Training the Mental Game When Coaches Don't Teach It. How This Competitive Figure Skater is Doing It!

Welcome back to the raising of weight competitors to podcast. I'm coach Bree, a mental performance coach for a girl athletes. And I am super excited that you are here today. Now, whether you are a sports mom who is just getting going on your journey of athletics with your daughter, or you are a seasoned sports mom, you are the team mom. You are welcomed here. And this podcast helps, you know, how to raise a confident, secure, mentally strong girl athlete. And what's great is that in this episode, you get to hear from two people from our community, mom, Darcy, and 15 year old, competitive figure skater, Whitney, they share their story of helping Whitney train the mental side of her sport because she is a competitor who is competing at a high level in her sport. And this is an example of. What this looks like, especially if your daughter's coach doesn't train the mental side of the game, which is pretty common. It's actually rare that coaches do train this part of game. So you get to hear all about how Whitney was able to do this and use it in order for her to level up and compete. Her best is specifically, you're going to hear about how she learned a tool that really helped her come back from any sort of mistake, any sort of setback, and really keep her locked in and in the zone. Now, I would say that Whitney is classified as an elite athlete, meaning that she is competing at a very high level in her training and in her competition schedule. Not all athletes are training at the same level of Whitney, but I want you to take away from this, the fact that. All athletes at all levels benefit from mental training. And especially if your athlete does have goals, whether she has goals like Whitney to perform at a high level, or she has goals, like I just want to enjoy my sport and have fun on my team, which is. So important mental training is the key to be able to do those things. So you'll hear how we did it. And also here. How her struggles and her. Things that she was dealing with as an athlete, although she's competing at a high level are very common at every single level of athletics. Things like dealing with nerves, pressure, wanting to level up, reach goals, setbacks, all of those things likely your athlete is facing right now. And so you get to hear from. And Whitney, but also from Darcy, her mom on how they navigated all of that. So enjoy this episode with Whitney and Darcy. I know that. you're gonna love it as much as I loved interviewing them. Welcome Darcy and Whitney to the Raising Elite Competitors podcast. So happy to see you both. I know that it's been a really cool journey, Whitney, for you and also Darcy, on the other hand, for you as well, watching Whitney. And I can't wait to hear. I know Whitney's had some Big wins. So we'll get into that. But before we do, let's first hear a little bit about you both. So I'm going to start with Darcy. Can you introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about you as a sports mom? Okay. I'm Darcy Barron and Whitney is my second born. My husband, David and I have two girls. Our oldest is 20 and she's a sophomore at Texas A& M university, college of engineering, just a little plug for her. She's super smart and we're proud of her. Whitney is. I'm 15 now and Whitney is a figure skater and she'll tell you more about that. But about David and I have always, always taught our girls to believe in yourself and to set high goals and to go for your dreams. And some of those things we've done through taking risks and showing the girls how to take a risk and making it pay off. The girls have lived in four foreign countries. Whitney was born in Dubai. Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes, and so when you teach your children that and then something comes along that truly is an amazing opportunity and pursuing your goals and your dreams. You find yourself looking in the mirror going, Oh my gosh, this is going to be a huge sacrifice for us. So Whitney and I live in Colorado Springs and my husband is two years from retirement and he's still in Texas with our oldest. Yeah. And so right now we're just living life. That's a little differently and that's how we see it. And I'll let Whitney kind of tell you why we're in Colorado Springs and what's going on. You teed her up so well. All right, Whitney, go ahead and introduce yourself. So I'm Whitney. I'm a figure skater. I don't really know what else to say we moved up to Colorado Springs about two years ago after I had some issues back home, and we decided, you know, we're just going to get away, we're going to, we got into contact with a coach I had worked with in the past, and she said, come on up, and we came up for about two weeks, and then it The coaches were all like two weeks. Why so soon? You should stay. And so they invited us to stay for another two weeks. We found an Airbnb and then it became, we were constantly being asked to take month long trips up every month. And eventually we just decided to move here after all the questions of, so have you bought a house yet? Yeah, I know. Have you moved the rest of your family over? Yeah. So we ended up up here. The rest is history. Wow, so cool. So a unique journey, but I also think that parts of this journey are very relatable to a lot of moms and athletes that are in similar situations where, Larissa, I love what you said, like, at some point, you know, when you're following your kids passions and they're demonstrating You know, talent, but also interest in something and then it's like, okay, well, where is this going and where, where is, where is, where are we going now? Okay, what opportunities exist? Can we make this happen? And so I, I love that because it is it is so true. And so that led you to being in Colorado Springs and Whitney, how old are you? 15. 