MAG Newbie Parent Guidance Please!

[lilmisssunshine]

Hi,
My son is 6 and just getting started and samsmama said that y'all over here could help me learn the ropes. Ever since he started, I've been trying to find something online that listed the required skills for different levels, but I just can't seem to find that. The coach asked his age and had then said he might be ready for the level 4 teams, so I watched some competition videos on YouTube, but that's as close as I could find to something showing common skills.
Also, I think that there are age limits for the different levels, and that these might be different for boys vs girls. Is this right?
Finally, I'd love something (maybe even video?!?!) that helped explain some common moves or terms I might need to know. Like, I don't really understand what a kip is and people talk about that all the time. I'm sure there are tons more.

 

[lilmisssunshine]

Oh and uh...at what point is he going to have to start wearing underwear. LOL.

 

[skschlag]

Umm..lol Underwear now

I get that..it was something I had to remind my ds when he was younger

HEre are the compulsary routines for the most part. There have been some minor changes over the years, but this will give you a good start:

http://www.jewarts.com/images/pdf/2012-2016Men'sAgeGroupCompetitionProgramManual.pdf

Use it with a grain of salt, as the changes seem to come out of nowhere!

At 6 he is the perfect age for level 4. If he is excited about it, the go for it! And as I said earlier..welcome to the wonderfully crazy world of MAG! I have a 12 yo DS that is training level 9 now

 

[profmom]

Welcome! It's a crazy train but a fun one!

I think if I've got this right, it's age 6 for L4 and L5, either 6 or 7 for L6, 7 for L7, and then L8 is 11, L9 is 13, and L10 is 15. Boys tend to spend a few years at one level in compulsories (where they have the set routines) and different gyms have different philosophies about which level is best to repeat. My guy, for instance, did one year of L4, two of L5, and just did a year of L6. His coach hopes to have him ready for L8 next season.

 

[skschlag]

I think it is 7 for level 5 with that strange rule that if you turn 7 before states you can compete 5? but i can't remember exactly.

 

[profmom]

Right. If you turn 7 before states for L5

 

[momto2js]

I believe that you must be 7 by Sept 1 for level 5. We repeated 4 because of an age issue DS did not turn 7 until November so could not compete 5 until this year. I will be the dissenting voice in this discussion. If I had it to do over, my kid would not have started competing until he was at least 8. I will say if the core group of kids are younger than that may change my opinion. However, my son started at 5, he turned 6 2 weeks before his first meet. He repeated 4, but was the ONLY one in his original group to repeat. That next year was a social disaster while he hung around a waited for the new level fours (and a VERY young group) to learn to do handstands. He rejoined the core from his first year this last season as most of them repeated level 5. He was in heaven, learned new skills and did well.

He is facing the same problem again. His favorite teammates will be promoted to level 6 and he will stay behind with a large number of new 5's learning to do BHS. He may be a special case where he will not get better if he is the leader in the group. He NEEDS to be pushed by better older kids. I am trying to work out a situation where he can at least up train a couple of day a week this year to prevent him from getting board. My point is that starting younger is not necessarily better for boys. It is a long road and the younger they start the LONGER the road is. My 8 year old is strong but things take longer for him to learn than his older counterparts.

I think as you are considering gyms, watching how the kids treat each other at practice (kids of all ages, especially the older ones) is important. Also watching the demeanor of the team kids when they walk out of the gym. I don't really care how far my kid goes as a gymnast, but he spends FAR too much time at the gym for it to not be a positive experience. A good fit with teammates and coaches helps a lot when things are not going well.

 

[profmom]

USAG made a new rule last fall, I think, that someone who competed L4 as a six year old prior to turning 6 on Sept. 1 could age up and do L5 as long as he turns 7 before states. We had guys in that age bracket, but they repeated L4 and did very well against all the other guys who were trying to remember their routines and not lose their socks.

