental Blocks And Focus Issues/add??

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I really love this thread. I am hoping to add the whole mental block struggle to one of the book in the cheerleading series at some point. To go with that, I had a few questions about the teams reaction to the block.

In your experiences, how do other kids on the team react when someone is struggling? Are they also rallying around them, or does that make it worse? Also, have you ever seen someone face a block for a short time period like a few days or a week or two? Finally(sorry I have so many) did any of your CPs ever face a block at competition? Or do they tend to show up for the first time at the gym?

Thanks so much, and sorry if I asked a LOT of questions.
 
I really love this thread. I am hoping to add the whole mental block struggle to one of the book in the cheerleading series at some point. To go with that, I had a few questions about the teams reaction to the block.

In your experiences, how do other kids on the team react when someone is struggling? Are they also rallying around them, or does that make it worse? Also, have you ever seen someone face a block for a short time period like a few days or a week or two? Finally(sorry I have so many) did any of your CPs ever face a block at competition? Or do they tend to show up for the first time at the gym?

Thanks so much, and sorry if I asked a LOT of questions.

In my personal experience, when a team member has a mental block, the whole team is supportive of the athlete, but not necessarily putting pressure on the athlete. I had a really bad mental block on some of my back tumbling skills for a few months, I could do the skills but could never have the courage to do them without my coach just standing there, and when I finally doing it myself the whole team would crowd around me, which in my opinion was sometimes more stressful than anything else.
A few times I have been scared about pulling a skill for just one training, but most of the times my mental blocks have lasted about a month, but I think it depends on the school. Back handsprings generally have the longest time for mental blocks. Most of my mental blocks have been due to the fear of going backwards.
At my first competition this year, I was suddenly terrified of pulling one of my tumbles right before we went into warmups, and I'll be honest and say that I did cry backstage. Besides this though, they mostly occurred at training.
 
In my opinion the athlete is usually hardest on themselves. Teammates usually know you don't need 100% tumbling to max out the score sheet.
 
In many cases anxiety disorders are confused as ADD. A proper diagnosis requires a careful and attuned assessment. I hope she is receiving treatment from someone who can look at the whole of the issue.

The CheerTD Family
 
So, it has been a lonnng time since I have been here, but I wanted to post an update in case someone looking for threads on mental blocks happens to read this. We took my daughter out of cheer over a year ago because of this frustrating mental block. I had honestly just resigned myself to the fact that she would likely never tumbling again. So fast forward to September 2017, she had not thrown anything backwards in over a year, and she wakes up one day and decides she is just going to start tumbling. Went to the drop in at our local gymnastics gym, and started throwing standing bhs, following week she was doing walkover bhs, following week RO bhs, this past week.. standing tuck. And as a bonus, she also landed a punch front. She is even throwing handsprings in our hardwood floor without even hesitating. It is like the block never happened. I guess time really does heal. Now of course she wants to go back to cheer!
 
Thanks for sharing your update! Very happy for you and your CP!
 
So happy for you. I have given up hope and realize a handspring and a standing tuck is all I will ever see. So sad as she is an incredible cheerleader. Pretty sure this is it for all star as she really doesn’t even enjoy it anymore.
 
So, it has been a lonnng time since I have been here, but I wanted to post an update in case someone looking for threads on mental blocks happens to read this. We took my daughter out of cheer over a year ago because of this frustrating mental block. I had honestly just resigned myself to the fact that she would likely never tumbling again. So fast forward to September 2017, she had not thrown anything backwards in over a year, and she wakes up one day and decides she is just going to start tumbling. Went to the drop in at our local gymnastics gym, and started throwing standing bhs, following week she was doing walkover bhs, following week RO bhs, this past week.. standing tuck. And as a bonus, she also landed a punch front. She is even throwing handsprings in our hardwood floor without even hesitating. It is like the block never happened. I guess time really does heal. Now of course she wants to go back to cheer!
 
I'm just curious-how many of your CP are also identified gifted? This personality type (perfectionistic, prone to anxiety, hyperfocused and driven) is something that is common among the early college students I know, who are accelerated 3-6 years academically, and we see similar issues at times.
 
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