WAG Can we talk about diff gyms philosophies about xcel?

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momof2gymmies

Proud Parent
The more I read, the more I wonder about our gym. They seem to have super crazy requirements for our xcel team. My DD's are both repeating levels - YDD will be a 2nd year bronze, ODD will be a 2nd year silver. There is a small chance ODD will move to gold, but I doubt it b/c they always have the kids do 2 years at each level, no matter what.

In order to even make the bronze team the girls must have a robhs. YDD's floor routine had a robhs and bwobwo. Ob beam she started the year with a handstand, and switched to a cartwheel and hand stand twist dismount.

Silver DD had to have her kips to even move to silver. Her bar routine was kip, cast, bhc, squat on, jump to high bar, kip, bhc, tap swing dismount. On beam she did a bwo, full turn, and back tuck dismount. On floor she did robhsbt, and fhsfhs as her two passes. Some girls did robhsbhs and front tuck, and a few did robhsbhs and an aerial.

Our girls place well. our team usually places first. But at so many meets, and reading in here it seems like our girls are really doing routines above what other gyms are doing. They are doing them cleanly, but still, they end up with more deductions that other kids. Lots of gyms silver DD competed against only had low bar routines. Lots of silvers only had 1 bhs.

There is no movement between xcel and JO at our gym. The girls uptrain a lot. YDD has her bwo on high beam but can't compete it. She also has her kips, and will compete those in bronze. She has her ft, but not her bt on floor. ODD has bhs on beam, but again cam't compete it. Nor can she compete bwobwo.

So I guess my question is is there any obvious reason I am missing as to why our gym has the girls competing more than others, and why they don't bump them up in levels instead? It was very evident at states and regionals the differences in gyms, and it got me thinking.

I am happy with our gym, my girls are doing well and enjoying it, so this is more of a curiosity than anything else.
 
Some gyms want MAX routines while other gyms will allow anyone with MIN skills to compete.

At our gym, we only compete Gold and Platinum. To compete Xcel, you had to compete Old L4/ New L3 at least. The rest of the requirements are age related:
Repeat the same level for 3 years- you can compete Xcel Gold starting at age 10 if you aren't ready to move on. A medical condition that makes the odds of doing well in Compulsories- you can compete Xcel at age 10.
Repeat a level for 2 years - you can compete Xcel Gold at age 11. If you are going into 7th grade or higher or are 12+, you can compete Xcel Gold after 1 year of L3... if you choose.

Repeating in Xcel is determined by the skills. A girl with a solid Kip and a Back Tuck and a full turn and BWO on beam would be competing Platinum as soon as possible.
We have girls that compete higher than minimum skills, but nobody competes MAX routines. We also try to put together the cleanest routines with the skills they want to showcase. On Bars and Beam, less is more ... 6 skills for gold and 7 skills for Platinum.
 
At out gym we only have Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. However, Gold team doesn't go out and compete, they do little house meets and compete with each other. Also, your gym's silver routines sounds a lot like our gold routines. It's actually almost identical to my routines when did gold. On floor I did a ROBT and FT. On bars I did kip, bhc, squat on, long hang kip, bhc, flyaway. Beam I did a bwo, full turn, handstand, and FT dismount.

So long answer short, your gym does sound like it's more advanced that general xcel teams. Which isn't bad, but that can make deductions easier to get if the other teams are doing simpler skills and making them look cleaner.
 
Based on what I see in our region, your gyms requirements would be considered excessive here. That said, Xcel isn't as popular here either. DD's XB floor routine had a Cartwheel/RO. That was literally the most complex thing in it. She had a half turn. A backwards roll. Beam was too packed with skills and even then the most advanced was a handstand. Bar routine was literally a glide swing, pullover, dismount. We saw gyms that competed kip, but they were very few and far between. DD did well. Even went to regionals, which was a lot of fun for her. But now that she's competed L3 and training L4 she realizes how simple her Xcel stuff was.
 
IMO, Bronze Xcel is not meant for kids with those kinds of skills, and bronze kids shouldn't be competing against that level of skills. There is a certain amount of fair play that has to come into these leveling decisions, and you are clearly describing minimum Silver and probably Gold level kids. How discouraging for Bronze kids doing roundoffs and back walkovers in their floor routines to see kids doing round off back handsprings. Our Bronze bars is Glide swing, pullover, back hip circle (if you have it) and a dismount . That is about what you should expect in a bronze routine. Not sure what your gym's motivation (winning?) would be, but I am somewhat surprised they haven't been questioned on why their kids are clearly competing in too low of a level. Kind of like putting Simone Biles in Level 9. JMO, but you are right to question it.
 