DS started competing as a 7 year old. He was not mature enough to compete at 6 and I am glad we waited the extra year before he started team. Good luck with your situation, momto2js -- that sounds like a difficult situation for him!! I totally agree about the atmosphere of the gym being key. For kids who stick with it, the coaches will spend more time with them as authority figures than anyone else but their parents, and their gym friends will be a whole different order and magnitude of friendship than other peer relationships. They will spend years laughing, crying, bleeding, celebrating, and mourning with these guys.

 

[curlymop]

The men's JO manual posted by skschlag will answer most of your questions regarding routines, ages, etc. There are several updates as well, which you can find on the USAG website. Update #3 is the one that permits 6 year olds to compete L5: https://usagym.org/PDFs/Men/AGCP_Update3.pdf My son has a November birthday, and he competed L4 just after he turned 6. This past season he competed L5, even though he didn't turn 7 until after the first competition.

I think the ideal age to start is going to depend on a lot of different factors, but I do think that we started my son too young. I was in favor of keeping him at L4 for another year, as he would have still been a 6yo and would have had a great season. Coaches thought he needed more of a challenge, and he wanted to move up, so he did. As I feared, his confidence is now shot after another season of competing a level he was not quite ready for. He also has major anxiety about competitions, which I think was made worse by sending him in too early. Before states, he kept saying he wanted to quit, but the day afterward he was excited to go back and work on a couple of new skills. The plan is to repeat L5 (as a 7yo for real this time), but at this point I'm not even sure he will want to keep doing it. It's a shame, because he has talent and has made a LOT of progress in his two years on team. He just can't see it because he's been competing above his skill level.

 

[curlymop]

Sorry to have gone off on a tangent, OP! To answer the question about particular skills required for the different levels, if you look through the JO manual, you'll find the compulsory routines for levels 4-7. If you want to see what a skill looks like, there are plenty of examples on Youtube. Here is a demonstration of all of the L4 routines, including the bonuses for each event:

 

[profmom]

I think a second year of L5 will be GREAT for your guy, Curlymop, if he can just hang in there.

 

[gracyomalley]

My youngest competed L6 at age 6 - then repeated it at age 7. Same for L5 - 2 years. Just finished a year of L6 with placements in 2 events and all around at state - and will repeat to get the rest of the bonuses and further improve his form. At that point he'll be ready to skip L7 completely OR do one year then go on to L8. There's so much room for up-training in boys gym (with the bonus system) and its common to skip levels later as they hit puberty - so there really is no reason to rush too fast. He'll still be "in age" for Nationals in all upper levels at this rate! He's a very average gymnast at this point - which is no mean feat mind you! His older brother started at age 11, did 3 years at L5, then skipped L6 and just got 4th AA at regionals as a L7. He's OLD at 14, but progressing and having fun - coach expects him to be a L 10 within a couple years. For him, getting out of L4 after one year was important as there wasn't anything left for him to learn there - even though he had just started gym 3 months before competing - and that combined with coaching issues led to his doing 3 years at L5. I thought the older one would quit EVERY YEAR...in fact driving him to regionals all 3 years of L5 even though he wasn't competitive there until the last one because "it'll probably be the last meet he'll do".

Point is that in order to keep the boys in the sport long enough to get to L10 (for which they must be 15) its important to go at a pace that keeps it fun and them engaged at practices - sometimes that means moving them up (as in DS the elder) and other times keeping them back with friends/to win/grow more, etc....its vastly different with girls where the age limitations for levels are MUCH younger and 15 year old L10s are sometimes considered "washed up" past their prime....

I like the boys system much better - its more developmentally appropriate and will make for happier young adults -

Have fun in the early years - actually - even at the recent L7 regionals meet the stress level for boys is much less - they messed up on DSs rotation assignment and he had to jump from one event to another during the competition and compete without warm up - he had his best event of the year - although his adrenaline was a little high and he didn't stick any landings on floor which came right after. Had it been a girl - I am guessing there may have been tears, protests over scores, etc....the boys are scored just as tough but they take things in stride better - and I think part of that is taking it slower in the lower levels!