15. Okay. And there is something special, just barely. Okay. There's something special though about Colorado Springs. Like what, what type of training are you doing here? Colorado Springs is kind of like the Olympic capital of the country. So, there's like a couple of major skating hubs throughout the country, and Colorado Springs was the one that I had like the most connections with. So, we came up here, I started working with a couple of different coaches. And I think the reason that Colorado Springs is so special is because they have a reputation for taking on students from all over the country and really doing great things like no matter like even if you're just Improving a few things and learning a few new jumps. It doesn't matter what level you're at. They work with everybody to make you the best you can be. Cool. It sounds like you're getting some phenomenal training. What are your goals for yourself? Figure skating. Currently my goals in like the short term yearly is. to get two triples by January. So a triple is a jump where you, obviously, you have your takeoff, you rotate three times in the air, three full revolutions, and then you obviously land. We're working on one foot right now. Yes, on your feet. Okay. On your toes. On one foot. One foot? On one foot. On your toe. Okay, on your toe. Okay, this is very complex. Yes. Tell me more. That's like my short term goal. My goal is to, for the year, currently, just, this past year, was to make it to sectionals and place top ten. And I did end up accomplishing that. Yay! Congratulations, Whitney! So proud. I can't wait to hear more of this journey. But yeah, go go on of your around your goals. So my goals for this upcoming year is I want to move into the level novice. So you have the levels pre juvenile, juvenile, intermediate, and novice. And then you have after that junior and senior. So The higher you go in the levels, the more saturated it gets, not in terms of how many skaters you're competing against, but the level of talent. So in the lower levels, you have a lot of kids that are at the same kind of level versus at the top. You have a couple of like five people who are doing like amazing things. And then you have like the next 10 people who are all kind of at the same level, but everyone's at a very high skill set. So my goal is to make it up into that, like top 15 ish. Or sectionally by the beginning of the season. Okay. Yeah, wow. These are big goals, but you are well on your way, Whitney. So, yeah, we'll hear more about your journey. I do wanna, I'm gonna throw it back to Darcy, because when you, you know, you hear about, Your kids having these big goals and these big dreams for themselves. I mean, first of all, you must be so proud of Whitney and all that she, all the work she's put in and how dedicated she is to, to, you know, what she's doing. But as you already touched on, you're like, we, we've got to find ways to support these goals. And part of that is, you know, making the move. And then I know part of it was also honing in the mental side of her sport. And you both went through our program, the Elite Mental Game. It might have been called the Elite Predator when you went through it, but it's now called the Elite Mental Game. And so I am curious, tell me about this journey of, you know, where you saw Whitney before kind of joining the program and why you decided this might be something that would help her in her pursuit of her goals. So the, I can't speak to boys cause I have two girls. There comes a, so Whitney one, Whitney started, let me kind of back up. Sorry, but when I started skating late, most girls that are at that Whitney's competing against started skating when they were somewhere between four and maybe three to five years old. So they started very, very young. Whitney started. In learn to skate classes, basic snow plow when she was seven and a half. So she's all, you know, she was very behind And when, and Whitney throughout, they have two different tracks where you're at the lower levels, they call it the nine States. And when you get up into the level she's at now, it's called the NQS, the national qualifying series and Whitney one regionals, which is nine States twice at those non qualifying levels. And so we knew that she had within her, she's a beautiful skater. She looks different on the ice, whether. gets embarrassed when I talk about it, but as the skills got harder, the triples, the doubles the, we saw that and she hit middle school. Yeah. Throw that. I'm going to, I am putting that out there. My mom is in education and my mom said when the girls hit middle school, watch out for this. This is when girls start to dumb down in sciences and math so that they don't seem as smart to boys. So with our oldest, we put her in a school where the boys and girls were separate in math and sciences and English, the core classes and all the electives were mixed. So they had interaction with boys, but she had her core classes on her own. That was Jordan. And then I started to see as Whitney got into middle school, that. And the, and the the, the confidence and the not wanting to draw attention to yourself and COVID hit when Whitney was in fifth, sixth, grade six, fifth grade and the fifth grade COVID hit or yeah. And the fifth grade COVID hit. And it was an opportunity to just kind of look at what we were doing. And then And then we started to, when we went