Young gymnast finding national success

At times it's easy to forget Clovis' Cristiano Ortega is just 8 years old.  

He can read nutrition labels. He recently did the Murph – a brutal CrossFit workout challenge – for fun. He doesn't play video games. And last Friday he won his second straight U.S. championship in double mini in Minnesota.

Yet, here was Ortega, an elite gymnast, a week before his victory on the family's backyard trampoline staring at a tiny spider. Some fear in his brown eyes. But mostly curiosity and amazement. You know, how an 8-year-old would perceive a spider. "Look," he said to his older sister Jazzlyn. 

Just two years after starting gymnastics, Ortega already has Olympic dreams. His recent win has only legitimatized that. Perhaps more importantly, his win showed he can overcome a recent Olympic-size challenge - a mental block which prevented him from performing back flips. The experts define mental blocks as "a fear that is preventing one from performing a specific skill." In successfully navigating his mental block, Ortega may offer a blueprint for young gymnasts and their parents grappling with it, too.

"Very inspirational for a lot of people watching him. They know how big of a struggle it has been," J.D. Hipp, Ortega's coach, told The News.

Ortega's mental block first occurred at the start of this year when he failed to land a backflip on back-to-back occasions. On the second missed attempt, he landed on his head. 

"From that you can cause extreme fear," said his mother, Jazmin Loya.

"When I started noticing the mental blocks," Loya added, "he would get up and his hand would hardly even go up. It was shaking a lot. You could see extreme fears in his body and his mind and in his face. His lips were shaking."

Backflips, which once came relatively easily, were now impossible.

"The judges would be like 'Poor kid we don't want to cause this either,'" Loya said. "So he would get up there, step on the trampoline. Stand there. Then get off."

After doing some analysis, Loya and Oscar Ortega, Cristiano's dad, learned his mental block when it came to backflips was a byproduct of his fear of injury and being criticized for performing poorly. 

"I was scared I was going to get into trouble," Cristiano said. 

Online research shows mental blocks happen to 70% of high-level gymnasts at least once during their gymnastics careers. The issue became a trending topic in 2021 when seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles was forced to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics after developing it.

"A lot of kids start getting scared and they just quit," J.D. Hipp, Ortega's coach, said.

Cristiano's supporters didn't want that to happen to him.

But what his parents didn't realize is that making comments like, "I don't think you even want to be here," may have contributed to it.

Eager to help their son break through his mental block, Jazmin and Oscar began to educate themselves. It started with discovering Rebecca Smith, a mental block expert, and attending Zoom training classes designed to show parents of athletes how to be more supportive and positive. 

A turning point came when one training class showed an example of an overly critical parent. 

"I don't think I meant it in a bad way. But after going through that training and seeing other parents and seeing how rude they were it was like, 'Oh,'" Loya said. The training sessions showed her and Oscar "how criticizing your kids so much and always putting so much pressure doesn't allow for his growth."

After the Zoom classes, Ortega's parents focused on encouragement.

"When he was disappointed in himself, we'd give him a hug. We would be like 'You did awesome babe,'" Loya said.

Though it's still a work in progress (mental blocks often come and go), their parenting approach was one key component of how Cristiano started to overcome his fear of backflips. Other coping skills included having coaches spot him for backflips, and before routines he practices positive visualization and says positive affirmations. 

Over time, Cristiano has regained his confidence. At least for double mini, he's the regional, state and U.S. champion. His back-to-back championship-clinching double mini routine on Friday even featured a backflip.

Just a few months ago, Ortega was frozen with fright. Hardly able to salute before trembling off the mat. But on Friday he stood on the podium, right arm held high, his gold medal glistening as it dangled in front of his puffed-out chest. Fear was nowhere to be found.

"We're just so proud," Loya said.