If you ever thought that team practice before competitions was hard, just imagine the increase when practicing for the State Competition. Little Z wanted to practice every day. We had three weeks between her last competition and State. She was practicing hard at the gym and was working on her beam and floor routines as best she could at home.
Then I found out that other girls had been taking private lessons in addition to regular team practice. Could we afford it? Not really. Did she "need" it? Probably not. Did we think it would be helpful? Definitely, if for no other reason than from a mental standpoint. Little Z had some issues throughout the season with not being able to get a bad routine or fall out of her head. We figured if we could have someone work with her one on one, then it could help that aspect of her competition. So we set up three private lessons for her--essentially one a week until competition.
Z's first private lesson was after open gym on a Saturday. I was a bit nervous having her do it after she had been goofing off/working out, but at least she was warmed up. The lesson actually started 1/2 hour before open gym ended, but since they were working on beam, that was perfect. Beam has been Z's nemesis since the beginning. While she was always nervous that she would fall on her half-turn, she never did. She would fall on other things--her handstand, her split leap and her dismount--but not the half-turn. The coach worked with her to get up her confidence and she seemed to start enjoying beam a bit more since she wasn't quite as nervous. She also worked on bars a bit during that lesson.
The other two lessons were on Wednesdays--a day when Z didn't have practice. One lesson ended up being entirely on bars, which I thought was a bit odd since Z normally does well on bars, but I could definitely see the improvement. She also did work on floor and more on vault. I had hoped there would be more on beam, but there wasn't.
Z definitely said that she felt the lessons helped and it seemed like she had more confidence, but the tell tale would be her performance at States.
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