IMO, Bronze Xcel is not meant for kids with those kinds of skills, and bronze kids shouldn't be competing against that level of skills. There is a certain amount of fair play that has to come into these leveling decisions, and you are clearly describing minimum Silver and probably Gold level kids. How discouraging for Bronze kids doing roundoffs and back walkovers in their floor routines to see kids doing round off back handsprings. Our Bronze bars is Glide swing, pullover, back hip circle (if you have it) and a dismount . That is about what you should expect in a bronze routine. Not sure what your gym's motivation (winning?) would be, but I am somewhat surprised they haven't been questioned on why their kids are clearly competing in too low of a level. Kind of like putting Simone Biles in Level 9. JMO, but you are right to question it.

See, thats what I think, but also on the flip side our girls get discouraged b/c sometimes they get way more deductions b/c they have more that can be deducted. 8 yo DD was bummed when she lost by .025 to a girl that had no acro on beam, did a cartwheel on forward roll on floor, and had a min bar routine. I don't know why they won't move the kids up. DD, who is repeating bronze will have to compete her kip (per coaches), so she will do kip, cast, bhc, cast, dismount for bars. But she is going to lose points. Her floor routine will keep the robhs and bwobwo, even though she has her bhsbhs, as a bronze she can't compete. She is bummed that she has her squat on and long hang pullover, but bronze can't jump to the high bar. ODD could easily be a gold, maybe higher, but nope, must do two years at each level. I just can't for the life of me figure out why they won't let the girls move up, or compete easier skills. ODD (silver) fell on her full turn in 5 meets. Coaches told her she could not take it out. Period. End of discussion. She didn't need it for silver, so why make her do it? She doesn't need her kips for silver, but she competed 2, and got way more deductions than if she had done a pullover and long hang pullover. I suppose in the end it will push her to get better form on her kips, but at the same time she hates getting the lower score.
 
Our gym is transitioning back to Xcel. We did Prep Opt, then stopped when the new level change happened, but are trying to re-incorporate it. I'm not sure how it will go though.

Our girls who have been on team for several years look at Xcel as a JO demotion and it's really treated that way. The girls who have been tapped for the upper Xcel levels are not happy with it since it has been introduced as being an option for those girls who are missing something: fitness, skills, work ethic. The newer team members don't remember Prep Opt and it is being sold as an upgrade....they get to do optional routines! But it you look at those kids, it's ones that are older, have some fitness issues, aren't natural gymnasts. We do have a few exceptions though and some of our girls who are getting burned out from so many hours, are asking to do Xcel.

So yes, in our gym, it is a different path from JO, rather than used to circumvent compulsories, but it isn't the "more ambitious" path.
 
You are almost exactly a level up from our girls...our girls with those skills were xcel gold and xcel silver, respectively. That is the risk you take. Doing harder skills doesn't help if they get deductions on them, but every gym and every coach has their own philosophy.
 
See, thats what I think, but also on the flip side our girls get discouraged b/c sometimes they get way more deductions b/c they have more that can be deducted. 8 yo DD was bummed when she lost by .025 to a girl that had no acro on beam, did a cartwheel on forward roll on floor, and had a min bar routine. I don't know why they won't move the kids up. DD, who is repeating bronze will have to compete her kip (per coaches), so she will do kip, cast, bhc, cast, dismount for bars. But she is going to lose points. Her floor routine will keep the robhs and bwobwo, even though she has her bhsbhs, as a bronze she can't compete. She is bummed that she has her squat on and long hang pullover, but bronze can't jump to the high bar. ODD could easily be a gold, maybe higher, but nope, must do two years at each level. I just can't for the life of me figure out why they won't let the girls move up, or compete easier skills. ODD (silver) fell on her full turn in 5 meets. Coaches told her she could not take it out. Period. End of discussion. She didn't need it for silver, so why make her do it? She doesn't need her kips for silver, but she competed 2, and got way more deductions than if she had done a pullover and long hang pullover. I suppose in the end it will push her to get better form on her kips, but at the same time she hates getting the lower score.
I love our HC. If something isn't working, the girls can take it out.
My YG competed her entire first Xcel Gold season without her Full turn on beam or any beam acro. She had a 9.0 SV as a result, but had a high score of 8.2 (for her, having less than 1.0 in deductions is AMAZING... in L3, her best beam score on a "no fall" routine had been 8.1 and that was out of 10.0). If she had competed the full turn, there is a 50/50 chance she would have gotten credit before the fall... so either it was a wash or she is now ahead by 0.5. On the acro, if one of the two doesn't get credit, you lose the SR anyways. There was a 100% chance she would fall on at least one of her acro skills - so not doing it saved her 0.5 - 1.0 on acro. Total score savings of 1.0 - 1.5. Instead of an 8.2, it would have been 6.7 - 7.2. But the falls would have thrown her off and she probably would have wobbled more and done worse overall.
On Bars, she didn't have her squat on, but she could do a non-standard climb... she did that and only lost 0.1 for the NS skill and a little for rhythm deduction instead of counting a fall.

