Hi, my name's Jordan Dahl, we're talking about advanced floor gymnastics and the next thing I wanted to talk about, was getting ready for your competition. The first thing you want to do is, getting a routine together. Finding out which passes work best together. In the, earlier less advanced stages, they have routines that you need to do. They give you a set routine that you need to follow but as you go up into the higher levels, they call them optionals, they give you skills that you need to include but you can choose when they're incorporated and how much you incorporate that technique. You'll need to find that list and make sure that you're putting in, your strongest point, so that you can show-off that point, that you have trained the hardest on. Something else you can do, to prepare, is really taking care of your body. You don't want to do any hard conditioning, as competition rolls around, but you want to make sure that you're getting plenty of water, plenty of hydration and that you're eating right. That you're not skipping meals and that you're just taking care of yourself. Something that I experienced a lot, as I went to competitions and something that I see my students experiencing, is intimidation from other teams and from other competitors. This is something that's very common and I can almost guarantee you, that the intimidation that you're feeling, from that competitor, they're feeling back towards you, on some other scale, so don't stress yourself out too much on that. If you are feeling intimidated, go back and just really drill those parts that you're not as confident with and just really work on those things, during training. Now, the morning of the competition, you want to make sure that you're waking up early. You do not want to sleep in, on the day of competition. If this means going to bed earlier, than go to bed earlier. You need to wake up by about seven or seven-thirty, depending on when the meet is. Making sure you're getting a good breakfast that has lots of wheats. Oatmeal is really good for your energy and keeping it with you, throughout the day. Making sure you're getting milk and apple juice, just things that will really start off your day with a big boost. You want to not involve yourself in any strenuous activities, you want to keep yourself well rested and keep your energy up, for your competition. When you're actually at the competition, it may be a temptation to kind of mess around and kind of play around with your teammates because, at gymnastics meets, there are a lot of moments where you're just sitting around waiting for the team to finish on that event. You want to try and avoid doing that. You want to stay focused and stay visualizing, on your routine, really getting used to blocking things out so that you can focus in on your routine. Visualizing every part of it, in your mind, so that by the time it's your turn to compete, you're ready to go. Your mind and your body are both into it. Just a word of caution, during your warm-ups, you might want to skip the basic things and move on to the advanced warm-ups or the advanced tumbling skills, to start off. To kind of show off, I would recommend not doing that, because you can really injure yourself and completely destroy your chances for competition. Not only that day but for following competitions. You'll have your chance to shine during your routine, so be patient, warm-up, warm-up your basics, make sure you're ready to go, so that when it is your turn to compete, you are ready to perform at your peak performance. After you've completed, a routine that you can really be proud of, you've stuck everything, you've performed it like you've been practicing it, with just the perfection that you've been training with, that can lead to a first place medal and getting up on that podium and accepting that medal, for your hard work and your coaches dedication to your training, is just a feeling that's really hard to describe but it is worth any amount of stress and hard work, that you can put into your training.
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