What Your Gym’s Governing Body has to do with Your Gymnast’s Self-Esteem

Integrity… Does what your gym’s governing body follow its own rules? When a governing body creates mobility scores and states in their Rules and Policies what score a gymnast needs to attain in order to move up a level, and when that rule is not enforced, then the governing body’s integrity is in jeopardy.

What does that have to do with your gymnast’s self-esteem? It allows gyms to move the bar on gymnasts whose goal it is to move up. It allows gyms to create their own “mandate scores” which require gymnasts to attain a certain score and/or meet certain other requirements to move up. When these mandates are moving targets, this disallows a gymnast to have a true goal and something tangible to strive for.

This is only scratching the surface on the integrity scale.

Fear of Success… Does your gymnast struggle with the sense of capability to accept and master new challenges? A governing body’s allowance to and support of adding a skill here and there in a routine gradually allows a gymnast to gain experience over time so that she does not simply “move up” and have a huge new set of expectations to live up to. A governing body’s job is to oversee and to stress certain important rules that shape a gymnast’s experience.

When the governing body’s rules are taken as “suggestions” to some and as rules to others, it muddies the waters, and we are not dealing with a level playing field. And when those “suggested” expectations are rooted in sheer perfection, your gymnast’s belief in herself will likely wane as she endeavors to move up.

Seeing others’ successes as threatening… This can be a direct result of how a governing body establishes scoring criteria and the emphasis they place on conformity. For instance, if a governing body requires compulsory routines (where everyone does exactly the same thing), then the focus is automatically on who can perform all the same skills the best, pitting gymnasts against one another to gain their coach’s favor. However, if the governing body is directed by an optional routine with certain requirements, then this allows gymnasts to see their differences at an earlier level in the sport, highlighting each individual’s unique strengths rather than highlighting her weaknesses if she does not conform to the standard.

These are just a few of the ways your gym’s governing body can have an effect on your gymnast’s self-esteem. They lay the rules, and then the gym takes it from there. But if the rules laid out are not followed, or are viewed merely as suggestions, then a gym may run with however they view the system. What ends up happening is that to stay competitive, this skewed system becomes accepted, and then the norm. Then gyms continue to push the envelope, and left unchecked for decades, we have what has become the toxic traditional gymnastics culture.

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