I had a conversation with a skater today. Since the end of last season, things had been going well. We have her goals and plan for the year in place, and she has already started landing new triples, and is well on her way to mastering new spins among other things.
But for the last three days, she has been struggling. Jumps feel off, spins are off a little bit, she is finding it difficult to focus and refocus back to the job at hand. Self doubts swirl around in her head no matter how much she uses her doubt rebuttals and other mental game strategies.