Disappointment and where do we go from here?

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misshoneybee

Proud Parent
My dd has had a couple of workouts with other more competitive teams (she is training L6) and they have not gone well because her skills are weak coming out of a program that is weak.

She wants this so badly I don't know what my options are and where we go from here. It has become abundantly clear that I can't keep her where she is for safety reasons, and she is learning her skills the wrong way and her habits will have to be undone.

Another issue is that most of the teams have so many L4's, L5's and L6's that they don't have room for a kid like mine that needs so much work on bars and vault.

I am going to throw out some ideas here and maybe you guys can give me some advice:

- should she repeat L5?
- should I pull her out of her program and just do privates to catch her up? If yes, will another gym work with her? I think most gym's only do privates with their own gymnasts right?


Thanks so much, I really appreciate it.
 
If she is to continue to optionals she needs strong basics. Strong and clean. Can any of the new gyms offer that?

If she is not training at a gym, most gyms would do privates, but otherwise not likely.

If the gym is a danger, then you should pull her before she gets hurt.

AS to her repeating five, was she successful, are her L5 skills strong and polished? Especially bars, bars is a killer at 6 and many, many girls do not get past six for this reason.
 
She never learned her kip properly. She uses too much muscle. The current gym just doesn't drill kips enough I don't think. None of the girls in her current gym have a decent kip. Not sure if it is coaching or just the fact the girls are not talented enough gymnasts....??? I just don't know.
 
If she is muscling up her kip, that would be a coaching issue. Gymnasts need to be strong and the timing just right for a kip to be perfect.

It isn't about her being talented enough, a kip is a difficult skill and they take a while to get nicely. Most clubs perfect skills before competing them, this allows girls to succeed at meets whilst working towards the next level.

Maybe she needs to go to a gym where they are working on L5 skills. Can she do that? Would she tolerate that?
 
as I said before she wants this so badly yes she would tolerate that. She would be so happy to get a good l5 routine together. as a parent do i have the option of asking her to repeat L5?
 
Find a gym that will work good solid basics with her. Don't worry about what level- if you find a gym that you can trust, then leave those decisions up to them. They will place her in the group that will be best for her, and then if needed you could do a few privates in addition to work on the kip. We had a girl on our team come from a gym in a situation like yours last time. She had competed L6 and that gym was planning on moving her to L7. She had the skills, but not clean at all and poor form. She spent this past year competing L6 again while really working on correcting form. She finished the season GREAT and is now on track for solid L7.
 
as I said before she wants this so badly yes she would tolerate that. She would be so happy to get a good l5 routine together. as a parent do i have the option of asking her to repeat L5?

A good gym will not put her at L6 if she is not ready. You can certainly let them know that you think another L5 year would be good, as sometimes gyms are afraid of "offending" parents/gymnasts by putting them back a level when they move to a new gym.
 
This is all great advice, she has another workout tonite and I am going to change my strategy and tell the coach to consider her for any spot on L4, L5 or L6. I think she would qualify in and out quickly - like what was said before she needs perfect fundamentals before she can or should be moved.
 
What do her cocahes say? I don't know of any gym that would have a kid at L6 if its unsafe for them to stay there. I do know that over the summer many "weaker" gymnasts thrive and turn it around. Talk to her coaches and don't be afraid to tell them of your concerns regarding your feelings of bad form, bad habbits etc. You are paying them to teach your child and you have the right to question them.

If the gym you are at you are unhappy with (which is what it sounds like) look at other gyms and have her evaluated by them. See what they say as to where she should be. Repeting L5 isn't an awful thing infact it might give her more confidence to be that strong L5 instead of the the weak L6. Just because a gym has alot of girls on their team also doesn't mean there isn't room for one more. Do the try out and see what they suggest.
 
the gym management of her current club isn't interested in having a competitive team really. None of the girls at L5, L6, L7 or L8 (there is only one L8) look good or are strong competitors. The average personal best for the gym is about a 32. Many girls showing up to meets are getting 6's. They push the girls through to L7 when they don't even have their back tucks. There are few good coaches there that are embarrassed about it but the head coach just wants a high end rec team (aka USAG). It is my fault that this has happened. I didn't do enough due diligence and I wasn't that informed about my decision which I regret.

The current gym is making sweeping changes to change all of the above (management change) and I am sure they will be successful but it will take a few years to notice the changes. I don't think we should stay. After working out at the other gyms my daughter said the coaches talk to her more, instead of just pointing out what she is doing wrong they spot her and work with her to fix the issue...and that is just not happening now.

