Latest / The Nadia Chapman Show / You Had a Bad Skate. You're Not a Bad Skater.

Transcript

You Had a Bad Skate. You're Not a Bad Skater. · The Nadia Chapman Show

0:03
Welcome back to the Nadia Chapman Show, the skater's edition.
0:07
I'm Nadia Chapman, figure skating coach and certified mindset and mental performance coach.
0:12
And today we're talking about how to recover from a disappointing skate without
0:17
allowing that one difficult moment or maybe several difficult moments to destroy
0:22
your confidence because it shouldn't.
0:24
And we're going to do that not by pretending that, oh, you don't care and we're
0:28
going to move on fast and not by forcing yourself to just, you know,
0:33
be positive and think positive and definitely not by ignoring the things that
0:36
need work, because maybe this is a good
0:39
teaching moment and you need to assess and reassess some stuff into your training.
0:43
But we're going to talk about how to feel the disappointment,
0:47
learn from the performance and calm your nervous system, which is very important.
0:53
And most importantly, we're going to learn how to move forward without turning
0:57
against yourself. All right.
0:59
Because every single skater will have bad skates.
1:03
What matter is what happens inside your mind after. So please share and save this episode for later.
1:12
Let's start by talking about how a performance is not an identity.
1:16
And I want to begin with that because it's one of the most important principles
1:20
in sports psychology. It's to separate performance from identity.
1:25
You are a whole person who had one performance on one day under one particular set of circumstances.
1:34
That performance may be disappointing. Of course, it may be maybe far below
1:41
what you can do, and maybe it exposed something that needs attention,
1:45
but it cannot tell the whole truth about you.
1:49
A bad skate is just an experience. Bad skater is an identity.
1:55
And when you turn an experience into identity, your brain begins looking for
2:00
evidence to support it. So you fall on a jump and then you think,
2:03
see, I always do this. I can't do it.
2:06
And you make another small mistake and then you think, there it is again. I always fall apart.
2:11
So your brain starts filtering out everything that doesn't fit the story and
2:15
it forgets a good practice or a clean program you did, or maybe you've improved
2:21
your spins or you did like brave attempt to something.
2:24
And the months of progress that you've had.
2:27
And this is something called confirmation bias. And once your brain believes
2:32
a story, it becomes very good at finding proof that the story is true.
2:37
And this is why the language that you use after a performance really truly matters.
2:42
So instead of saying, oh, I'm a terrible skater, say something like,
2:46
I didn't skate the way I wanted today. Or instead of saying,
2:49
I can't compete, say, I'm still
2:51
learning how to access my skills under pressure. See where this is going?
2:55
Another one that I hear often is like, oh, I always ruin everything.
2:59
Well, instead of saying that, say something like.
3:02
I lost my focus after the mistake, and that is something I can train.
3:06
So it's not about necessarily making excuses.
3:10
It's actually accurate thinking. And accurate thinking is much more valuable
3:16
to an athlete than either relentless negativity or fake positivity.
3:21
Your brain is reacting, not reporting the truth.
3:25
So right after a disappointing performance, you are, of course, very emotional.
3:29
Your nervous system may still be in fight and flight mode.
3:33
Your heart rate may be elevated and your brain may be replaying the mistake,
3:37
the most painful part of the skates.
3:39
And that is not always the best moment to conduct a detailed evaluation.
3:44
When your nervous system is in a threat response, the brain becomes more focused
3:48
on the danger and the mistake and judgment from everyone and obviously what went wrong.
3:54
So your thinking becomes narrower and your inner critic becomes, of course, louder.
4:00
And that is why everything can feel catastrophic in the first few minutes of a bad skate.
4:05
It doesn't necessarily mean that the situation itself is catastrophic.
4:09
It means that your system is activated. And before you analyze your performance,
4:14
you need to regulate your body.
4:15
So give yourself permission to be disappointed.
4:19
Mental toughness is not about feeling nothing.
