In-house Clinics

[dancengym]

About 3 to 4 times a year, our coaches brings in a "higher end" or a "national" coach to conduct 2 day clinics in our gym. They are usually during our regular practices. These "clinics" run around $90 - $120 for a two-day, 3-hour session. Our coaches also brings in a well known choreographer to spend a couple of hours with each level, fine tuning their floor routine. This of course is extra around $50/per gymnast for the two hour session. How many of you have gyms that do these in-house clinics regularly? Some parents feel it is double dipping. I don't know. The in-house clinics seem o.k. I don't know about the choreographer for the lower levels. What are your thoughts?

 

[bogwoppit]

Our coach brings a dance teacher into regular sessions to tweak things, we do not pay extra. THough we do not pay anything for routines and that seems to be very common in the US.

AS long as these sessions are optional it's fine, but if you have to send your child I would be unhappy!

 

[Azgymmiemom]

our gym does not do any "guest" clinics. However, they always pass out the literature of the college gymnastics' clinics and camps so the kids can pick and choose those if they want to go to one. We have male and female assistant coaches at our gym who are both on that college's gym teams.
I also just recently found out that our girls don't have to pay anyone for choreography, either. Our HC does it all. And I must say, she's really good, judging by the past routines she's done for our small optionals team...they all place extremely well.
Maybe just one of the advantages of being at a smaller gym? IDK. we are in the process of moving to a new facility which is easily three times the size of our current one. I'm waiting to see what happens after that. We may indeed start having those "clinics" and "camps"

 

[shadow]

we really don't have these "clinics" but we bring in a judge about twice a year. once at the beginning of the season and once more around the time of state. It really helps a lot because she usually brings us some tips on what the judges look for and changes that might have occurred. as for the choreography, our head coach tried it a couple of different ways. last year our girls had to go through a coach from another gym for their floor and beam routines and they were $100 for both, whether it was just the floor, or beam or both. So she got $800 from our girls, which us other coaches didn't think that it was right for our head coach and the other coach to do that. So this year the head coach let the girls choose who they wanted and that worked out much better than last year.

 

[gym law mom]

In house clinic is about 1x/year---the optionals usually get more out of it than the compulsory girls. Usually have a judge come at the beginning of both seasons to watch routines and give feedback. The booster club was able to cover the expense of this last year, but doubt they will have the money this year.

I don't know about paying $50 for someone to tweak and L5 floor routine. Again I think the higher level girls will get more out of that.

 

[CoachGoofy]

We have clinics, but they aren't during regular practice time & they aren't required.

As a coach I love them b/c I learn more drills and 'magic words' for skills the kids are working on. And I love to see the athletes show off for the other coaches.

 

[dancengym]

I guess a more appropriate term is "guest" coach. We are not required to attend the clinics but since they are during practice, if you do not participate, you miss out on practice. They do not want those that do not pay for the clinics in the gym. The girls benefit from the "clinics" because I know my DD is sore after that. Many parents have complained because they felt forced to pay extra. What was confusing was our HC/owner of the gym said at one time that she and the other coach had cut their fees in half to defer costs of the clinics. Well if the clinics are during practice and we are already paying tuition for our practices, essentially the coaches fees, then what is the deal with "giving us a break by cutting their fees?"

We do pay around $350 - $500 for a new choreographed floor routine. But this extra time with the choreographer is something else. Since my DD was L5, they've had a choreographer come in and fine tune their floor routine. Do L5s and L6s need a choreographer to fine tune a compulsory routine?

I wondered if these practices are just money making tactics or truly helpful.