back to skating, she started to have some issues with coaches. And the issues weren't with Whitney or who Whitney was, we started to have where one coach was telling her one thing and she would do what that coach wanted and her jumps would. She would be great. And she would land them and she was feeling super confident. And then she would go to a lesson with another coach and that would change everything. And she wouldn't be able to land her jumps. And. We got to a point where I'm standing on the benches. And Whitney's crying after a lesson. I can't do this. I can't do that. I'm like, this is not how this is supposed to be. Right. Yeah. And we, so then we left. And then when we got up here, things from a skating perspective really came together. Whitney was doing really well, but I realized as her mom, okay. They're training everything they can physically they're training the skating she's doing, I'll run you through, she's three hours a day on the ice. She's got three hours a week, strength and conditioning training off the ice. She's got an hour of off ice training with her head coach on the spinner. She's got pull harness lessons. I'm like, man, everything is great. And this, but. In having conversations with Whitney and seeing interactions, just, I'm like, there's still something missing and it was the mental side of training and. You know, up here when we were in Houston, they never addressed, am I right? Never addressed the mental side of training. And we got up here and they would address the mental side of training, but only until you, a certain point in the season. And my thought was, Oh, that's just a little too late. We're already like, we should have been working on this all season, where we got to a point when it comes to national qualifying competitions, where they had the skills. And they don't have to work on it anymore. They already have the skills. And we, so I guess was it two years ago? Help me out here. We tried, we tried just some one on one stuff with a mental coach that someone up here recommended. And she wasn't gaining any skill. She would be with the. And she would meet, they would talk and, but she wasn't coming away from that with visualizations or breathing techniques or things that she, that were tool tools in her toolbox. Mm-hmm. to use at competition. Or sometimes practice doesn't go the way you want it to. Oh yeah. And, and so you've got to have, you have to have concrete tools, things you can rely on, things you can do, not just a conversation with someone. And so I somehow, I don't know how I found the elite competitor program or. I can't remember what you, it's changed since we've been in the elite mental game. But yeah, the elite mental game. I found it. I started investigating. I went to an introductory call and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is tools. This is skills. This is things that she can learn, practice, implement and do. And I didn't realize the training was really for me. Gotcha. I always say it's kind of like, I mean, Whitney, you wouldn't know this, but Darcy, like when I would invest in like parenting classes, cause my toddler is like melting down and I'm like uh, and then all the training is like regulating yourself and using different words. And I'm like, Oh, okay. So I'm the one that needs to be trained.. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So this is great. So you, you stumbled upon it and then somehow you talked to Whitney about it. So Whitney, I want to hear your perspective. You're like, okay. So I'm assuming at some point your mom introduced this to you. Can you tell me about that and how it went from there? Were you receptive? Were you skeptical? Tell me about that. So the way it kind of, so I would say the reason I needed it wasn't so much like because of school or anything, it was more, when I was in Houston, we had the issues with like the coaching and stuff, but we didn't really have issues with the mental side of it until I started training up here. Because I think when we were in Texas, I hadn't really been exposed to like this level of competition, like on a daily basis. And so like being around so many amazing skaters, even though I still knew I was good. It's, you know, big fish, small pond, little fish, big pond. So it kind of decreases your confidence in yourself a little bit because you're like, well, I thought it was good. Maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was. And so then, like, I kind of started laying those thoughts in and it got to the point where all my coaches were, like, so frustrated and so was I and so was my mom because we knew that I had the ability to do these things and I could do them, but someday I would just be completely mentally incapable of doing them. And so I guess eventually she found it, and I think she started doing it on her own, just like listening to the calls and stuff. And I didn't really know what she was doing. I just thought, Oh, mom's on her podcast again. All of a sudden she's like, all right, we're 10 weeks out from this competition. I think if you start doing this thing now, then when 10 weeks. You'll be right at this competition and you'll be perfect. And I was like, okay, what is this thing? And she's like, oh, it's called the elite competitor program. And I was like, okay, but what is it? And so she explained to me everything about what it is. And I was like, fine, I'll try it. You know, Yeah, that's like most. You're not alone. I got to the first lesson, and I think, I was kind of reluctant about it until we got to the one about vision boards, and then I started to start having some fun because I got to go