Why Can I Do It in Practice but Not in Competition?
You land the jump in practice.
You trust your swing on the range.
Then competition starts and suddenly you're thinking about something you weren't thinking about five minutes ago.
Why?
For a competitive athlete, this can be incredibly frustrating. You know you can do it because you've already done it. Sometimes hundreds of times.
So the obvious answer seems to be: practice it more.
Sometimes that's exactly what you need.
But if you can consistently perform the skill in practice and repeatedly struggle with it when the pressure is on, simply adding more repetitions may not address what's actually changing.
What changes when competition starts?
For a figure skater, it might happen while waiting to take the ice.
A jump that felt automatic in warm-up suddenly becomes something you're thinking through. You start checking the entry. You wonder whether you're going to pop it. Your attention moves from skating the program to trying not to make a mistake.
For a golfer, it might happen standing over a shot that suddenly feels important.
Instead of seeing the shot and committing to it, you're thinking about your swing, the hazard, the last double bogey, or what this hole will do to your score.
The athlete hasn't suddenly forgotten how to skate or swing a golf club.
Pressure has changed what they're paying attention to and how they're approaching a skill they already know how to do.
When more practice isn't fixing the competition problem
Here's the distinction I want athletes and parents to understand:
If you can't perform the skill reliably in practice, that's one problem.
If you can perform it reliably in practice but repeatedly lose it under competition pressure, that's a different problem.
The second one deserves a different question.
Instead of immediately asking:
“How many more times do I need to practice this?”
ask:
“What changes when this starts to matter?”
That's where I would start.
Pay attention to what changes first
For one athlete, the first sign may be physical. Their legs tighten or their breathing changes.
Another starts thinking about technique.
Another becomes cautious.
Another rushes.
Another starts watching the score.
Another makes one mistake and mentally carries it into the next jump, hole, or decision.
And another becomes so focused on not messing up that there's very little attention left for actually performing.
Those differences matter because you can't work effectively on a pressure problem until you know what your pressure problem actually looks like.
The goal isn't to make competition feel like practice
Competition matters to you. That's part of why it feels different.
So I don't think the goal is to convince yourself that a competition is “just another practice.”
It isn't.
The goal is to recognize what happens to you when the stakes go up and develop ways to respond without abandoning the skills you've spent so much time training.
That might involve attention and focus strategies, competition routines, ways to reset after mistakes, or learning how to respond when you notice yourself becoming overly mechanical or cautious.
Sometimes an athlete encounters a persistent block that doesn't shift even though they understand what is happening and have tried strategies to change it. Brainspotting is one of the coaching tools I may use in that situation.
You probably don't need another reminder to practice
Competitive athletes already spend an enormous amount of time practicing.
The question is whether the problem you're trying to solve is actually a practice problem.
If the skill is there until the pressure arrives, it may be time to look at what happens when the pressure arrives.
That's the gap between having the skill and being able to use it when it counts.
Ready to Work on What Happens Under Pressure?
If what you can do in practice isn't consistently showing up in competition, mental performance coaching can help you identify what's changing and work directly on that gap.
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