Holding back gymnasts who are scoring very high

[bigtiny]

What do you think about holding back gymnasts (on a level) who are scoring very high? I am talking about the compulsory levels, and kids who are scoring in the 37's and 38's in the AA. I am at a gym that allows parents to hold their kids back if they are nervous or for various other reasons (?). To be honest, I don't always know the reasons, but I do wonder why we have several girls who have scored in the top 3 at states and are currently state champions on at least one event, and these girls will be repeating the same level.

I do suspect I know why it's done, as the gym continues to win the state championships every year at the compulsory levels. They do pretty well at optionals, but not as well as at compulsories.

My own girls have not been held back, but they have had to compete against girls who are repeating a level after scoring 38.5 at states the year before. It is discouraging, to say the least. I don't agree with the philosophy of the gym, but my girls are happy there.

I'd be interested to hear coaches' thoughts...

[~JEM~]

We try and make our girls move up however with moving up levels comes moving up to larger hours. A lot of parents at our gym don't want their daughters going up purely becuase of increased hours, and we accept their wants and needs because often it comes down to accepting their request or loosing the gymnast all together to another club.
I find Often if the child is left behind and all their team mates move up and are doing much harder skills the child will decide they want to do that also.
I do think however that it is extremely unfair on the new girls in the level to have to be against the girls scoring as high as your saying and doing their second year in that level. I understand holding them back if they havent been scoring higher, but holding them back with those scores are unfair.
Sometimes in order for gymnasts to move up there needs to be two options... at our gym we say well they move up and train the full hours or they move out of the competitive program and to programs where less hours are needed (such as rec). Almost Always the parents move up after being told the options lol.

[gracefulone]

It is very unfair. At our gym, most of the girls are in such a hurry to move up so it isn't really an issue. Other gyms, however, have done that. Cough cough-Sheboygan. Sneeze- Appleton. LOL It is very annoying but also how they win states!

[Granny Smith]

Let me just say that I am not a big fan of the "not" moving up bit, but here is another reason why some gyms do this (of course not the gym that dd's at .)

There are gyms that only go up to Level 6 they don't even do Optional, so some gymnasts will do each compulsory level 2 or 3 times if they don't want to leave the gym to do Optional.

Last yr my dd did Level 6 (her first yr) and there was a girl from another gym that was doing Level 6 a second time - I couldn't understand why for the life of me she was doing it again because the yr before she finished 5th AA for Level 6. Well, come to find out she was doing Level 6 again because she couldn't do the giant, which was a requirement to become Level 7 at her gym. Seeing it on paper I couldn't understand, but when you hear the reasoning it make sense.

My dd ended up finishing 7th AA in States for Level 6 and there were 3 girls ahead of her that it was their 2nd yr. I sometimes wish they would split up not only by age but if they are 1st or 2nd yr Levels. I know this won't happen and I really am not complaining because as you can see dd held her own, but it does make me wonder.

This yr my dd is doing Level 7, right now she is the only 1 with all of her skills for competition. Level 7 in our state is in the Fall with States being in Jan. The coaches told our girls that if they do not have their skills that the won't be going back to 6, but they will only compete in Invitationals and will scratch the event (it's bars for all of them) that they don't have the skill in. They will not compete Sectionals or States. The funny thing is that all of the girls could compete bars with a cast handstand fly-a-way which they all have, but our gym says if you don't have the giant, you don't compete bars. As I said I am lucky that dd does have the giant and can do all of the routines, but if she didn't I wouldn't be too thrilled with paying all that money for her to go to Invitationals but couldn't even qualify for Sectionals. That's a lot of money that in my opinion would be wasted, besides travel costs - gas and meals.

Sorry I rambled for so long, but there are many reasons why gyms do what they do and us as parents will never really know why it is the way it is.

[hammy]

The only reasons I see for "holding a gymnast back" are: lack of skills for the next level, lack of ability to do said skills safely, and an inablility to perform the current level's skills accurately and productivly. If a girl scores a 35 at a meet, can do the skills well, and can perform the next level's skills then I say why not move them up; of course I'd talk to the gymnast and the parents.

[purpleterah]

As a parent my DD gets discouraged when she goes to meets and the girls get 37 and up. We think the coaches stack the deck in order to win championships and attract more students IMO. This year at our Level 5 states they split the girls into rookies and not rookies. It seemed to even things out a little. All the girls went home feeling great Btw I reside in NY. At last year state championships in level 5 we had a girl score a 39.00!

[hammy]

Since a lot of parents were replying to this one...I thought perhaps the parents should have a thread to comment on. Hopefully I did this correctly...