I just talked with my DD and she is really excited about starting over at L5 and getting her skills so that she can get to optionals. It won't take her long I don't think! She is so good on beam and good on floor.
 
Get her into the best fit for what she wants to be. She'll catch up to her "new" peer group in a program designed to accomodate any child who wants to make progress and is willing to work for it. Where and what you are should never limit where you want to go and what you want to be.
 
It sounds like repeating L5 would be the best option is she doesn't have a solid kip. Hopefully you will be able to find a good program that can get her on track. Sometimes girls need to take one step backward in order to take 2 steps forward! Good for your daughter for being open to the idea of repeating a level. Sounds like she is determined to make things right! Best of luck!
 
I would let the new gym place her wherever they think it is appropriate to place her. Just go in and tell them that she competed level _ this year and would like to continue competetive gymnastics. They will evaluate her and place her.
 
I think your dd has great insight saying she'd welcome a solid year at L5. At the tryout tonight just tell them she competed in 1(? I know it wasn't many) L5 meets and you're looking for a new program that will work her hard on her basics. A good coach/gym should be able to put her at the right level. It may mean a year of doing L5 again, but in the end it will be worth it.
 
Both of feel so happy now that we know what direction we are going in. It is a relief actually. I hope I can find a gym that "has room". We will keep at it, thank you for all of your support. I really appreciate it.

I think your dd has great insight saying she'd welcome a solid year at L5. At the tryout tonight just tell them she competed in 1(? I know it wasn't many) L5 meets and you're looking for a new program that will work her hard on her basics. A good coach/gym should be able to put her at the right level. It may mean a year of doing L5 again, but in the end it will be worth it.
 
More disappointment. We had a two day workout/tryout with another team and they wanted to push her to their L5 gijo team. Her friend that tried out with her made the team. She can't vault (she used to be able to), and is not strong enough on bars. DD is crushed. She has worked so hard for so long even through her rehab from her wrist surgery. I truly don't know where we go from here. I talked to her about other options besides gym but at the moment she doesn't want to even entertain that and I know for a fact that she absolutely will not do a gijo team. Her skills will get weaker not better at 6 hours a week vs her current 12. I told her that I would keep looking around for something. bad day.

She is such a strong competitor - she can focus so well in meets. She can even vault during a meet - but not in practice.
 
If everything just seems to be going downhill for her, regardless of where she has tried out, maybe at this point the kindest thing you could do for her would be to give her a break from the sport ( and by this I mean, you make the decision as her parent to pull her and give her some time off ).

You said she had wrist surgery so maybe she could use the time to rehab a little more, get a little stronger...maybe even take a dance class instead. I guess my concern for her is that, even with the gyms she's tried, it's not going well and at some point, her self esteem is going to take a huge hit.
 
We talked about all of our options but she said she wants to try out for a team that is not as "elite". I told her I would think about it and make a few calls and talk to some people.

The thing is she had a decent meet about 3 weeks ago and her beam routine is really solid, her floor is good too - she can't figure out how she could not get on a team with a 34 AA in her last meet. I know how it happened, the elite teams want higher scores than that. I told her we just need to take some time to think and consider our options.


If everything just seems to be going downhill for her, regardless of where she has tried out, maybe at this point the kindest thing you could do for her would be to give her a break from the sport ( and by this I mean, you make the decision as her parent to pull her and give her some time off ).

You said she had wrist surgery so maybe she could use the time to rehab a little more, get a little stronger...maybe even take a dance class instead. I guess my concern for her is that, even with the gyms she's tried, it's not going well and at some point, her self esteem is going to take a huge hit.
 
what's a L5 gijo team? and why is she disappointed if she was ok doing L5 again?

More disappointment. We had a two day workout/tryout with another team and they wanted to push her to their L5 gijo team. Her friend that tried out with her made the team. She can't vault (she used to be able to), and is not strong enough on bars. DD is crushed. She has worked so hard for so long even through her rehab from her wrist surgery. I truly don't know where we go from here. I talked to her about other options besides gym but at the moment she doesn't want to even entertain that and I know for a fact that she absolutely will not do a gijo team. Her skills will get weaker not better at 6 hours a week vs her current 12. I told her that I would keep looking around for something. bad day.

She is such a strong competitor - she can focus so well in meets. She can even vault during a meet - but not in practice.
 
We talked about all of our options but she said she wants to try out for a team that is not as "elite". I told her I would think about it and make a few calls and talk to some people.

Wouldn't the L5 gijo team be "not as elite" like she's looking for? May be she could start with that and if she makes a ton of progress, move onto their regular USAG team...and how old is she? Maybe she might want to look at a prep op tract as well.
 

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