Personal feeling - coaches should treat girls as individuals. Allow move ups if they are ready. USAG even says the goal is to move up as soon as it can be done safely... even in Xcel! If she is competing routines the next level up and has extra skills for that level, she should definitely move up.
Coaches should also act in the best interest of the gymnast. If a skill isn't working in warm-ups, then it should be adjusted for the meet (we practice alternatives for some things during actual practice just in case).
 
What is a nonstandard climb? I have seen this term before

raenndrops can correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine it's when a gymnast literally climbs up on the low bar, one foot after the other and such. I've seen kids who are missing their squat-on do that in practice when they're working high bar skills and need to get up there, no fuss.
 
raenndrops can correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine it's when a gymnast literally climbs up on the low bar, one foot after the other and such. I've seen kids who are missing their squat-on do that in practice when they're working high bar skills and need to get up there, no fuss.
Yep... Mostly, in meets it is done after missing the squat on attempt. But why waste the 0.5 on the fall and then get another 0.1 off for the climb. :)
 
See, thats what I think, but also on the flip side our girls get discouraged b/c sometimes they get way more deductions b/c they have more that can be deducted. 8 yo DD was bummed when she lost by .025 to a girl that had no acro on beam, did a cartwheel on forward roll on floor, and had a min bar routine. I don't know why they won't move the kids up. DD, who is repeating bronze will have to compete her kip (per coaches), so she will do kip, cast, bhc, cast, dismount for bars. But she is going to lose points. Her floor routine will keep the robhs and bwobwo, even though she has her bhsbhs, as a bronze she can't compete. She is bummed that she has her squat on and long hang pullover, but bronze can't jump to the high bar. ODD could easily be a gold, maybe higher, but nope, must do two years at each level. I just can't for the life of me figure out why they won't let the girls move up, or compete easier skills. ODD (silver) fell on her full turn in 5 meets. Coaches told her she could not take it out. Period. End of discussion. She didn't need it for silver, so why make her do it? She doesn't need her kips for silver, but she competed 2, and got way more deductions than if she had done a pullover and long hang pullover. I suppose in the end it will push her to get better form on her kips, but at the same time she hates getting the lower score.

Does your gym have any optionals? It seems like their philosophy of 2 years per level would hinder any child reaching level 10 and getting a college scholarship.
 
Does your gym have any optionals? It seems like their philosophy of 2 years per level would hinder any child reaching level 10 and getting a college scholarship.

The OP stated that there is no crossover between JO and Xcel. Since Xcel isn't a college track program there is no harm of delaying move-ups costing anyone a chance at college gym. To me, there seems to be more a problem of having girls that could compete JO being forced into the low and slow path they set out for Xcel.
 
Does your gym have any optionals? It seems like their philosophy of 2 years per level would hinder any child reaching level 10 and getting a college scholarship.

We have a very successful optional program. However, there is no crossover. If you are in xcel you are in xcel. My 10 year old DD wanted to switch to JO. She was told she was too old, even though from the best of my knowledge she has at least L5 skills, maybe higher? When she made team at 8 we had no choice - she was too old for JO. If you are over 6 for L3 you can not do JO. 7 and above go to xcel. It annoys me, b/c she could have been a very successful JO gymnast, but it is what it is. It is the philosophy of both gyms within a 90 minute drive for us, so not much I can do about that. She is happy and thriving where she is, I just wish I understood the philosophy better.
 
We have a very successful optional program. However, there is no crossover. If you are in xcel you are in xcel. My 10 year old DD wanted to switch to JO. She was told she was too old, even though from the best of my knowledge she has at least L5 skills, maybe higher? When she made team at 8 we had no choice - she was too old for JO. If you are over 6 for L3 you can not do JO. 7 and above go to xcel. It annoys me, b/c she could have been a very successful JO gymnast, but it is what it is. It is the philosophy of both gyms within a 90 minute drive for us, so not much I can do about that. She is happy and thriving where she is, I just wish I understood the philosophy better.

