WAG Directional Deduction?

[MBJ974]

Is there, and if so, how much is the deduction for competing a level 4 floor routine from the wrong corner/side? DD is a righty and competed her floor routine from where the lefty's start today at the state meet. I've heard of the term directional deduction before, but I'm not quite sure if it applies to DD's routine.

 

[gymdog]

There is no "lefty" or "righty" corner. Some gyms may teach it that way but a lefty or righty can start in whatever corner they want. After the front handspring, a righty is always going to step to the left and then make basically a series of turns that point them towards the corner to the right of them, then they will go down that diagonal for the leaps, and back up that diagonal for the handsprings. The deduction for doing the floor pattern in the wrong direction relates to those series of turns and use of the diagonals. Example: righty starts in corner 1, does front handspring, then steps right and moves to the diagonal to her left. This is incorrect for a righty. If she start in corners 2-4 and did that, it would still be incorrect. If she starts in corners 1-4, steps left out of her front handspring, turns correctly and travels to the corner to the right of her front handspring corner for the leaps, she is doing the floor pattern correctly no matter where she started.

 

[GlobalNomad]

If you're saying that she reversed elements, then I think it's 1/2 the value of every element she reversed. I've seen gymnasts do this. They accidentally turn the wrong direction during the floor routine or somehow get on the wrong foot. It has a huge impact on their score. Sorry if that happened to her.

 

[gymdog]

Reversing an element is different than going the wrong direction, although I'm not sure what you mean by reversing an element. Typically reversing an element is used to mean doing a skill with the left leg when the rest of the routine was done with the right leg or vice versa. Any tumbling skills can be reversed with no penalty. Reversing the dance or going the wrong direction is a deduction, but not a huge one in the grand scheme of things.

If you mean reversing elements like doing a stretch jump 1/2 turn straddle jump instead of a straddle jump stretch jump 1/2, that would be a bigger problem but I'm not sure that's what the OP means.

 

[Ali'sMom]

We've always been told that they can start in whatever corner they prefer.

My daughter reverses elements in her floor routine, always has (not sure how/why, as some things she does "righty" and others are "lefty"). But each of the elements separately are allowed to be reversed. She starts with one leg going forward, but then the other for BWO.

 

[GlobalNomad]

If this helps, from justgymnastics.com:

"The Compulsory exercises may be reversed in their
entirety, or the tumbling elements that are indicated with
an * may be reversed by following the text that describes
precisely where to add or eliminate a step to resume the
exercise on the indicated side. That is, there is a specific
procedure to allow gymnasts to tumble on their "good side."
Typically, dance elements are not allowed to be reversed.
That means gymnasts should choose to do the entire routine
on their good dance side and reverse those tumbling elements
that are on the opposite side."

When my dd did level 4, there was first a diagonal tumbling pass, then the righties turned right and the lefties turned left. If you turned the right handed direction, the dance should be right-handed. If you turned the left handed direction your dance should be left-handed. We had a kid turn the wrong way, and move around the floor in the direction of a righty but she was left handed. The score was terrible. The coach had to explain that she went the "wrong way."

 

[MBJ974]

She didn't reverse any of her elements. She is a righty and started in the corner that the leftys start at in our gym. After the fhs, she stepped out on her right foot and continued to the right side on the diagonal and then continued on the right side for the rest of the routine. From what I gather, this is ok and no deduction was taken. Thanks for all of the input.

 

[gymdog]

If this helps, from justgymnastics.com:

"The Compulsory exercises may be reversed in their
entirety, or the tumbling elements that are indicated with
an * may be reversed by following the text that describes
precisely where to add or eliminate a step to resume the
exercise on the indicated side. That is, there is a specific
procedure to allow gymnasts to tumble on their "good side."
Typically, dance elements are not allowed to be reversed.
That means gymnasts should choose to do the entire routine
on their good dance side and reverse those tumbling elements
that are on the opposite side."

When my dd did level 4, there was first a diagonal tumbling pass, then the righties turned right and the lefties turned left. If you turned the right handed direction, the dance should be right-handed. If you turned the left handed direction your dance should be left-handed. We had a kid turn the wrong way, and move around the floor in the direction of a righty but she was left handed. The score was terrible. The coach had to explain that she went the "wrong way."

That's not the same as reversing a major element (which pretty much the only major elements that can't be reversed without penalty that are possibly reversible in level 4 are the leap pass and the full turn, since you can't really reverse a straddle jump). I doubt this kid did the left floor pattern and then used her bad leg to do leaps and turns.

If she just went the lefty way correctly there's really a chance the judges didn't even notice to be honest. But most likely, she went the wrong way and didn't do the lefty floor pattern, she went the wrong way and then did an entirely different floor pattern. The deduction for this is up to .3.

So, basically, it is a deduction and you probably won't win at a big meet if you do this, but probably also doesn't fully explain a very low score. If a child isn't confident with the floor pattern, they probably have a lot of other deductions, if only because they are confused in that moment and thus their performance reflects that even if it's usually better.

 

[Ali'sMom]

She didn't reverse any of her elements. She is a righty and started in the corner that the leftys start at in our gym. After the fhs, she stepped out on her right foot and continued to the right side on the diagonal and then continued on the right side for the rest of the routine. From what I gather, this is ok and no deduction was taken. Thanks for all of the input.

And think of it this way - have you been at a meet where there are two different gyms in a group, and one gym warms up from one side of the floor, while the other gym warms up from the other side. So when it comes time for the gymmie to start, they typically go from whatever corner they're at.