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How important is anxiety in athletics
How important is anxiety in athletics
Essays on how anxiety affects sport performance
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“Ouch, Mom!” I exclaimed as my mother pulled the strands of hair she was holding even tighter.
She criss-crossed the strands to make two, neat French braids on the top of my head for my first gymnastics meet. The thought of this special event filled me with familiar nervousness and excitement. The butterflies were raging war inside my stomach and my knees felt as if they were about to crumble into a million pieces from the weight of my own body. Excitement kept the nervousness from taking over the rest of my body by the constant shots of adrenaline in me whenever I thought about the frightening task in front of me: doing my round off flip-flop in front of a hundred people.
Leaving these terrifying thoughts behind me, I stood up my complete four feet after my mom finished my hair, and ran up the stairs to put on my leo.
The leotard was black with red, velvet sleeves and a rhinestone pattern around the neckline. As I tugged and pulled on the long, clingy sleeves, I took in the faint scent of the large gym where it had been sitting for a couple of weeks. I noticed the way the soft underbelly of the velvet felt against my skin.
“Lauren! Let’s go!” My mom yelled from the bottom of the stairs, interrupting my thoughts.
“Okay, one sec,” I replied, coming back to earth.
I pulled on my warm-up pants and then shrugged into my Acrosports jacket. My feet flew down the stairs at rocket speed. Hitching my bag over my shoulder, I ran out the door in a frenzy for the car. Before opening the door, I paused to look around my rather shabby garage. The beams and spring boards pressed against the walls documented the amount of time I put into the sport. I opened the bronze car door and sat down on the leather seat.
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...d that felt.
“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I did that!” I yelled over everyone else.
“Good job, BT” Kelsey said using the team’s frequently used term of endearment for me because of my over grown big toe.
“That was wonderful, Lauren,” Adrianne told me, not joining in on the use of my nickname. I listened to the many more congratulations that came from my teammates until the excitement wore off.
To top off the amazing meet experience, my team won first place and I got to take home the trophy for the weekend. It was shiny and black and very very tall.
When I got home that evening, I took off my leotard and hung it up in my closet. I looked at it with a sense of pride, and even though I’ve had many other leotards I always cherished this one the most because it marked the beginning of my competitive gymnastics career and my first flip-flop on the floor.
It started on one brisk morning that I had been waiting for throughout the entire summer. The day I will receive my first pair of pointe shoes. Today is the day I will dance en pointe for the first time. After what seemed like an eternity when we finally arrived at Patterson’s, the place where I will become a true ballerina.
Sweat plummeting down their faces as they catapult yet another girl into the air; each flyer aiming higher than the last go rounds. Their whole body aches and begs for a moment of rest, but they never surrender to the pain. For the hundredth time, they’ve reviewed their two minute routine and for the hundredth time they tumbled non-stop. Knowing that all this hard-work, had the ability to raise a smile onto the face of someone watching. Knowing that at every game, they can provide the match, to lighten up the mood.
This is what I had been hoping for the entire year. I had been to many that were quite the same to this one, but none that could give me the same enduring edginess and serenity that I was feeling right now. My eyes skimmed across the hundreds of people who were all there for the same reason as me. Striving to be out of the sweltering sun, but not out of clear view of what I came for, I lead myself in a mighty search for the spot for which I belonged. As I sat down, I prepared myself for the pain that I was going to feel about an hour later. I always forgot how sore I would get from sitting on the bleachers for so long, but every time I approached them, I would remember and smile.
Betty had a good start to her career. She preformed at country fairs and rodeos. Betty learned that her talent isn’t enough to make her successful, and there was always more work to be done. Betty’s natural talent made it easier for her to learn ballet from her instructor. She hadn’t learned the basics right and she became very frustrated because she had to go back to the beginning and learn those basics.
When we first arrived I’d thought we’d taken a wrong turn and went to a traveling gypsy convention by mistake. The whole field outside the school was filled with tents of various sizes and colors. 200 wrestlers, about thirty of which were girls, filtered about the area. As my soon-to-be teammates and I headed to the first practice, anxiety gnawed at my stomach like a dog with a bone (FL). I wanted to impress everybody, and prove that I could make it in this sport. Before we started, the coach patted me on the shoulder. “I’ve got your back all right.” he told me. I smiled and nodded. At least one person was looking out for me.