Wow. What a horrible philosophy. I'm sorry you have no choice. DD's L4 training groups at both her old AND her new gym have teenagers in them. Too old why? Because they won't be college gymnasts? Who cares?????? Should my 9 year old son not play travel baseball because he's not likely going to be an MLB player? What an awful message to send a child.
 
We have a very successful optional program. However, there is no crossover. If you are in xcel you are in xcel. My 10 year old DD wanted to switch to JO. She was told she was too old, even though from the best of my knowledge she has at least L5 skills, maybe higher? When she made team at 8 we had no choice - she was too old for JO. If you are over 6 for L3 you can not do JO. 7 and above go to xcel. It annoys me, b/c she could have been a very successful JO gymnast, but it is what it is. It is the philosophy of both gyms within a 90 minute drive for us, so not much I can do about that. She is happy and thriving where she is, I just wish I understood the philosophy better.

Imo each child should be looked at on an individual basis. My dd didn't even start gymnastics of any kind until 7 years old. She is now 11 years old and training level 7. I wish you luck in this problematic situation.
 
I simply cannot understand the rationale behind a draconian "two years per level" philosophy. In fact, I should be putting the quotations around the word philosophy in that sentence, because it certainly isn't one. Literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Putting an unnecessary cap on a child's potential is evil. This is definitely in place solely to make the gym look good at competitions. In an alternate universe, if Simone Biles was brought up in a gym like this, we would never know her name, the sport would miss a fantastic athlete, and a poor child would never realize her true potential.

As far as 8 years old being too old for compulsories, that is equally absurd. Having a six year old age limit for starting in Level 3 is stupid from a business perspective, too. That instantly takes out at least half of your clientele! What?! Gyms treating Xcel as a refuse bin for gymnasts who are "too old" for JO really shouldn't be in business. Gymnasts are individual people that all have different strengths and weaknesses. You cannot have a one size fits all blanket philosophy that you just try to apply to everyone. Individuality and personal style and skill choice/selection is one of the things that make the sport beautiful. It's called ARTISTRY. :mad:

@momof2gymmies, I am so sorry you have to deal with this. It's even more unfortunate that there are no other gyms in your area that have a more logical and fulfilling approach. I apologize if I come of as bashing your gym, I just can't stand this way of thinking.

Okay, rant over!
 
I like Xcel for a lot of reasons, especially for my area where gymnastics is not a popular sport at all with limited resources and lots of parents with limited finances. Having kids do JO hours where I am is just not realistic. I think it's also a great option for kids who might struggle with really excelling in compulsories (for any number of reasons) but still have plenty of potential, kids who want to balance gym with other activities, or kids who just love gymnastics and want to put in the work but maybe aren't cut out for JO competition. Lots of good stuff going on. However, I think the way some gyms implement it is just crummy.
Our gym does Xcel only, it's just the only realistic option if we want to have a team at all, and I think sometimes our HC goes a little over the top. Most of our Silvers could have competed Gold last season and won a few medals at each meet, but she prefers to win so they stayed Silver. Probably not the choice I would have made, at least not for all of the kids, but she's the owner. Currently I have a group of kids she regards as Bronze- at least 2 of whom are beyond that- solid Silver routines on all events and a nice Silver level VT. But no flexibility in allowing them to compete Silver. It's frustrating because, regardless of placements, it is absolutely holding these 2 children back. This issue is not nearly to the extent it is at your gym as it sounds, and it is frustrating enough, I cannot imagine how you and your DDs feel.
 
Folks need to get that most of what gyms do is its because it's the policy of the gym, not the actual rules.

You don't have to keep Xcel and JO separate. You can crossover in the same season or different seasons.

Things like ROBHS, it may be required by the gym but not the Level. It is not required to do Bronze. A kip is not required for Silver. If your gym requires it, it is the gyms requirement not an XCel requirement.

There is no multi year for a level rule. No max age rule. That is a gym choice.

There are minimum age rules, and score out after level 4. A list of skills needed. In theory you can do Level 4 without a kip at age 16. Your score would take a huge hit on bars, but you could. And most gyms, no kip no level 4.

The gym runs the business the way they want. I get to decide if the way they run it fits for my girl and our family.

If the only reason JO was off the table because my kid was 8 and a L3. We would be at a different gym as would a bunch of our other top of the podium L3 8yr olds.

Now our gym doesn't do score outs, so if that is important to someone our gym wouldn't be a good fit for them.

Our gym the kids compete Xcel and JO, and they are appropriately leveled. And that ticks some off.
 

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