Blog 25: Mentorship

Literal
Log of hours
Mentor Rene Gonzalez: 1(323) 810 4804
Coach Anabel Delgado (owner of the team I coached): 1(626) 222 0499

Interpretive
The most important thing I gained from this experience was maturity as a coach and as a peer on an All-Star cheer team. I had to coach girls between the ages of 5 and 13, so there were times they would drive me crazy with their behavior, talking too much, or having attitude, then there were other times when I couldn't believe how much they had advanced and pushed themselves at such a young age. My coach and mentor, Rene Gonzalez, is very young, he's only 19, and he coaches a senior level team, which means kids from 12 -18 are on the team. However, the amount of respect he gets from kids nearly his own age is unbelievable. His team treats him like he was a 30 year old man, not like a peer, and that's because of how mature and respectful he is to the athletes.Coaching a team and seeing what was difficult from a coach's point of view made me aware of what I needed to as an athlete to keep my coach from going crazy like I did during some practices. It made me aware of when my team was losing their strong mentality and getting distracted or bringing each other down. I was able to step into a good leadership role and prevent my teammates and myself from getting distracted. Although we did get yelled at a lot, whenever it got bad and our coaches told us to go "talk in the dance room," I was always the person who motivated everyone and talked for 10 minutes straight about how we needed to get our act together and show our coaches that we were a force to not be reckoned with. My teammates even gave me the nickname Reverend West because they thought I sounded like a motivational preacher at practice, always encouraging the team. I would've never realized how important my best answer, keeping a strong mentality, especially in tumbling and stunting, was if I hadn't of done mentorship and experienced coaching as well as being a member of a team.

Applied
Like I stated at the end of the last section, without my mentorship experience, I would've never realized how important my best answer, keeping a strong mentality, especially in tumbling and stunting, was if I hadn't of done mentorship and experienced coaching as well as being a member of a team. Seeing firsthand and having to personally deal with a lot of kids who struggled to stay in the mindset of an athlete who was determined to progress was something I became very familiar with. I would always catch the girls I coached blaming each other when a stunt dropped or someone messed up during the routine. They were very quick to point fingers and start arguing, bringing the mood of the team down and creating a negative atmosphere. An athlete, and especially a cheerleader since nearly every aspect of the sport requires teamwork, should always try to maintain a positive atmosphere, never create a bad one by blaming others or bringing their problems to the gym with them. The gym is a place to forget about your problems, not a place to bring them. All of these are examples of things I've experienced from coaching and from being on a team that proved to me my second answer is my best answer. Sure, you could do as many pushups as you want with perfect technique, and be the safest tumbler in the world, but if you don't keep a positive mentality as an athlete, you'll never have the determination or motivation to progress. Without a drive to get better, nothing else matters, you can be the best athlete in the world, but if you don't want to even participate then you won't progress.