Fourteen years of my life. Fifty two weeks of my year. Five days of my week. Four hours of my day. This is what I have given to the sport of gymnastics. Friday night football games. After school clubs. Sleeping in on the weekend. This is what I have sacrificed in pursuit of my passion. Perseverance against adversity. Dedication throughout hardships. Discipline in body and mind. These are the qualities this sport has engraved into my being. There is not a time I can remember when I was not involved in gymnastics. When I reflect on the milestones of my life I don’t reminisce on the loss of my first tooth or a move to a new house, but instead I recall my first trip to nationals and mastering my back tuck. Gymnastics is the foundation of who I
Fraser, Allen. “What a great gymnastics movie should be.” The New Yorker. conde Nast, n.d. May. 17 Feb. 2014
From this interview I have learned a lot about my athletic friend, Franchesca. I learned a lot about the sport of gymnastics and the complexities of it. Her life is so foreign from mine. I live in the small town of Pillager, Minnesota, while she lives in a big city and travels the county to compete with her team. Our lifestyles are completely different and this interview has really opened my eyes up to what her life is really compacted with.
The gym is the world of gods and heroes, goddesses larger than life, a place of incantations where our bodies inflate and we shuffle off our out-of-gym bodies like discarded skins and walk about transformed. . . . Here, in this space, we begin to grow, to change. The transformation has begun, and our flawed humanity is falling off fast. We are picking up our shoulders, elevating our chins, shaking ugliness from our shoulders with a series of strokes, the glistening dumbbells, listening to our blood's rush. Our pasty misshapen bodies are developing clean lines. Our day's tribute of trials and heartaches is fading, for here, in this gym space, we become kings and queens. Larger, invincible, gods in ourselves. (Introduction, Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of Women's Body Building)
Automated doors slide open revealing a multitude of fitness machinery and flooding the air with the sound of weights clinking and the synchronized rhythmic stomping of twenty pairs of Nikes hitting the floor simultaneously in the step aerobics class; it’s time to get physical. On any given day, at any time, in gyms all across America the same scene is played out, (Guy). A handful of muscle bound jocks, serious about competitive weight lifting, can be seen spotting each other in the free weights area. Mirrors in the bathrooms, dressing rooms, and on the fitness center floor are consumed by pimped out prima donnas and jewelry adorned divas alike; preoccupied with primping and flexing their way to personal greatness/fitness. Normal, average, everyday people just trying to fit an hour or so workout into their busy schedule; they want to get in, get pumped, and go on with their day - these are the best types of gym dwellers.
quivering, My mom stood up quickly realizing my frustration. My mom explained so kindly how this
As Jackie Joyner Kersee once said, “The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing” (“Sports Quotes,” 2013). Sports play a major role in entertainment all across the world. Sports can range from driving in NASCAR to playing in the NBA (Careers in Pro Sports, 1999). Sports usually involve teamwork and is fun for everyone. Although sports are supposed to be fun, there is natural competition. Being a feminine art, dance is considered to be just about anything other than a sport. Dancers are trained to the height of their ability, just like other athletes in other sports. Even though the dancer might not perform with their whole dance studio on stage at the same time, the dancers are all apart of the same team. Dancing is not an easy sport to participate in, so if you are looking for a sport that does not require practice then you might want to look into a different sport. There are hour-long practices, healthy diets, and several routines to remember. Normally, if someone is convinced that dance is not a sport, they have not fully engaged or experienced dance. In order to better understand dance, it is important to understand the history of dance, the competition of dance, and the comparison of dance to other sports.
I dip my toes in—feels cold. My nerves rise up and spread like fire throughout my body while I watch—while I wait. Stomach hurts. All those butterflies clash and crowd. They come every time that I race—it never fails. There is so much noise—the splash of water, talking, yelling, whistling, cheering.
Within the essay, research has been collected to discuss formal and educational gymnastics. Reference to the national curriculum; old, current and new are used to justify why it is important to have physical education in the curriculum. Discussion about the 2007 and 2014 curriculums effect on gymnastics and why some teachers do teach gymnastic and others don’t.
back to the room and was scolded by my mom. My mom held on to my arm