4:24
Of course, it does not mean that you've got to pretend that you don't care,
4:28
that you've got to smile if you feel like crying or immediately tell yourself
4:33
like, OK, it's fine, even if it's not fine and you don't feel fine.
4:37
You are allowed to be disappointed and you are allowed to cry and you are allowed
4:43
to feel frustrated and angry and embarrassed and confused.
4:47
And of course, those emotions exist because you care deeply,
4:51
of course. And just so you can hear me out here, the goal is not to avoid the
4:57
emotion. The goal is to avoid letting the emotion write the entire story.
5:02
So maybe if this happens, try telling yourself something like.
5:06
Okay, I'm disappointed because this mattered to me. It did not go the way I wanted.
5:12
I can feel this without using this as evidence that I'm not good enough.
5:17
That is emotional regulation.
5:20
One of the best advice I can give you if you had a bad skate is give yourself a recovery window.
5:26
Maybe you need a car ride home. Maybe you need an evening. Maybe you need to
5:30
talk to someone who you trust.
5:33
Take a shower, eat, rest, or spend some time alone.
5:37
Feel it, but place a boundary around the spiral. You do not need to replay the
5:42
mistake 50 times in your head that you do not need to watch the video immediately.
5:47
If you know that this will only make you attack yourself, video review should
5:53
be a tool for learning, maybe with your coach and not a weapon to use against
5:57
yourself. So maybe don't go there.
5:59
And here's another simple mental performance exercise that I like to use with
6:03
athletes after a tough competition or a tough performance.
6:07
It's a very good idea to divide what you're thinking into two categories.
6:13
And we separate that with facts and feelings.
6:18
A fact, for example, might be something like I fell on my double axel or I receive
6:23
a lower score than my last competition.
6:26
Or a fact can be I skated cautiously because I made a mistake and I was really wobbly.
6:32
So that is a fact. A feeling or interpretation might be, I'm embarrassed at myself.
6:39
Everyone thinks I'm terrible. I'm never going to improve. Or my coach must be
6:43
so embarrassed or so disappointed in me.
6:46
That is a feeling or interpretation. So the feelings are real. They're facts.
6:53
But that doesn't automatically make the story attached to them true.
6:57
So I embarrass everyone and they think I'm a failure is a conclusion your brain
7:03
may be creating without the evidence.
7:06
So the exercise helps you create a little bit of space between what actually
7:11
happened and what your emotions are telling you it means.
7:15
And that little space is where perspective begins. Trust me.
7:19
I always say curiosity before criticism. After the emotion settles, it's time to learn.
7:27
But this is where a lot of athletes make another mistake.
7:32
They confuse attacking themselves with taking accountability.
7:37
So self-criticism is something that sounds like, oh, what is wrong with me?
7:41
Why can't I never do anything right?
7:43
And accountability sounds like, okay, what happened?
7:47
What affected my performance? What can I adjust now?
7:51
And one creates shame, so that's not good, but the other one creates growth.
7:57
And a useful post-performance debrief always has three parts.
8:02
And maybe, this is why I say, maybe you want to save this episode or share it
8:06
with somebody who had a bad skate or maybe just write it down.
8:10
The three parts are, first of all, think about what went well.
8:15
And please don't say nothing went well. That's not true.
8:19
Something went well, I'm sure. Maybe you kept going after the fall.
8:22
Maybe you stayed committed to your performance regardless of what happened.
8:25
Maybe your warm-up was stronger. Maybe one spin was improving.
8:29
Maybe you control your breathing before you started. Whatever it is,
8:32
all right? Recovery counts. Courage counts. Staying present counts.
8:37
The ability to continue after a mistake, trust me, is a performance skill.
8:42
It does deserve to be recognized.
8:45
The second question is, what did I learn?
8:49
And maybe you learned that you need a more consistent warm-up routine.
8:54
Maybe you became to focus on your score. I don't know. Maybe you were watching
8:58
other skaters instead of managing your own energy.
