Moving through levels

[gymmonkey7]

My daughter just finished her Level 4 season and did very, very well. Throughtout the entire season, she scored in the 37's all around and even in the 38's all around one time. She is a very talented gymnast by her coach's standards and did exceptional at states. Her coach considered having her compete in level 5 season right away and proceed to level 6 in the summer months, but decided it might burn her out to move so quickly. My fear is that if she trains level 5 for an entire year, she may get bored. She alreay has all of the level 5 skills and knows all of the routines for level 5, although they need polishing to compete. I am kinda on the fence. If she competes level 5 now, she would not score as well as she is used to scoring, but if she moves to level 5 for an entire year, I am afraid she will get bored. Any suggestions? I have no desire to rush her through the levels because she is only a very young 9, but I don't want her to lose interest from boredom either.

[Aussie_coach]

I don;t think it would hurt for her to move to level 5 if she is ready. She is doing very well as a level 4 and there is quite a risk she will feel bored and unchallenged if she continue's where she is. It is not nessesarily rushing. Some kids move very quickly through the compulsary levels and spend more time in the optionals. For many kids this is ideal as the optionals allows them to work on more individualised skills and keeps it fun and exciting. For other kids they spend a long time in compulsaries and go faster in optionals, this works well for many kids because they are absolutly perfecting the basics which lays a great foundation for the future.

The question is of your daughters personality. Is she the one who is always rushing to learn new skills or is she the one who is always wanting everything perfect before moving on. You'll see it in the gym there are some kids who the day they learn their round off back handspring they ask their coach if they can try the round off back handspring back tuck. Then there are the kids who are told they can try the back tuck but insist on spending 6 more months making their back handspring flawless. These are exagerations of course but most kids lean towards one way or another.

What is more important to her winning and getting high scores or getting to work on more advanced skills. The fact in gymnastics is that these kids spend a lot more time training than they do competing. Our average level 5's would train 14-16 hours a week but perhaps compete once every month or two. Which means in an average month they might do 60 hours of gym and 1 competition. So many kids are more interested in the things they get to do in the gym than a few comp scores.