on Pinterest. Oh, yeah! I had a good hour and a half to myself, just make this board, and I enjoyed that a lot, and I think after that, I really started to, like, see the purpose of it more, in the sense of, like, I saw, oh, okay, this is what I'm working towards with these photos that I found. So, I know I'm fidgety. So, then with this board, see, I lost my train of thought, sorry. With this board, I kind of started to see like, oh, this is what I'm working towards. It's not just about skating. Like, this is about my relationships and, you know, school and academics. It's not just my sport. And I think once I saw the bigger picture is when I really started to enjoy it. And then, I don't know, I think when you're into it, you're just a lot more committed to it, and you kind of take it on a little better. And then I really started to see the results. Oh, that's great. Tell me about that. So when you say you started to see the results talk about what did you particularly like about the program? What tools really stood out to you? And you can also talk about you know, you. Also, we're in some one on one sessions with one of our coaches. And so adding that kind of onto your experience, I know deepened some of what you were learning, so you can also speak to that, but what results did you start seeing and what was helpful? So on the ice, you obviously have about like 20 people per session and everybody is. Obviously, it's every person for themselves, so everyone's kind of fighting for their spot on the ice to be able to do things, so you have a lot of people, it's called cutting, it's kind of like when you're driving, you cut people off, and so what happens a lot on the ice, and I mean, I do it too, we're all guilty of it, but what you do is you kind of cut somebody off, like it's a car lane on your pattern, and if someone cuts you off, a lot of times what they do is they'll pop afterwards. And so popping is where you have the intent to, like, attempt and rotate this jump, and then you don't. And that can be really frustrating when you've set up your pattern and this person in front of you pops, and then you actually, you get mad. And then you're not prepared to jump it. And so the snap back routine really helped me with that. At first I was kind of like, Hmm, this is not back routine. I don't think it's really going to work for me because I don't really have time to do the best, say the word and do the gesture. So, but then I had my one on one and we talked about it and we found one that really works for me because I have, I really like to fidget a lot. So this is like this one thing I like to do with my fingers. So whenever I'm on the ice, it's something that I can do like really quick because it's just muscle memory for me. And so, what I do, sometimes I don't say the word, my word is flow though, so I would just take that deep breath, as somebody cuts me off, it's just And then I found that I started rotating a lot more, even if someone hadn't cut me off, I just the deep breath coupled with something to like distract me because like a lot of times when I'm doing school and I get bored, I just start playing with my fingers and it's kind of the same thing with school or with school with skating, where I don't get bored, but I get nervous. And so this is again distracting for me, but it's just distracting enough that I know how to do it. So I use it to distract myself. And the next thing I know, I've just done a great jump and my coaches are really happy and I am too. So that's one way I saw results, but the other way I saw results is just my confidence really increased with the visualizations. I don't remember which one it is, but it's the one where you go down to like the basement and the elevator and the backpack. So I really liked that one. It helped me with a lot with my confidence, like seeing who I wanted to be. Because my imagination is very vivid, so I feel like that one, how much detail went into describing the space, made it feel way more real for me. I think that one really helped me a lot, going into competition, being able to be like, this is not who I want to be, it's who I am now. After I did enough, like, it started happening, and then it became, this is who I am. I'm gonna go do it. Wow. That's so amazing, Whitney. I mean, like, just, just Hearing you say that and like using those tools and then seeing the results and what was so powerful is it's now not who I want to be, it's who I am. And that's really what we're doing is like getting those beliefs to shift because we always say you'll never outperform the belief you have about yourself. So if your belief about yourself is that like I can't do this or I'm inconsistent or like I can only do this in these circumstances, then that's your ceiling. And so you literally are raising your ceiling to be this athlete that you are on track to achieve these goals that you want for yourself. So, I mean, not without hard work, not without setbacks, but now you have tools to get through them. So, yeah, congrats. Darcy, I want to hear from you as you're hearing Whitney talk about this. What changes did you, did you see the same things in her? What did you start to notice? And. What did you start to notice in yourself as you were going through this? Those are both really big questions. They are, yes. for a while, right. You might be right. The changes I started to see in Whitney one of them was the, she was, she was back to being that com, like on the ice. Being confident and having fun. She was enjoying her time on the ice again. I think we started the program in the end of May, beginning of June. Does that sound right? Somewhere