Levels and meets

Shawn · #1 03-11-2008, 12:55 PM

I have been reading a lot of posts here and I have a question (if I can figure out how to ask it). Several people have mentioned things like competing one level for a couple of meets and then competing the next level in the next month or two. How does this work?

At our gym, the girls are put on whatever level team for the entire year. Then, if they get their scores, they move up to the next level for the next year. There is no changing levels during the year and there is specific differentiation between which girls are on which team (ie level).

Megley · #2 03-11-2008, 01:22 PM

Shawn, at our gym this might be done in order to skip a girl to higher level. As I understand it, a gymnast has to compete at least one meet at the lower level and score a certain score in order to move to a higher level. We have the occasional girl who starts Level 4 as say a 9 year old and turns out to be super talented. She picks up skills so quickly that it becomes evident she can skip through Level 5 so the gym will have her compete one or two meets as a 5 to get her score to move up to 6. We do this at Level 6/7 too. Some of the girls are talented enough to move right from 5 to 7 but they must compete one meet at 6 to score out to Level 7.

Meg

Blackie6 · #3 03-11-2008, 01:22 PM

Not sure I understand how that works either & was also curious. I don't think our gym does anything like that. Maybe it is something that bigger gyms do with talented girls that move thru levels quickly. However, our L4's that just moved up are doing a "double season" meaning that the L5 season starts right after 4. We were told to expect that for our DD's next year as well so I guess I will start saving my money now to pay for 2 sets of meets.

Shawn · #4 03-11-2008, 01:31 PM


Quote:
Originally Posted by Megley Shawn, at our gym this might be done in order to skip a girl to higher level. As I understand it, a gymnast has to compete at least one meet at the lower level and score a certain score in order to move to a higher level. We have the occasional girl who starts Level 4 as say a 9 year old and turns out to be super talented. She picks up skills so quickly that it becomes evident she can skip through Level 5 so the gym will have her compete one or two meets as a 5 to get her score to move up to 6. We do this at Level 6/7 too. Some of the girls are talented enough to move right from 5 to 7 but they must compete one meet at 6 to score out to Level 7. Meg

So does this mean that you don't have a "level 4 team", a "level 5 team", etc? Do all your girls practice together and work on whatever specific skills they're on? Or, if you do have specific teams, how does it work if 5 or 6 girls are competing level 4 and 3 or 4 of them are ready for level 5? Do they change teams completely in the middle of the season? Sorry for all the questions. I just want to know how this works since our gym doesn't do it.

Megley · #5 03-11-2008, 01:44 PM

Shawn, we do have Level 4, Level 5 and so on teams. The decision to skip a girl is usually made in the off season so she would not skip up in the middle of the year unless the circumstances were truly unusual (we had one girl move up midseason from 4 to 5 because she turned 7 and became old enough to compete Level 5). If a girl is going to skip Level 5, she will train with her eventual Level 6 teammates and be on the Level 6 team but she will have to compete at least one Level 5 meet to get her mobility score.

As for training, our gym trains the next level and so on skills so it usually becomes pretty clear during the current season and off season which girls are talented enough to skip forward and they will be prepared to do it at the beginning of the following season. For instance, on our Level 4 team we have a couple of Level 4s that may skip to 6 as they have all Level 5 skills now and are working Level 6 skills (back tuck, front tuck, flyaway, etc.) The Level 4 coaches work whatever skills the girls are ready for so if the girls have a good front handspring, they will move them to the Level 6 step out fhs, fhs series. The Level 4s still all train together, but some of them are doing fhs, some are doing fhs step out, fhs. The decision to skip them will be made some time this summer when it becomes clearer whether they will get all the skills they need. I hope that makes it a bit clearer.

Meg

Gymmonkeymomma · #6 03-11-2008, 02:45 PM

At our gym, we have specific level teams (4, 5, 6, etc) but for the first time last year (Jan 07), the head coach decided for girls to move from Level 7 (fall 06) right into Level 8 (Jan 07). He also had all of the Level 4's (except my DD who was only 6 and not allowed to compete L5) do one level 5 meet for mobility and started training them for Level 6 (Fall 07). Out of I think 8 girls, only 3 scored out. While the new L8 girls did compete the spring 07 season and scored decently, the L4/5/6 transition was a bit harder. The new L6's did not have strong kips (in my parent-watching-for-3-yrs-opinion) nor did they "get" their clear hips. They struggled in L6 and only 1 of the 3 made it to Sectionals, and 1 ended up quitting the team. This year (07-08 season), we didn't have any "skipping".

Megley · #7 03-11-2008, 03:07 PM

I agree that wholesale skipping is not a good idea. Our gym only offers the option to those girls that are clearly ready for the next level, i.e., have strong kips, clear hips, etc. moving to Level 6 or have giants, chs, clear hip to hs, bhs on beam, etc. moving to 7. Even then, it remains an option - the girls and their parents make the ultimate decision, not the coach. We had several girls who could have skipped Level 6 but decided not to for various reasons. Of those that did skip forward, all are doing well - scoring 9s on pretty much every event. Two of them are only 8, but they are the two that consistently win. I think it has to be an individual decision, based on the strength of the gymnast's skills, her desire, her coaches' and parents' input.

My dd is a 6 yo Level 4 so she will not be skipping anything anytime soon!

Meg

flippymonkeysmom · #8 03-11-2008, 04:12 PM

I think skipping happens more depending on how the seasons run too. Where we are the compulsory season is in the fall and the optional season starts in January. My dd had her level 6 state meet in December. During the optional season there are plenty on compulsory girls still competing though - either for experience for the upcoming season or to score out of a level. We have 3 girls in our gym that did really well at 5 and are going to qualify out of 6 so they can start training for level 7 in January. With short competition seasons you see more of it I think. My dd is doing a level 7 meet (after the optional state meet) - so it won't matter for this year except for the experience. Her coach did say though that if she scores high enough and has all her skills she could go right to 8 in January (highly unlikely, imho) Anyway - I rather see them move girls up IF they are ready than hold them back just so the gym can claim the most amount of state champions - which we see way too often around here.

Shawn · #9 03-11-2008, 04:29 PM

Thanks everyone. I think I'm understanding better now. I just haven't seen any of this in our gym. That's not to say girls don't skip levels (at least at the lower levels- skipping from level 2 to level 4, for example) but I've never seen them compete at only one or two meets in order to "score out" of a level. Thanks for the explanations!

gym law mom · #10 03-11-2008, 04:50 PM

Shawn--The mobility score or "score out" is not required until moving from L5 to L6. So for girls competing L4 and below they can just be moved up if the coach feels they have the skills. The score needed for L5, 6, 7 is 31AA and then it goes up to 34AA to move up to L9 and 10. Those scores are set by USAG. So, every girl in the US must do at least 1 meet at each level to get those AA scores---they are reported to USAG. Of course, just because a girl scores a 31 at L6 doesn't mean she is automatically ready to compete as a L7.

Our gym does a 6/7 for 2nd year Level 6s. Our compulsory girls compete in the fall and the optionals start in Jan. These girls do not do all the L7 meets. They hold them back until early Feb. to give them more time to work on routines. We did have 2 girls decide not to go this route after trying to cram all those L7 skills in while practicing for meets in the fall.