9:02
Or maybe your attention jumped too far ahead in the program.
9:05
A difficult performance becomes valuable when you turn it into useful information.
9:10
And oh, maybe that is the writer downer for today.
9:13
A difficult performance becomes valuable when you turn it into useful information.
9:19
Third question, what is one adjustment I will take into my next practice?
9:26
Not 10 corrections, not your entire list of weaknesses.
9:30
Work with your coach at finding one clear adjustment. Maybe it's breathing before
9:35
your starting position.
9:36
Finish the movements you're in.
9:38
Reconnect with the music after a mistake.
9:41
Go big, attack the entrance. Keep fighting until the final pause. Whatever it is.
9:46
The brain performs better with one clear controllable cue rather than a list
9:54
of things that you believe you need to fix. Okay.
9:57
And I was talking with an elite athlete recently, and we're talking about how
10:03
attention control is a huge part of performance.
10:06
It was a really interesting conversation that during a strong skate,
10:10
your attention is usually connected to The present task,
10:14
the music that's playing, the edge, the entrance of a jump, the breath,
10:19
the movement that's happening right now.
10:22
During a difficult performance, attention often travels somewhere else and it
10:27
may travel backward like you're in the performance, but you're thinking about,
10:31
oh, I can't believe I just fell.
10:34
Or it can travel forward, like what if I miss the next jump?
10:38
Oh my gosh, this step sequence is coming up. So it might travel towards judgment,
10:44
like what are my coaches going to think?
10:46
What score will I get? Did everyone just see that?
10:50
When your attention leaves the present moment, your body is still skating,
10:54
you know, but your mind is completely gone.
10:58
It's somewhere else. So that is why a re-sit cue, if you're a figure skater
11:02
or an athlete, your re-sit cue is very important.
11:06
And your re-sit cue could be one word.
11:09
Like it can be like a cue, like next or attack, here, whatever it is. Breathe.
11:16
It could be a physical action too, like you're pressing your thumb and your
11:19
finger together. Or you exhale or feeling your skating foot connecting to the
11:24
ice. So the purpose of a cue is not to magically erase the mistake.
11:28
It's really to tell your brain you know what come back to now the next moment still belongs to me
11:34
and a performance is not ruined by one mistake nearly as often as it's damaged
11:40
by carrying that one stupid little mistakes into the next five elements so the mistake takes a second
11:47
the mental replay can take the rest of the program so learning to reset
11:51
is how you stop that one moment from stealing all of the other skills that are coming after it.
11:58
And one thing I want to remind you is,
12:01
If you had a bad skate, your skills did not disappear.
12:06
Competition results do not always reflect your full ability.
12:10
And I've seen that again and again.
12:12
A competition program is a short
12:15
little snapshot under pressure on one particular day in one environment.
12:21
It is not a complete measurement of who you are, of your talent,
12:26
of your effort, of the way you work and your courage and your growth and definitely
12:31
not a measurement of your potential.
12:33
Sometimes your performance matches your ability and sometimes it doesn't.
12:37
That is one very hard truth in this sport, but it also is something that's very
12:43
freeing because one great skate obviously doesn't mean that you will not never struggle again.
12:49
Well, one bad skate also doesn't mean that you've lost everything.
12:54
So your skills are still there. Your training is still there.
12:57
Your progress is still there, your nervous system may not have allowed you to
13:02
fully, I don't know, access those skills in that moment.
13:05
But that is different from not possessing them. So performing under pressure is a skill of its own.
13:13
So you train it through repetition, stimulation, breathing, exposing yourself
13:18
to competitions again and again, attentional control, doing lots of good,
13:23
healthy recovery routine, and the experience.
13:27
You know, the more you do it, sometimes the easier it gets. But then again,
13:30
you don't learn to compete by waiting until you're no longer nervous.
13:34
A lot of you still get nervous. You learn to compete by discovering what helps
13:39
you perform while the nerves are present.
13:42
Before I wrap this up, I want to invite you to learn to let go of embarrassment.
