Youth athletes need to build trust in themselves and their coaches to move up to the next level in their sport! Without trust, development is impossible! Just ask Olympic Gold Medalist Peter Vidmar.
In this video, Peter shares how trusting his coach fully to teach him how to acquire new difficult moves and skills helped him gain self-esteem and confidence.
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Early on I started to realize that Makoto Sakamoto, my coach, would never ask me to try something unless I was ready to do it. He was very big on progressions. He was very big on building a foundation. The broader the base of the pyramid the higher the pyramid can be, so we focused on the fundamentals.
When the time came to do the first skill where you flip upside down and go backwards, I noticed that I would try it the first time, I was successful at it. Not so much because of my innate ability, but because I had prepared to do that next step. My coach had taught me properly.
I learned to trust my coach, so when the time came to do a crazy risk in my mind, I was able to do it.
I remember very vividly, for example, my first double back flip off the horizontal bar. The giants are on the bar, let go of the bar, and do a double back flip. I remember lining up in front of my coach. We all lined up as a group and my coach would stand there in front of us.
He said, “Today let’s focus on this, this, and this. Begin workout.” Then we break and begin our workout. So we lined up one day and he said, “We are going to this, this, and this today.” He looked at me and said, “Oh and Pete, let’s do a double back flip off the high bar today.” Then we’re done.
I thought, “Double back flip. What am I going to do?”
I spent a lot of time in the bathroom that day. “Coach, can I go to the bathroom?” I would go to the bathroom and just sit in the stall going, “What am I going to do? Maybe he’ll forget me if I stay in here long enough to do a double back flip.”
So I am walking out the bathroom and he goes, “Okay Pete, let’s go to the high bar.” I am like, “Oh, here it goes!” I remember thought inside that I was going to go for it. I was not going to chicken out. I was going to go for it, because I had been taught to trust him. When he says do it, you do it.
So I get up there and here he is standing there. I go, “Giant, giant, one, two!” and I over rotated and flipped over on my back. I made it easy. I can’t begin to tell you the elation I felt when I did that. I was out of my mind excited. I thought I could do 20 more of them that day.
I had broken that barrier. I was successful in overcoming fear in sports. My coach was right. The next time I did it and I did it with a twist. He asked me if I was ready to go for it, I trusted him and I did it. He was a great coach. He was an Olympian. He had been there and done that.
He had earned the right and my respect; not only from his performance, but from the way he coached and taught me.
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Peter Vidmar, the highest scoring American gymnast in Olympic history, is a leader in the Olympic movement today. He has worked for many years as the gymnastics commentator for CBS Sports and ESPN.
Peter is also a powerful and entertaining speaker at corporate meeting and trade shows. With over 2 decades of experience, he helps people throughout the country realize their full potential with his message of Risk, Originality and Virtuosity.
Click here to get his amazing book.