 

[samsmama]

Hi lilmisssunshine! Glad you made it over here -- I've learned a lot over the past six months from the parents and coaches here!

My son started rec classes a little under a year ago, moved to pre-team last June, and then Level 4 team in August. He competed as a 7-year-old this season and after a tough first meet, improved dramatically over the season and went on to get two silver medals and a bronze at State, place on two other events, and was in the top 10 AA. He is now training Level 5 (and even some L6 skills) and doing great.

FWIW, I think the biggest lesson for me over this past season is to trust the coach(es). I love our coach but still had lots of questions/concerns over the season about what DS was doing/not doing. For example, he would not let DS compete the backhandspring bonus, even though my son (and I, admittedly) were eager for him to do it and most other boys his age were doing it at the meets we attended. Well, DS came in second at States on Floor with no BHS, beating out at least 20 boys who did the BHS bonus. Fast-forward to a month after States and DS's BHS is gorgeous! A much better foundation for future skills than if he had started off with the sloppier version.

We also had an issue lately where DS was getting very frustrated with his coach and discouraged about his gymnastics. It was a rough few weeks. I let the coach know there was a problem (without judging his coaching) and he has worked with DS to improve how they were working together. The result has been a very happy kid after practice. I now feel much more confident that when there are problems, we will get through them.

Everyone here has a different experience with coaches, some great, some not good. We did not visit other gyms (I didn't know to do that!) so I didn't get to compare and we are lucky we ended up with the great coach we have. I agree that now is a great time to meet with a few different coaches so you can make sure you find one who is a good fit for your son.

 

[lilmisssunshine]

Thanks all! That booklet was really helpful. I can't believe how much time I spent searching for that information and then there it was all in one place. haha.

I think what's kind of nice is that I really have no idea what's going on, so I do totally trust his coach. The lesson time that he's in right now is a low-key homeschool time, so I'm really excited to see what it's like in their "real" lessons, which my friends says are run more like a well-oiled machine.

I do worry a bit about competitions and how he'll handle losing. He's done BMX racing, but that was a situation where everyone got a trophy at the end. He was psyched to get that trophy, and kind of confused when I told him that if he competed in gymnastics, he might not win and get a medal. But competing is at least a few months away, if not more, so I'm not going to think much about it now.

 

[Deleted member 10727]

Welcome, lilmissunshine!

My middle child started L4 at age 6, competed L5 at age 7, and just finished L6 at age 8. He will almost certainly repeat L6 as a 9 year old.

He did great the first 2 years, but this last season was hard.

 

[profmom]

He won't be competing until next fall at the earliest. Our first meet of the season is usually in December. The boys' competitive season around here runs from late fall through states in March, once they're further along, regionals in April, and once they are very advanced and chock full of awesomeness, nationals in May. There's another program called Future Stars that is on a different competitive cycle, but if you're just starting out, you don't need to worry about that yet!

 

[ZJsMom]

Welcome. I think most of your questions have already been answered.

The kip is a skill needed for the level 5 high bar routine. It requires good technique and is really the first more technically complex skill boys run into.

 

[MyBoysFlip]

Welcome - you've gotten a lot of good advice from parents who have been there! I have a 9 YO L7 - who started competing as a 6 YO L5. That year wasn't pretty, but he figured things out and has been very happy with his accomplishments and improvement. The most important advice I can give you is to let your son own his gymnastics. My little guy has been the one to decide what he wants out of gymnastics, when he wants to increase his time in the gym (a nice feature our gym has - minimum requirements but they can go more), what he want to accomplish at a meet, and almost everything else. If he wants to compete - let him if you can - but remember to just be in awe of what he can do at such a young age instead of worrying about the details. I hope that makes sense.

 

[lilmisssunshine]

Thanks for making me feel so welcome everyone! I'm so excited to be a part of the community.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Oh and uh...at what point is he going to have to start wearing underwear. LOL.

he's 6. don't bother yourself with what your seeking until he's at least 12 and still in the sport. he won't be good until his early 20's if he sticks with it. it's a long road for a boy.

enjoy his moments...