about that. Somewhere about there. And then she had a big competition here, the Broadmoor Open. And she was And that's a big competition nationally for skaters. It's an old competition. It's really well known. And I remember that Whitney was one, one hundredth of a point. She was in fourth place by one, one hundredth of a point. Oh my goodness. Exactly. And she was so irritated with herself. Like she was irritated that she was like. Not that she was in fourth place, but that what separated her from the podium was one one hundredth of a point, and the normally like. I think I was a little ahead of Whitney, as she mentioned. And I think I was like on week six or week seven. And so we got the chance for me to unpack with her. Well, how do you feel about that? Like to talk about a little bit about her feelings, never really talked about the fact that she was in fourth place, except for to acknowledge that. Yeah. I'm sure you are frustrated by that. That is one, one hundredth of a point. That's like, I understand that that is. Frustrating. And then, like, to see how she kind of just had this little bit of an like this competitive instinct that, well, I'm going to fix this tomorrow in the free skate. And you know, and she, she did some of the mental prep before going into the free skate. And then You know, we kind of left her alone all day. She did her own thing to get ready for the free skate. And at that she went out there and there was no pressure from me or her coach. It was just, you can do this, go out there and do your best to place. Top three would have been fine with me. I would have been happy with that. And she went out there and she won the free skate. Oh, my goodness. You did. You won the Annette Kramer cup. Oh, yeah, I did. And the Annette Kramer winning the cup for the free skate at Broadmoor Open is a really big deal among the skaters that train here. And so she had like the free skate of her life. And so that really was, I think, for Whitney, the first building block and where I saw the first rewards of her mental training. And the fact that, okay, if we stay committed to this and if I can just encourage her to keep going with it, it's going, to result in really positive changes for Whitney. And then, but I didn't realize that. Probably the more changes were gonna come with me. Mm-Hmm. like realizing that recognizing all the things that, and appreciating her more for who she is off the ice. Mm-Hmm. than who she is on the ice. And she's incredibly smart. The techniques for dealing with a perfectionist. So, Whitney, and this was 1 of the things I think I kind of really talked about more online. Whitney turned 15 in November. She's. Would technically be a freshman. No, you're you're a sophomore according to Pearson. It says 10th grade. So, she's a freshman, but she's in all sophomore plus level classes. Yeah, you are a 1 class. Okay. Yeah. One class. Sorry. She's on level in one class, but she has a 4. 5 GPA. Exactly. So when I say like, so the tips about, so going through the unit and I'll speak specifically to perfectionism and being like, Oh my gosh, Oh my goodness. Oh, wow. Oh, oh, this is Whitney. And we knew she had a little bit of perfectionist tendencies in her. I would say more than a little. Yeah. Very self aware Whitney. It was not a secret. But be like, just having the tools with how to deal with that perfectionist athlete. And I think the perfectionist athlete is different than It adds another dimension to who your athlete is especially at this elite level. And that is, and, and it's when you come up here, like Whitney mentioned, there's several hubs. three or four months throughout the U S there's what, three or four that's about it. About four, four where really good skaters are coming out of, but there's only one Olympic training center for figure skating in the U S. And it's the Olympic training center and it's here. And that's where she is. Because it's in complex. I know, but it's, but just. It attracts coaches of a different caliber. And then just realizing, Oh, wow. So you're a perfectionist. You're in this environment that attracts skaters. It attracts skaters from all over the world. I mean, we have Koreans that come up here to train. We have girls from Mexico who come to train. We have girls from the Philippines who come and train here. Henri from Thailand, girls who represent Taiwan skate here. And so just realizing that on top of her perfectionist tendencies and then realizing what really I'm responsible for and I, and like the whole aspect of you're responsible for the environment and it's like, Oh, I'm not responsible for what happens on the ice. I'm not at all. She is, and her coaches are, but I'm responsible for making sure she has healthy food. I'm responsible for, you know, if Whitney likes that, it smells like Christmas when she walks in the house, you know, that that's important and that I'm responsible for keeping her on track. With school to a great extent, but I'm also responsible for recognizing that when we go to a big competition, she can't do lessons mentally. Now some kids can do their schoolwork because it's a distraction for them. But Whitney, when we go to a competition, especially if it's a high stakes competition, she wants to play. She wants to play with makeup. She wants to be creative. She wants to get into the creative space. She wants to play with music. And so. Giving her the environment to do that. So like when we went to sectionals, I packed her embroidery. I made sure that we had little speaker, what we had, we went shopping when like, and walked around when she wanted to just go walk around and get away from