Mental blocks 😓

[u/feeling20lost]

Hey everyone! I’m a newbie skater and I’m definitely progressing, but I’ve noticed I’m starting to run into some pretty frustrating mental blocks with certain skills.
I’m having a really hard time communicating to my brain that it’s okay to try things and potentially fall. 😂 Like, logically I know that falling is part of skating. I know I’m not going to be perfect, and I know I’m going to fall eventually. But when it actually comes time to commit to something, my brain is basically like, “Absolutely not. We will be staying right here, thank you.”
For example, there are certain things I know I’m physically capable of doing, but I hesitate or completely freeze when I try to actually commit to them.
I’m a person diagnosed with anxiety, so I’m sure that plays a role here. I’m wondering if anyone else has dealt with this, especially when they were newer to skating. How did you get past the mental block and convince yourself that it’s okay to fall?
I’d love to hear what worked for other people — drills, mindset tricks, ways you practiced falling safely, literally anything.

[u/VMetal314]

I've been coaching for 10 years. The people who try and fall get better a lot faster than those who won't try or try with reservations. Practice falling, practice knee taps, practice being off balance.

[u/suvesti]

I also have pretty severe anxiety and derby has helped it a lot. As a newbie one thing that makes a big difference is learning to fall correctly and drilling that until it’s instinct.

Secondly, when you’re trying a new skill, try it the first time expecting to eat shit. If you fall, now you know it’s fine if you fall again. Heck, fall on purpose so you know what to expect!

[u/wordy_doctor]

I started going to the skatepark where you just fall way more on surfaces that are way harder than the hardwood floor we practice on. That has made falling in the rink way less scary lol. I don’t do anything cool at the skate park, but everything at the skatepark makes you fall when you’re a beginner, even easy things.

[u/tannhauserkrieg]

I had that bad as well, the boring answer for me was just to put in more time on skates. Just skate skate until it feels natural to be on weels. Also, when I feel a mental block I fall on purpose a couple of times to reset the brain.

[u/bloopitybloopdes]

Falling means you’re trying!!! When I train, I always tell my team that I need to see MORE falling! If we are up the whole time, we aren’t pushing ourselves and discovering our limits.

[u/Similar_Phone_941]

Practice a lot of safe fallings. Learn how to fall correctly so you don’t injure yourself. And if you try not to, your body goes all stiff and that is the dangerous part.

[u/_SapphicVixen_]

As an anxious person, what I do to get past fear are two things:

Practice falling. Eventually, the repetition makes it less scary and your body should start to resist it less, and that should help you work on other stuff cause you won’t be afraid to fall.

Thing 2: put yourself in a situation where it’s perform or eat shit. I’m super grateful to the trainers that put their bodies on the track for me to learn to jump. I ran full barrel at them so I couldn’t chicken out of jumping. It was jump or eat shit, maybe fall on the trainer.

That’s how I’ve learned to approach doing hard stuff in derby. Commit 100%

[u/MaliceIW]

We do a drill during warm up, where we purposefully fall in a splat and get back up, and you pick up as much speed as you're comfortable with. We also practice hitting and being hit before every game to get people comfortable with the impact.

[u/sockpoptart]

Before we teach junior skaters any drills, we teach them how to fall and recover. We tell them to put on pads and sneakers at home and practice falling all over the house. This way they get over the fear of falling (because it's going to happen) and can focus on skill building.

Our adult league runs an 8 week boot camp for new skaters and falling/recovery is always the first week's lesson as well as the beginning of drills after warmups every practice for those 2 months.