Mental Game Skills for Skating Success
Many parents become concerned, even upset when their child stops making progress, or seems to regress in skills. Skaters are frustrated and angry because they can’t seem to land the jump like before, and life can be difficult to say the least.
Before you start questioning your coach’s competence or blaming it on your child’s work ethic, please read this.
In the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships, about a year ago, Gracie Gold, a favorite for the title, struggled and missed the podium. Instead of pausing to take what could be learned and putting the rest in the past, she went down the rabbit hole of self doubt (see previous article and video interview here). Continue reading “Dealing With Mistakes Can Save Your Season”
Does your mindset keep you in a cage?
A strong mental game requires a mindset of Learning and Growth.
The top performers in any profession understand that:
Continue reading “Why a Growth Mindset is Key for a Strong Mental Game”
If you are reading this, you want to improve fast.
Make your practice sessions work for you by doing what elite athletes and musical prodigies do. Continue reading “How to Deal With Mistakes in Sports”
In a perfect world skaters would be able to train year round with no interruption, improving every week. No injuries, no equipment problems, no losing ice to hockey teams.
Unfortunately, occasional interruptions in training happen, but skaters can use effective Mental Game Strategies to keep on improving despite the lack of actual physical practice on the ice.
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.