Private lessons

[flippymonkeysmom]

I agree - I would save my money at this point. As she gets older I think sometimes a private or two right before competition season to tweak her routines is ok - but they should really be learning the actual skills during practice.

[Gymnasticsgirl521]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aussie_coach I am a bit shocked that preteam level girls would need privates. By the sounds of it she is around level 3. At this level all the skills that girls need to learn should be taught in class and taught well. How many hours does your daughters group work out a week? Privates are expensive the average in almost any activity is $50-$60 per hour. That same amount of money many gymnasts spend on training 15 or 16 hours a week in group lessons where they get a lot more done. Preteam classes should be small enough anyway to be able to develop that individual attention. How many girls in her group?

DD trains 4 hours a week and there are approx 17 girls on preteam. The private rate is about 50.00 at our gym. Many times we only have one coach during our work out so the coach is spread pretty thin. For example the last practice DD was working her back hip circle which she had before Christmas and now she has lost. No one was able to come over and spot her so she was getting very frustrated and pretty much wasted her time for that rotation. That is why I was entertaining the entire private thing.

Ladies that you all for your advice.

[gym law mom]

You shouldn't feel you need a private because your dd isn't getting the attention needed in her class. 1 coach for 17 girls is not a good idea at all---safety issues and just being able to watch and teach skills. I'm sure it was frustrating to her and you working on bars basically by herself and trying to correct a skill. That is what you are paying for in those classes.

Sounds like this is a good time to talk with her coach and on up about too many girls and not enough supervision. I would feel very upset that I had to spend $50 or more a month to offset a poor pre-team structure by the gym.

Last night I was in watching my gymie(and waiting for a meeting) and overheard several pre-team moms planning who their dds would do privates with. They were so intense about it---it got a little scary. One of them looked over at me and asked me what level my dd was and how many privates she did per month. I pointed her out and said the only privates she had done since we came to the gym in Aug. were to get her floor and beam routines done. Ok, so now they must think I'm insane. I figure if there is a problem, her coach will talk with us and we'll go from there.

[Aussie_coach]

17 girls to one coach is unacceptable and unsafe coaching, especially if these girls are preteam which means they will be the team girls one day. It is ok to have 1 coach to 17 girls perhaps for group activities like warm up and group streching but if the kids are on apparatus or tumbling or doing other drills it is totally unsafe. It does sound like the girls at the gym would need privates in order to make any progress.

I would be looking for another gym before your DD is victom to an injury due to such poor levels of supervision.

[gymnomore]

I took my dd for privates last year when she was very obviously being ignored by her coach at our former gym. We went to another gym out of town so it wasn't a coaches competitive situation. (Some coaches really do not like their gymies going to another facility for privates-it's an ego thing). It made a world of difference! She would come in on Mondays and looked a whole lot better doing some of the skills she had trouble with. The trouble was we couldn't do this every week at $50 an hour so her skills started to drop without that constant reminder of the corrections the private coach was giving her. So if you do privates with someone who can really made the right corrections and motivate your daughter, make sure you either keep it up, or do it with someone within your facility that can keep watch over her progress.

[Gymnasticsgirl521]

Thank you again ladies for all your input. I have to say MOST of the time we do have two coaches and the girls are divided in half between two areas of the gym. Bars with one coach and beam with the other. We are down staffed in the coaching maybe a couple times a month.

It is very true that when on bars it is hard to see everything that is going on when you have all the girls working on different stations while one coach is working with each girl one at a time. We had 7 different stations going so I know the girls were working independently for most of that time.

I think I will talk to her coach to see about the bar work and a private just to help give DD some more confidence. She did have an injury during a parents week practice and the coaches didn't see what happened. I was in there when it happened. I have to say it was very scary and I know this has to be affecting her and could use the extra help to get her through those fears.

Thanks again so much for all the wonderful advice.

[Mom to two gymnast]

The main people that do privates in our gym are girls that are struggling on something and need a little extra to get over a hump. My dds have had a couple of private lessons over the years but they were either to build confidence, learn a difficult skill, or work on a skill so they could get to teh next level because they were very close.

There are a couple of girls that have regular privates and while it does help a girl, in reality, it is a lot of money and if a girl is working hard during practice she shouldn't need them.

[medic3188]

We do privates.We did this for 6 weeks as my daughter changed gyms and states and needed a lot of work. It paid off she did awsome at her meet. We will do 2 privates before her next meet to reinforce some new skills she learned.Her coach does the lessons so it works great for us.