After years of success, Amber Glenn finds her football like a champion

Amber Glenn: “This is the validation I’ve been looking for.”

She also has new tools in her arsenal.

Glenn has always had the ability: She is one of a handful of American women to successfully land the triple Axel in international competition.

But until recently, there had been an inability to deliver the moments that matter most.

Glenn was acutely aware of it.

“What has been different this year compared to other years is obviously the success in competition, which has helped. But how I got there was by looking back and I did all that work. I was thinking all the right things and doing my best, but I still faltered at competition,” Glenn said. “Ice is slippery, I’m not saying it won’t happen in the future, but there was an obvious disconnect that happened. Everyone could see it. I could feel it. “

The disconnect, Glenn says, was caused by a pair of serious concussions, one last year and one in 2020.

This year, Glenn has started neurotherapy to find ways to bridge the connection and learn to calm down in high-pressure moments.

“I’m not perfect now. I’m not like a master Zen person. I’m still a student, I’m still learning,” Glenn said. “But… this is the validation I’ve been looking for. It’s not just me. It’s not just that I fail. It’s not that I did anything terribly wrong and just threw away these great chances I had.

“It was that there was something going on in my brain that I didn’t have the tools I needed to try to fix,” she continued. “This has been a good tool. It’s not a fix-all…but it’s been very, very helpful and helped me feel more in control of my brain than I ever was before. “