everything is realizing what my role is and then recognizing and affirming that my role is important. It is important, like, and we had a big change in September. I can honestly say that neither one of us are morning people. No, it's awful, but we, but we're doing great. And Whitney is doing great. So Whitney waking up at four 45, she wakes up at four, that's really early. I wake up at four 30. Cause you know, I got, I got. You know, I need a five or 10 minute head start and I get breakfast ready. She eats breakfast while she's getting herself ready. And she is at the rink at 5 20 and on the ice at 5 45 Monday through Friday. Wow. I was supposed to be going to school afterwards, but then school didn't end up working out after my teachers told me if I had more than 10 absences, I wouldn't get credit. But then the whole semester, not like for the whole semester for that. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. And that's, that's why a lot of figure skaters are homeschooled because in order to attend competitions, you end up missing, you know, you end up being gone three weeks. Between August and November. Anyway, back to what I was saying about that is, So, my coach discovered that I skate better in the mornings, And so I don't get to go back to my nice, happy, 8 15 morning session. Oh! So really, it's your fault, Whitney. But she's doing great with the early morning sessions, really well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. Did I answer your question? Yeah, you did so well. I mean, the changes you saw in Whitney, and still are seeing, and then realizing what your role is in all of it, and kind of releasing some of that responsibility that you are in control of, like, everything. You absolutely do influence it by how you show up and how you respond to Whitney, and you know, set up her environment, for sure. But, that's, I mean, it's really cool. Yeah, as we wrap up, all this has been so great, but I want to hear a little bit from Whitney, just if you were talking to other athletes who are considering joining other figure skaters, or, I mean, you know that we we serve a lot of different athletes in our program would there be anything that you would tell them that are on this fence? I'd say it's definitely worth it. I'd say for me, I didn't really see the point until I really got to competition season. Like all I saw during the off season was like, Oh, okay. I'm maybe rotating a little bit more, you know, that's good, I guess. But then I, once I got into competition, I really started to see the results of like, such as at Broadmoor after the short program, I was able to like manage my feelings a little better because usually if I was in fourth by like. 0. 01. I wouldn't be happy and I'd usually try like what A lot of coaches had told me before was, well, use your anger to fuel your performance. And like, yes, that's right in a way, but ECP and having like the private one on one things too. Also, it really helped show me like how to take that anger and like, use it not responsibly, but like successfully and efficiently. Because if you just have this like unbridled anger and energy, you're going to end up putting too much energy into what you're doing and you're going to make mistakes. Like in another sport, I guess you might like overshoot something for us. It's like, you might jump a little too high and over rotate. So. Being an ECP, like, I saw, like, I learned how to manage my feelings, and it also just, like, increased my confidence in, like, all aspects of life, because, like, once I started to become a little more invested in the process, and being able to manage my feelings more, I found that it was not easier to make friends, but, like, my relationships and my friendships got stronger, because, like, not we were more open with each other, but, like I learned how to like manage other people's emotions around me because I'm learning how to control my own anger, learn, help me learn how to not take on other people's feelings because I'm really good at doing that. And I'd say it's just, it's really worth it because you learn so many things, not just like, oh, your confidence will magically get better. No, it won't, but you'll learn how to manage your confidence when it is low. Like the highlight reel and things cause for me, my issue was confidence. So I'm really harping on that, but it taught me how to like come back from something bad happening, how to build my confidence more because I'm really good at discrediting things that I do. So it's kind of having outside perspectives on things and more techniques helped me to be a little less hard on myself, not since like, Oh, I fell 17 times on that jump. It's okay. But more like. I fell once. I've already landed this jump ten times. Mm hmm. Not letting that one fall ruin everything I had already built, and instead letting those, like, ten wins be what I focused on, it helped change my mindset in a lot of ways. So great. Yeah. That was a great answer. Yeah, the things that she's learned through this program are not things that I could have taught her. They're not things that my husband could have taught her. A parent can only say so many times, oh, you, you are so wonderful. You should be so competent. And you guys talk about this in the introductory sessions, they have to learn how to build their confidence. You can't give someone self confidence they have to build it. And this really helps them to recognize what's good acknowledge what they're doing that's good and well, and then build on the areas where they need to improve. And It's just been so really, really good for Whitney. And then having the