Can coaching lead to mental blocks in cheerleading?
The short answer is – yes! The longer answer has to do with the pressure coaches feel to “win” plus the fact that some cheer coaches may be overstepping their reach.
Being a cheer coach is a huge job that requires an enormous amount of time, energy and talent. Cheer coaches do not do it for the money either! (“What money?” some of you are asking.)
The cheerleading world has grown and changed significantly over recent years and there is more pressure to enter competitions (for school and rec teams) and along with that comes the expectation that a squad will execute certain skills and stunts.
Even coaches at cheer gyms can feel the pressure. Kids and parents want to participate at the “winning” gyms so coaches feel they have to bring home those trophies in order to maintain the popularity of a gym.
Such pressure can sometimes lead coaches to push their athletes to progress from one skill to another before they are truly ready to do so. Or – a coach may feel he or she has to teach skills they don’t really know how to teach; it may simply be beyond their levels of expertise.
These two scenarios can lead to problems down the road.
In the first instance, a cheerleader may be told to move to a new skill without having fully mastered the previous one(s). Any bad habits such as splayed legs or poor positioning will be carried over to the next skill, resulting in inadequate execution and perhaps a fall or injury.
Also, if an athlete is told to move forward before mastery is acquired, the athlete may lack the confidence to do so. This too builds up, adversely affecting performance and ultimately leading to a possible block or phobia.
In the second example, where a coach does not have the necessary expertise to teach certain levels of skills, everything can go wrong since the cheerleader is probably being taught things that are incorrect, leading to poor performance, possible injury, and compromised confidence and increased fear.
Another point to be made is that just because someone is a superb tumbler/gymnast/cheer-athlete does not mean that he or she is a good teacher/coach! There is a world of difference between knowing how to do something well and being able to teach it well. So, beware of former stars that also coach. Many of them are terrific teachers but some are not.
In my next post I will talk about how to assess a coach to determine if he or she is right for you!
Are you on Facebook? Who isn’t? Well, I am too so please friend me and join my group – Confident Cheerleading. Soon I will be forming a fan page which will be loaded with all sorts of info, tips, and resources.
Tags: cheer coach, cheer coaches, cheerleader, cheerleaders, Cheerleading, mental blocks