INTRODUCTION
If you really want to maximize your potential as a competitive gymnast and reach the goals you've set for yourself, then you have to start today to train yourself mentally, as well as physically. Without the right head set and mental strategies you'll always perform far below your capabilities. In order to gain the Competitive Advantage and perform like a winner, you've got to first think like one. Understand and practice the following ideas and steps and they'll help you on your way to becoming a champion! Remember you can't stick those routines under pressure without using your head, and you can't develop mental toughness without consistent practice.

STEP ONE

KEEP YOUR GYMNASTICS FUN
Do not wait until you win before you start having fun. Champions win because they are having fun! When you enjoy yourself you'll be physically looser and will perform much better. Make your practices and competitions fun! If you're too serious and turn your gymnastics into all work and no fun you will definitely run into performance difficulties and be a candidate for burnout. Remember, fun and peak performance go together. If you find yourself dreading your competitions, something's wrong.

STEP TWO

HAVE CLEAR GOALS
You can't get to where you want to go unless you know exactly where that is. Your success as a gymnast starts with a dream, a goal of how far you'd like to go in the sport. The more detailed a picture you can paint of this goal, the better your chance of turning your dream into reality. Saying you want to be as good as you can or perform better are goals that are general and too vague to be useful. Qualifying for Level 8, or competing at a Division I School are clear, specific and more reachable. Your goals are like magnets which will pull you in their direction. The more specific and detailed you make them and the more time you spend thinking about them, the stronger the pull. Try to have your goals broken down from long term to intermediate to short term so that even on a daily basis you will have specific goals for practice. This will help you stay motivated over the long haul.

STEP THREE

MAKE YOUR PRACTICES IMPORTANT; USE SIMULATION IN PRACTICE
Most gymnasts spend the same amount of time practicing weekly. However only a small fraction of athletes improve to their potential. The reason behind this lies in your practices. Practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. Too many gymnasts go through the motions in practice. They put their time in but not their minds or their emotions. They daydream or socialize during practice or wish they were elsewhere. During work on new or scary tricks they look for ways to dog it. You will compete the way you practice. Practice just like meets, mentally as well as physically, that is make your practices important, use your imagination to simulate competitive conditions. Take a few of those long, boring, or scary sets and pretend you're actually competing. Practice as if this trick or routine was the most important, and that you were throwing it in front of the judges and everything was riding on it. The more important you can make your practices and the more similar to actual meets, the more you'll get out of them. Every chance you get, set up specific competitive scenarios in your head and then practice as if everything was on the line. If you consistently practice this way, the way champions do, you'll soon find your performances improving.

STEP FOUR

FOCUS ON YOUR EVENT, NOT ON WINNING OR QUALIFYING OR GETTING A PARTICULAR SCORE
You will perform your best when your concentration is on your tricks, one move at a time. You will choke and perform badly when you get caught up with outcome thoughts (i.e., winning, losing, qualifying, scores, etc.). The outcome of your event, which is in the future is totally out of your control! Gymnasts who get distracted with this kind of future focus almost always perform tight and feel crumby. Stay in the now as you perform concentrating on what you are doing, while you are doing it. If you find yourself thinking "What if ..." that's a reminder that you are mentally in the future and need to change focus.

STEP FIVE

CONCENTRATION = RECOGNIZING + BRINGING YOURSELF BACK
In order to perform as best as you can you've got to have your mind in the right place. Concentration is the key mental skill to gymnastics excellence and mental toughness. Here's how to do it! Recognize that you are mentally in the wrong place (i.e., in the future worried about an outcome or a gymnast up next). Quickly and gently bring yourself back to a proper focus. You learn to concentrate by catching yourself when you're not concentrating! This is the heart of championship concentration.