one on one sessions has just helped to personalize it for her I can remember the very first national qualifying series competition this year, when. In skating, they do a short program and a long program and after the short program, Whitney was in first place across all of the groups and it had been a year or so since she had been in first place and it wasn't like. And so it freaked her out a bit. I had confidence. I didn't have that much confidence. Yeah, that's a big jump. And so, in a reverse way, it got to her. And so we didn't have any one on one sessions during the competition. She had one before and then one afterwards. And in unpacking the competition and her one on one they did a a visualization, is that right? And then the coach recorded the visualization and sent it to her and said, here you go, you'll need this in the future. And just, I think having the mental coach say, Hey, you're going to need this in the future. You'll encounter this again. It gave Whitney just a little bit of belief in herself and was like, Oh my gosh, she's right. I might. And then Whitney's not going to brag on herself. So I'm going to brag on Whitney. At the level that she's at the final competition of the season, where you come out with national rankings and things is called sectionals. Whitney went into sectionals ranked 21 in 21st place, and she finished in 10th. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, it was a huge, huge improvement, but I just think that having that visualization pre recorded to go back into it, because when you go into a competition and you're. She was ranked 21 and after the short program, you were in seventh, I think so, yeah. So she was in seventh place after the short program and her ultimate goal for this year was national development team and national development team is the top five. And when you start looking at the results and you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm the only person like I beat girls who have triples in their programs and I don't have a triple and there was this one girl that I've been competing against for years and I beat her by about 15 places. Wow. Wow. Some huge leaps. This is great. So just like seeing as the season climbed and as she encountered these the same situation again, having something to rely on, having the mental skills, the acknowledgement of, Oh, I've been here before. And someone talking her through that ended up everybody that placed above her at sectionals had a triple. Mm hmm. And she didn't, she had two solid, clean, beautiful programs. And um, okay. Harder on yourself than I am. I know. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that that has been just invaluable is that this program is about, it's about skill. And it's, it's about teaching techniques and putting things in your toolbox that you can pull out and use. Yeah. I would say one last thing, I'd say ECP, like, I feel like I finally saw like the whole thing I'm do ahead was when I was at sectionals and I realized how all of ECP had like prepared me to a have the confidence in myself to know that I could do this. But at the same time, it doesn't matter if you're confident in yourself, if you're not prepared. And so it kind of helped me, I felt prepared for any situation. So even though I had never been to a competition as big as sectionals before, and I hadn't really been doing too great the last few years coming into it, I still had enough confidence in myself, and I was comfortable enough with my situation. And I was just, I felt prepared all around. I felt prepared in my training from my coaches. I felt prepared in my ability to handle any situation that came at me. And I found that I just had one of the most calm competitions in my life, even though I definitely didn't like what happened was not something that like, before I started this program, I would have freaked out like 15 million times. But at this competition, I felt like I knew how to manage my energy, my emotions, and like my level of. I was able to bounce everything throughout the competition where I saw like I had one practice ice, which is where we practice on our competition ice for about 20 minutes. I was like 3 minutes late because we couldn't get a door to open and I and a lot of other people probably and me in the past would have freaked out, had a terrible session, but I was able to bounce back from it and be like. You know what? It's okay. I have the session after this. It was my 15 minute warm up too, which is like where all of your competitors are on the ice in their dresses. It's where it feels real. Yeah. And I was late and the ice monitor, you could see the fear in her eyes that like, Oh my gosh, this girl's about to die. And then I got on the ice. I had a great 15 minute warmup and session afterwards. And I think without ECP, I probably would have bombed. Yeah. Oh, that's such a great example because things like that happen. Like. And you can't, like, predict that, so having I would have started crying, and I would have been popping all over the place. I'd be like, I was late, I'm not prepared, everybody else is already jumping, I need to Like, I'd rush through, but I was able to, like, handle everything. So great. Well, Darcy and Whitney, I am so proud of both of you because you know that the work isn't just with the athlete. You know, Darcy, you had, your work cut out for you too and still do. So props to you for staying committed. Yeah. And thank you so much for sharing your experience. I know that this is going to serve a lot of athletes and moms who are listening. So I just really appreciate your generosity and sharing. Thanks. Thank you.