I’m not quite certain where to even begin. Today left me stunned and consumed with emotion. Honestly, it’s the feeling of being damn proud. Gymnastics has been apart of my life for over twenty years. Most recently making the transition from gymnast to coach. Let me tell you, its surreal. Today I walked into a gym that I had competed at numerous times in my career. The last time being fourteen years ago as a level six gymnast. I was putting my team up against judges and coaches that had been around since I was competing. I don’t know how to put this all into words for you. Today I looked at the sport I’ve loved my entire life with a new perspective. All the little things I remembered from competing, I now understand. For example, always seeing my coaches running off between sessions to disappear for a few moments and then magically reappear. Now I know they were filling their bellies in the coach’s room. I realize when my coaches said it was a long day… what that actually entails. (Currently my body is aching and my head is pounding).
I am the head coach of a compulsory team. Yes, my own little group of ten nuggets. That title is finally starting to sink in for me. As I continue onward in my journey, I have found my own style of coaching. The development of kids as gymnasts is important; however, I care more about my nuggets evolving into good humans over all else. I do my best to instill values into my nuggets that will resonate with them forever by teaching them to respect each other through the usage of good verbiage and being vigilant with their delivery on things. My focus is on building them up rather than tearing them down. Communication is huge and I am not one who believes in the power of yelling. I coach with this philosophy every day.
Today was the first competition of the season and my level 3 compulsory gymnastics team finished in third place. As a coach, I take a lot of pride in their success. Yes, they put the work in, but it has been a long and bumpy road to get here. All the girls did fantastic. They hit solid routines that went above and beyond my expectations. The best part wasn’t the scores. It was the fact that each kid walked in the building with a smile on their face and walked about with their heads held high. My girls truly became a family today. They expressed so much love and excitement for each other. It was cool to see.
Often times, I ponder what I can be doing to better myself as a coach to help better my kids. One thing I’ve thought a lot about is redefining success. Redefining what it means and how it is obtained. Of course, this is a results-based sport and scores matter, but do they really? What I am trying to say is stop putting such an emphasis on them. Teach kids that the scores aren’t the only thing that determines your success in your gymnastics career. Your attitude plays a huge role. What are you bringing to the gym that day? It all matters. Did you pay attention to your teammate and support them while they were competing or did you wait in anticipation for your score? I believe this mindset changes everything. It brings real value to this tough and grueling sport.
Historically success means something that comes close after or simply an outcome. Not a bad or a good outcome, just an outcome. In order to get an outcome, you need to do to something. All you have to do is make a move.
Any sort of outcome works for success because an outcome is simply something that comes out as the result of something else. If you want to define success as a good outcome, you want to be sensible in what you include here. There are an infinite number of ways in which an outcome can be seen as good. For example, in gymnastics, getting a 10.0 would be seen as a good outcome because that is the highest score you can achieve in the sport.
Instead of teaching kids a narrowed black and white version of defining success, what if we encouraged them to make choices for continued success. What does that look like?
1. Show Up
Showing up is the best place to start. Success is not one single act. It is making the decision to choose a path that best suits your journey. If you want to be able to do a back flip, then you better be showing up to practice every day and working the fundamental skills. That is success. That is putting your self one step closer to achieving you goal.
2. Keep Reaching for the Next Thing
You can choose to make success happen at any moment.
It’s weird being here now. I still have so many emotions flowing through me at the moment. All I want to do is stand up and scream to the world just how amazing my kids are. They are amazing gymnasts and amazing little humans. To be honest I care about these kids as if they were my own. My heart feels so full that its over spilling. I felt like I had a lot to prove today, but no one to prove it to other than myself. WE KILLED IT.
XO Coach Yuki
