As competition nears, skaters can experience inconsistencies in their performance. The anticipation (or stress) of an upcoming performance can cause skaters to panic and change their practice routines. When you tighten up, over control or over analyze your skills in practice, you might experience greater inconsistencies in your performance. One day you might feel on and hit all your jumps. The next day you might feel wobbles and miss all your spins.
From a mental game perspective, skaters can experience the following challenges a week before competition:
1.? Inconsistencies ? One day you are landing all of your jumps, the next day is full of mistakes.
2.? Last-minute panic ? You suddenly feel like you?re not prepared and need more lessons.
3.? Expecting Perfection ? You want to be more perfect and criticize yourself when you are not.
4.? Self doubt ? You question your ability to perform when you don?t hit everything in practice.
5.? Frustration ? You become angry and upset with yourself after mistakes.
6.? Unhealthy comparisons ? You begin to compare yourself to the top competitors and wonder if you measure up.
Some skaters have a tendency to want to ?cram for the test? before a competition?as if they are not prepared enough. They focus on technique in an attempt to perfect their skills. If you do this, you are locked into a practice mindset and can?t transition into the performer. Your self-doubt and perfectionist attitude makes it hard to skate freely and intuitively, exactly what you need for competition.
Become the Performer
The best skaters in the world strike a balance between two contrasting mindsets that are important for success in any sport. These are a practice mindset and a competition mindset. You are in the practice mindset when you are working on technique and learning new jumps or routines.
The training mindset is necessary to analyze your skills, make adjustments, and improve for competition. The competition mindset allows you to compete at your best and is necessary for peak performance.
The purpose of practice is to make your skills feel effortless when you perform on the ice. During a competition, let your instincts, built on a ton of practice, take over. Trust is the ability to forget about the HOW TO of your routine and instead react to your instincts. During competition, you need to let your creative mind take over.
Many skaters I work with are stuck in the practice mindset and can never stop training their technique or method, especially before competition. This limits skaters in competition because they have trouble just doing what they have trained to do. The goal is not to stop training your skills and start working on putting your programs together so you can let it flow when it?s time to compete.
Skaters are Humans Too
Humans are not perfect and cannot be perfect. You do NOT have to be perfect to win. Often, skaters get too engrossed in how it may feel and if it does not feel just right, they start to doubt and lose confidence. You can strive for perfection in practice, but you must learn to accept that it does not have to be perfect in competition. If you expect to perform all your skill perfectly in competition, it will be hard to move on from mistakes that are often inevitable.
Keep it Simple
You should start simplifying your performance and putting your programs together The week before competition. Ideally you want your programs to feel effortless and well-memorized. You should focus your attention on the tempo of your programs. Your programs will look more natural and free.
Mental Game Tips:
Below are a few tips to keep in mind when your performance is inconsistent prior to a big competition.
1. Transition into the performer mindset as competition nears. Trust your body to execute while you focus on the sequence of your routine and your transitions.
2. Don?t panic if your skills don?t feel great one day. Know that the next day you might be spot on. Get through the practice without emotional turmoil.
3. Don?t dwell on mistakes and fall into the trap of over-analyzing your skills the week of competition. Let go of mistakes quickly and put them behind you.
4. Develop positive self-talk of champions and control your inner dialog.
5. Start to visualize or mentally rehearse your entire program, skating with confidence and freedom and performing for the audience.
Note: Dr. Patrick Cohn is a master mental game coach that helps athletes, coaches, and parents learn mental game skills for success in sports. Visit Kids? Sports Psychology Kids? Sports Psychology to access mental toughness videos, articles, audio programs, and e-books to improve your performance.
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