STEP SIX

LEARN TO QUICKLY LET GO OF YOUR MISTAKES AND FAILURES
Champions do one thing better than everyone else--fail! When a champion has a bad meet or event they not only use this failure for feedback ("What did I do wrong... How can I improve") But just as important, they let it go quickly. In other words, they don't dwell on the past. When you hang onto your bad routines and mistakes in a meet, the one thing you can count on happening is that you'll get more of them! Learn to recognize when your mind's in the past and quickly, and gently, let it go. Telling yourself things like "Here we go again", "Why does this always happen to me" are indicators that your focus is stuck in the past. Only go into the past if your past is a positive, self-enhancing one!

STEP SEVEN

STAY WITHIN YOURSELF; PERFORM YOUR OWN ROUTINES; STAY MENTALLY IN THE "HERE"
You will perform your very best when you can learn to mentally stay within yourself, focusing on what you have to do and are doing. Psych-outs and intimidation can only occur when you choose to start focusing outside of yourself, on another gymnast, the crowd, or judges. Staying within yourself means that you have to want to mentally stay on your own apparatus as you physically compete it. Thinking about someone else's scores, routines, degree of difficulty of their tricks or how awesome they are will only make you choke and perform tight. Stay in the "here" by recognizing when you're in the wrong mental place and bringing yourself back right to what you're doing.

STEP EIGHT
CONTROL YOUR EYES AND EARS FOR CHAMPIONSHIP MEET PERFORMANCES
Related to SEVEN, learn to control what you look at and listen to, both before and during your event. That is, only visually focus on things that keep you calm, composed and ready to perform well. If looking at the crowd, or other gymnasts, makes you uptight... don't do it! Instead look down at your feet, at a spot on the wall or anywhere else which will keep you relaxed. Similarly, make sure any things you "look" at in your mind's eye are positive and confidence enhancing. If you are using imagery and keep seeing yourself fall, either change the image or actively look at something else. Controlling your ears means that you only want to listen to things that will keep you calm, composed, and confident. If your self-talk is making you uptight change it! Try to block it out by listening to a walkman. Control your eyes and ears for mental toughness.

STEP NINE

SEE WHAT YOU WANT TO HAVE HAPPEN, NOT WHAT YOU'RE AFRAID WILL HAPPEN
Winners in and out of the gym have learned to use their imagination (mental rehearsal and imagery) to help them reach their goals. Make it a practice to focus on exactly what you want to have happen, not what you're afraid will happen. Focusing on positive images will calm you down, raise your confidence, and increase your chances of achieving your goals. Practice mental rehearsal 5-10 minutes at a time, preceded by relaxation in an area free from distractions. Make your pictures (sounds, feelings) as vivid and detailed as possible, seeing, hearing, and feeling yourself performing just the way you'd like to.

STEP TEN

LET IT HAPPEN = 10's
When you perform your very best there is an automatic, effortless quality to your performance. You are working hard without trying hard. It feels easy, yet powerful. When you get in to a meet situation you have to remember that in order to stick your tricks, you have to relax and let them happen. If you make an event too important, you'll get into trying too hard and will perform badly. Trust that you've done everything you need to, your body and muscle memory knows what to do, and then just let the performance happen. Perform with effortless effort.

STEP ELEVEN

THROW YOUR SKILLS WITH NO-MIND TO PERFORM BEST
A corollary to TEN, if you want a peak performance you've got to keep your conscious mind and all of its' thoughts out of the gym. In your best meets, not only did you perform on auto pilot, but most likely there was a no-thinking quality to your routine. Conscious thought slows you down and distracts you. You want to perform unconsciously with no mind. In baseball Yogi Bera once said "a full mind is an empty bat". The same applies to you and your gymnastics. The more you think, the worse you'll do. Practice, in practice, performing "no-think" tricks.

STEP TWELVE

YOU PERFORM THE WAY YOU THINK
The difference between your best and worst performances is usually related to your mental "strategies" just before and during your events. That is, what you think, say to yourself, and image both before and during your routine determines whether you'll cleanly stick everything or fall on your face. If you program garbage into your computer (brain) before an event ("what if I blow my mount", "what if I fall", or "I'm not as good as she is") you will get garbage back out in your performances. Learn to "program in" good stuff and that's what you'll get back out.

