on Saturday, February 5, 2011




"The mind is perhaps one of the greatest factors in gymnastics; if one can't control his mind, he can't control his body." (William Meade, USA)


While understanding the physics behind gymnastics, or the exact "how to's" of a particular trick is important the mind also plays a critical role in the sport.  As stated in my previous post, physically I understood how to do an aerial, and was very close to doing so but would always put my hands down without any reason, other than mental fear.  


This article is very interesting, while not directly related to gymnastics it does relate being a successful scientist or engineer to athletics which I thought was very interesting!!  As Physics, Math and Mental Gymnastics states, "it turns out that becoming a successful physicist or engineer is in many ways similar to athletics."   


Two  points within this article are very similar to overcoming the mental fears involved in gymnastics.   Both involve starting at the beginning, and practicing until it becomes like second nature.  These ideas from the article are: 



  • Learn the basic rules first-and don't focus on trying to learn proofs or do the hardest problems.
  • Repeat, repeat, repeat. Do similar types of problems over and over until they are second nature. Only after a topic becomes second nature calculationally do we consider reading the proofs or theorems in detail.


This is definitely a way I never would have thought to relate science and gymnastics but at least in my experience is pretty accurate.  Both can be very intimidating, whether it's solving a complicated problem, or deciding its a good idea to flip on a beam, or go for some crazy new trick.  The first step in either scenario is overcoming the mental fear!