WAG beam acro

[profmom]

Hi, everyone. As some of you know, my DD, who's competing L7 this year, has had a devil of a time with beam over the last year plus -- she has a very nice BWO BWO and a passable BHS but has been stuck there because she can't/won't do a HS BHS on the high beam. (She can do approximately 5 billion on the low beam.) Yesterday at practice, she was doing BHS BWOs on the high beam without a pad or anything and to my uneducated eye, they looked pretty connected and solid. (She then proceeded to do several BWO BHSs on another high beam with a pad.) I said something encouraging to her after practice about it, but got told firmly (along with a healthy dose of pre-teen superiority and eyerolling at my ignorance) that the coaches would never let her compete a BHS BWO because "it doesn't go anywhere." Can anyone explain?

 

[GymnastJoy]

FWIW, my dd's coaches told us the same thing. Something about the skill not being progressive and the series going from fast (BHS) to slow (BWO) making the connection difficult to achieve while doing the BHS landing correctly. They do like the BWO BHS and we mostly see that at meets. Head coach who is also a well-known judge in our state says she never sees BHS-BWO at meets. But that may just be around here.

 

[Fliptwisttumble]

One of the girls at our gym competes BHS BWO, but it is pretty rare around here. (I don't recall seeing it at any of the meets other than our one gymnast).

 

[MaryA]

DD is competing a BHS BWO at level 8. The goal is for her to eventually do a BHS BHS, but like your DD she is afraid of doing it on the high beam. I don't know why a BHS BWO wouldn't be a reasonable step towards a BHS BHS, but then I'm not a coach.

GymnastJoy, it's interested to hear you say that about the connection, because she does seem to have a really hard time connecting them.

 

[Quadqueen]

My DD started doing BHS-BWO in practice for a little while, and she said they were easier than BWO-BHS. But, she hasn't done them in a while. I think the goal for L8 at her gym is BHS-BHS, which she is far from getting.

Maybe I'm just being a dunce, but your DD doesn't need BHS in a series in L7, does she? Mine does a stand alone BHS and then connects her BWO-BWO to her dismount.

 

[coachmolly]

It's not ideal, particularly for a kid who has no problem with either bwo-bhs or bhs-bhs, but for those who struggle with that connection, I see it as a very big step in the right direction. Maybe not in terms of building onto it, but just for the sake of confidence and getting them used to connecting a series of backwards moving skills.
It is difficult to connect as it is not the smooth transition you would see in another backwards series, but I have seen it done before. And I would rather see a kid be successful with that series than continue to battle one where they just keep banging their head into a wall and getting more frustrated and fearful. But it all comes down to coaches perception of the issue.

 

[gymnast-mac]

Maybe I'm just being a dunce, but your DD doesn't need BHS in a series in L7, does she? Mine does a stand alone BHS and then connects her BWO-BWO to her dismount.

I compete level 7 with a BWO-BWO and a stand alone BHS... so your DD doesn't need that connection I don't think

 

[Azgymmiemom]

My dd is also doing BHS BWO at level 8. She's supposed to do BHS BHS, but she is very hit or miss with it on the high beam yet. So she will do BHS BWO until she is more confident in the BHS series. She can do BWO BHS, but her BWO's are not near as consistent as her BHS so it's actually easier for her to connect if she does the BHS first. Go figure. My kid is just weird

 

[Quadqueen]

My dd is also doing BHS BWO at level 8. She's supposed to do BHS BHS, but she is very hit or miss with it on the high beam yet. So she will do BHS BWO until she is more confident in the BHS series. She can do BWO BHS, but her BWO's are not near as consistent as her BHS so it's actually easier for her to connect if she does the BHS first. Go figure. My kid is just weird

Apparently, she's not weird at all, since it seems lots of our DDs prefer the BHS-BWO!!

 

[gymgymgymnast08]

I never coached but I did compete bwo bhs, progressed to bhs bhs, and then bhs bt so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I always thought the bhs was supposed to be a fast skill so that you could do a flipping element out of it eventually. I never did bhs bwo but I'm assuming you would need to do a slower bhs to connect a bwo to it since a bwo is a slower skill than a bhs. It seems like doing bhs bwo would make it harder to learn bhs into a flipping element because you would be used to slowing your bhs down? Correct me if I'm wrong!
Another series could be cartwheel bhs. One of my teammates did that but she was never going to get past being a level 8 with minimal skills so she did not need to build.

 

[profmom]

Really interesting, folks! She does have a L7 routine that meets all the minimum qualifications, but she's a second year L7 and is under a lot of pressure to upgrade. Some of her L8 teammates do BWO-BHS and some have progressed to BHS-BHS. A few of her L7 teammates have the BWO-BHS as well. She tried to do the BHS-BHS on the low beam with a pad last night, but it's just not there yet. Her inability to get to the BWO-BHS was the biggest factor in her staying at L7 this year.

 

[Quadqueen]

Really interesting, folks! She does have a L7 routine that meets all the minimum qualifications, but she's a second year L7 and is under a lot of pressure to upgrade. Some of her L8 teammates do BWO-BHS and some have progressed to BHS-BHS. A few of her L7 teammates have the BWO-BHS as well. She tried to do the BHS-BHS on the low beam with a pad last night, but it's just not there yet. Her inability to get to the BWO-BHS was the biggest factor in her staying at L7 this year.

Gotcha - I forgot she is 2nd year L7.

 

[iwannacoach]

she was doing BHS BWOs on the high beam without a pad or anything and to my uneducated eye, they looked pretty connected and solid.

They probably were not directly connected, because that would mean she's have to fall backward into into her walkover to keep her center of mass in continual motion along the length of the beam. This is very different than slowly elevating the lead leg to start the bwo, and that's likely what 95% of the kids using this series will do.

The difference between these series is a matter of perception and expectation. Kids perceive the slower skills to be easier. Some of these kids will hope they can learn a series that finished with a flight skill, but keep the bhs-bwo in mind as an option. The more they think of the bwo-bhs, the less they see the other two series as reasonable goals. If you ask me the bhs-bwo series complicates a kids gym life because it has them working on something they can only use as filler in later levels, and requires more precision and body control than either of the bwo-bhs or bhsx2.

The only benefit is the bhs-bwo is mentally easier to bite off and chew, but that benefit comes with a price when they loose series credit because their mental comforter includes a pause in their center of mass's movement along the length of the beam. Honestly, you would see kids running for the other two series if they were told they had to be done as specifically as needed to get credit.

 

[MaryA]

Honestly, you would see kids running for the other two series if they were told they had to be done as specifically as needed to get credit.

Ugh.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

it meets the requirement at her level as a series if it is connected. but progression wise, your daughter is correct. it leads to nothing later.

 

[gracyomalley]

DD did BHS-BWO at state last year after failing to connect BHS-BHS all season (level 7, had back issues with BWO at the time, and a lovely BHS on beam...but fear hit). Although she got credit for the connection I have to say I thought it looked slow and ackward...
Her coach let her do it then only to get a 10 start value - however, I fear it didn't really make a difference because here we are a year later, still LV 7 because of fear, and now competing BWO-BHS (maybe connected, maybe not if freaked out...) even though she can still do BHS-BHS on high beam connected and stuck intermittently - if she has the mental fortitude that day to go for it.....

However, I feel she is learning so much about herself this season (if not gymnastically) that if she continues she'll be so much stronger as a gymnast, and if not as a person!