13:49
And maybe you're thinking about who saw your performance. Maybe your scores
13:54
were put on social media.
13:56
Maybe some of the people you look up to were watching you.
14:00
Your parents traveled far away to watch you and you had a terrible competition on.
14:05
Maybe you made sacrifices that you feel didn't just not show.
14:10
Maybe your coach believed you were ready.
14:13
Your friends or competitors saw what happened.
14:16
Perhaps someone you wanted to impress was standing by the wall.
14:22
So if this is you, listen carefully. You are not responsible for making every
14:28
sacrifice worthwhile through one perfect performance.
14:31
All right. So your parents, you know, the support they give you is not a debt
14:36
that you've got to repay with medals. All right. And points.
14:40
Your coach's time was not wasted because you struggle. All right.
14:45
I promise you. And if it's the case, you've got the wrong coach.
14:48
The people who genuinely care about you do not care about the version of you that wins or loses.
14:56
So another skater's success does not necessarily make your journey a failure.
15:03
So comparison, and comparison is a real thing in skating, but comparison is
15:07
especially painful after a very disappointing performance.
15:12
And that's because you're comparing someone else's visible results and good
15:17
day with your most vulnerable moment. And that is not easy.
15:23
And I'm going to tell you, I've had bad skates and I know people who had bad
15:27
skates. And a bad skate is just that. It's a bad skate.
15:31
And a bad skate may eventually teach you something a perfect performance never could.
15:38
It may teach you how to recover.
15:40
It may reveal a gap into your preparation, something that needs to be worked on.
15:46
It may help you build a stronger competition routine.
15:50
It may teach you how to redirect your attention.
15:53
You know, it may be the moment that you finally learn like, okay,
15:56
how do I need to support myself when things go wrong?
16:01
Because everyone can feel confident when everything is working fine.
16:07
You know, a deeper kind of confidence is built, I'm telling you,
16:11
when something goes sideways, when something goes wrong, and then you discover, you know what,
16:17
I can still respond, I can come back, I don't have to abandon myself just because I'm disappointed.
16:23
So the lesson will serve you far beyond the rank. I always say that.
16:27
So if you are carrying a bad skate today, please take a deep breath. You are fine. All right.
16:34
You can learn from it without carrying that bad performance forever.
16:38
Your skills are not disappearing.
16:41
You're still growing. You're still worthy.
16:44
And you're still a beautiful skater. You do not need to earn back anybody's work.
16:49
You do not need to prove anything to anyone. All right. So one mistake cannot
16:54
erase all the work that came before it. You need to learn to turn the page. That's right. Turn it.
17:01
Take the lesson with you, but leave the shame behind because it's not going
17:04
to take you anywhere. So your next skate does not need to prove anything.
17:10
It doesn't need to be perfect. It simply needs to be,
17:13
just your next opportunity to show yourself, not everybody else,
17:18
to show yourself that you're still here, you're still learning,
17:22
and you're still brave enough to try and that you're still becoming really.
17:27
I'm Nadia Chapman, and this has been the Nadia Chapman Show, the skater's edition.
17:32
If you know a skater who is struggling after a disappointing performance,
17:37
please send this episode to them.
17:39
Sometimes just some little words
17:42
of wisdom and a little bit of comfort is what we need to hear the most.
17:47
And just to remind us that we are more than our worst moments, really.
17:53
Until next time, protect the way you speak to yourself, especially on the days
17:56
when things don't go your way, because I'm telling you, medals are wonderful
18:01
and cleaning programs feel incredible.
18:04
But the real strength of an athlete is not only revealed in the moments when
18:12
everything works out fine.
18:14
It's revealed in the moments that are disappointing.
18:17
When we have to take that breath and just gather all the pieces and then decide,
18:22
Okay, this is not where I want the story to end.
18:26
You had a bad skate. You're not a bad skater. And when you're ready,
18:30
guess what? The ice will still be there for you. He's got this.