Problem Resolved

Hello Sarah and Kevin,

I have spoken with Coach Sarah about last Saturday's practice to hear her side of the situation and this is what I was told...

Saturday practice the girls have thirty minutes of strength and flexibility work, our new Level 2's as a whole are not incredibly flexible so Sarah takes a good chunk of that time to work flexibility. The group all together was working splits and at the end of the one minute split hold they had to hold their arms up for eight seconds all together. Many of the girls in the group kept putting their hands down before the eight seconds, so Sarah had them restart until they as a team completed the task. Sarah had told me they restarted the eight seconds maybe three times before fully completing the hold. She said Addie did not tell her it was painful and needed to stop but did notice her and other girls frustrated with having to start over. This took place at the end of strengthening and other stretches.

With this being said; I have talked with Coach Sarah on being sure that the athlete's feel they can speak up when it is a bad pain and how to coach them to know the difference and how to speak up. I will also be speaking with the girls about this on a regular basis as it is very important for any athlete to know what is pain, what is a stretch and knowing how to speak to their coach about it. I did also speak with Coach Sarah about how these are much younger athlete's than our group last year (Last years team was Sarah's first year as a Team Coach) and they are out to please, so it will be a lot of work on our end as coaches to look for when they are in pain versus a good stretch and help them speak up.

I hope this explanation helps; I will be speaking with the girls next week (I am gone Saturday) about how to talk with us about pain, along with better training Coach Sarah in this particular area. This will hopefully bring everything full circle on a coach/athlete communication.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Thank you again for bringing this to my attention,
Allyson