STEP THIRTEEN

BE POSITIVE; NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM NEGATIVITY
When you're negative or down on yourself you sap your energy, drain your confidence, and insure that you will perform poorly. Practice being positive about yourself, teammates, and coaches, no matter what! A positive attitude will help you overcome hardships and setbacks and keep you going. A negative attitude will trick you into giving up too soon. Winners in and out of the gym are positive. "Can't", "Never", and "Impossible" do not exist in the dictionary of their minds.

STEP FOURTEEN

REFRAME ADVERSITY
Learn to look at obstacles and setbacks as a way to get more motivated and to increase your confidence. Most gymnasts complain bitterly about meet conditions, apparatus, the order they have to compete in, being tired, etc. The great gymnasts use any kind of adversity to help them get the competitive advantage over their opponents. For example, you can do 1 of 2 things with the pressure of big meet competition. You can dread it, fight it, complain about it and freak out and consequently tighten up and fall apart; or you can reframe it. You can say to yourself "everyone in this gym has to deal with this pressure, and I'm mentally tougher to handle it then everyone else... I'm going to use the tension to my advantage, as a signal I'm ready, as an indicator of my excitement and anticipation of a solid routine, and as a reminder to relax and breathe". Learn to think like a winner by reframing. When your gymnastics gives you lemons... make lemonade out of them.

STEP FIFTEEN

ACT AS IF
If you want to become a winner, first you have to learn to act like one. Acting as if is the master strategy of champions. If you act the way you want to become, you'll become the way you act. Acting as if has to do with your posture or how you carry yourself physically. Watch gymnasts after they've had a bad routine and you'll see some interesting stuff. Their heads will be down, shoulders drooping, facial expression down, and they'll be dragging their feet. If you act this way physically, like a loser, you'll perform like one. A winner's fall back position is to act as if. If you're totally intimidated and freaking out before a meet, act as if: act calm and confident. Have your head up, put a smile on your face, pick your shoulders up and put a spring in your step. Even if you're dying inside. Show your opponent and the judges someone who on the outside looks in control.

STEP SIXTEEN

LEARN TO BE YOUR OWN BEST FAN
It's real easy to be nice to yourself and supportive when you're winning. Champions, however, separate themselves from everyone else because they've learned to be supportive to themselves when things are going badly. Getting down on yourself for bad performances will not help you in the long run. It will kill your motivation and make you an unhappy camper. Learn to be your own best fan. Someone who is here to share the success and to help you through the tough times. After all, that's when you need support the most, especially from yourself.

STEP SEVENTEEN

YOU ARE NOT YOUR PERFORMANCES
Learn to separate who you are as an athlete and person from how you do in your meets. You are not the results of the judges' score. If you have a great meet this does not make you a great person. More important, if you have an awful meet, this does not make you the scum of the earth. If you get caught up in putting your ego on the line whenever you compete, you can be sure of one thing, you'll take a fall a whole lot. A gym meet should never be viewed as a measure of self-worth and respectability. By you, your coaches, or your parents!

STEP EIGHTEEN

LEARN TO RELAX
In order to stay within yourself and perform your very best you need to have the ability to handle competitive pressure. For many, this ability does not come naturally. You can learn to stay composed under pressure by practicing one or two of the many relaxation techniques available to athletes. Probably one of the best is to learn to slow and deepen your breathing. By taking a few slow diaphragmatic breaths you can very quickly calm yourself down pre-routine. Practice at home sitting for 5 minutes at a time, inhaling slowly through your nose to a count of 4, and then exhaling to a count of 7-8, and continuing this process for the allotted time. Every time you drift, you can practice recognizing that you've lost your focus and then bring yourself back.

STEP NINETEEN

MOVE TOWARDS YOUR FEARS
The way you get better as a gymnast is to move towards your fears and blocks. Fears are a natural part of the learning process as you get to be a better gymnast. You can get better without fear. Learn to look at fear as your friend... welcome it... don't fight it... respect your fears and move towards them. By doing the thing that you're afraid of over and over again, you can overcome any fear. By avoiding your fears, you'll only make them bigger. Feel the fear and do it anyway!