spotting skills in competiton

[Panda-girl's Mom]

The meet we were at this past weekend at level 4 many of the girls were spotted during their roundoff backhandsprings. Some of the girls were doing it and landing on their heads. I had difficulty watching. Our gym does not let the girls compete floor if they can not do this skill independently without a spot. Have you been to many meets where they allow the girls to try this before they have the skill. Can't they injure themselves?

[gymgirl0805's Mom]

the only thing i've seen coaches spot kids on is bars.. chelsea has one girl on her team that still needs a spot on her shoot thru... last year i did see a couple of girls that needed robhs spots during a meet but not so far this year.

[Aussie_coach]

This is one of the reasons why we don't make the round off back handspring compulsary in level 4 in Australia. The girls only need to do a round off with a good strong rebound. They can do the round off back handspring and it adds a 0.2 bonus to their routine start value. Sometimes girls are encouraged to compete the skill too early and it is done poorly and dangerously. Unfortunatly we do reguire all our level 4's to cast squat on and jump to high bar and do high bar work and a dismount from high bar and we have a few injuries there to because many level 4's are just not ready.

[bogwoppit]

At our club girls can be spotted on bars and of course vault, obviously if the coach touches the gymnast the skill is void. On floor and beam, if a girl cannot do a skill alone she doesn't do it and takes a deduction for the missing element. SO there really is no point spotting on beam or floor as there is no score awarded for effort!!

I have seen some very ugly things at meets too, mostly stemming from poor coaching. Kids baging their backs on the vault, coach not close enogh to spot if needed. Kids sliding across the top and crashing.

The ro bhs and flyaway seem to have the most potential for disaster, girls really should be solid before they compete skills. Banging feet on the bar or landing on head is just terrible.

[melmonette]

Our gym also doesn't let the girls compete unless they have all their skills. However, lots of other gyms I see at meets does spot the ROBHS, front hips on bars, and the beam dismount too quite freqently

[gymmomntc2e6]

Our coaches have spotted L4 ROBH on floor at meets - it was more of a confidence issue than not having the skill. Only needed it for the first couple of meets.

They also spot on bars (mostly the dreaded mill circle).

I wish they had taken that out of the L3 bar routine before they took the BWO out of the L3 floor routine. Seems that most of the girls have a much harder time w/ the mill circle than the BWO. But that is just me !!!!

[medic3188]

My dd will be competing in 2 weeks. She will be spoted on bars and possibly beam. In aa her coach said you have to compete all 4 events. Otherwise we would have not done bars. Hopefully by her second meet she wont need the beam spot.