Parents JOGA vs Xcel .... Need Advice

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Gymlifemom

Proud Parent
My daughter is 8 yrs old and has been competing in USAIGC Copper Level for the last year. She has been doing gymnastics since she was 4. This sport is her life and is already planning which high school and college she will be going to based on their gymnastics teams. She did very well last season in every meet including the World Competition in Florida where she placed 6th AA. Her gym has decided to stop USAIGC and move to the Xcel program. They also offer JOGA at the gym. I'm looking for some advice from anyone that is aware of these programs. Ultimately, I am trying to get an idea as to which program will benefit her most with her long term goals. Any advice or insight would be very helpful!
 
I'm totally guessing here since I don't know what JOGA is; but I'd guess that Xcel via USAG is going to be better than JOGA since it is at least USAG. But ultimately, she likely needs to move to USAG junior olympic if she wants to do this in college.

How old is she?

Honestly, for me, I try to make sure that my kids know they should be doing gymnastics for their love of the sport and that they need to count on their grades to help them get into schools because gymnastics scholarships are hard to get.
 
If she has long-term goals to be successful in the upper optional levels in the sport, you would be advised to find a USAG program for her, rather than XCel, USAIGC or JOGA.
 
JOGA is a New Jersey program, but I'm not extremely familiar with it. Also, we only live near 1 gym that is reputable in our area, so we're kind if stuck there. Just trying to figure out what's best for her.

As far as school goes, I completely agree. She goes to a private school now and gets straight A's. She has a choice of a few different private high schools that have gymnastics, which is why she's focused on making sure her early stages of gymnastics create a path for her future.
 
From someone with a dd in the middle of the college recruiting process, you need to find a gym that offers USAG JO; period. That assumes your dd's goal is NCAA gymnastics. College coaches want level 10 skills, period. She won't get there with anything other than JO.
 
From someone with a dd in the middle of the college recruiting process, you need to find a gym that offers USAG JO; period. That assumes your dd's goal is NCAA gymnastics. College coaches want level 10 skills, period. She won't get there with anything other than JO.

Couldn't have said it any better...no beating around the bush...I've had 2 go through the whole recruiting process and if you don't put your kid in a USAG JO program now, she is not going to be recruitable when she needs to be (which is getting younger and younger) ....and then it won't really matter what type of program she is in...
 
I have some experience with this as my daughter has done both USAG JO and JOGA. I agree that USAG JO is the best route for girls who have serious aspirations for college gymnastics. However, if you are stuck choosing between Excel and Joga, then I think that Joga offers more potential for high-level gymnastics than Excel. Joga follows the same rules and requirements as NJ high school gymnastics and there are former Joga gymnasts who do compete in D1 programs such as Temple. It is a really good program for a gymnast who may be really strong at one event but be weaker in another. You should check out the Joga website for more insight: http://www.joganj.com/

Looking at the Excel rules, it seems like you can max out on skills at the upper levels fairly quickly.
 
I just did a quick search and JOGA sounds a lot like Xcel. I agree with others, if she wants to be competitive in college than a Junior Olympic program would be best.
 
I have to disagree with a lot of the posters here. I think that Xcel would be the way to go for now. She was competing Copper in USAIGC (roughly JO L2/3), so she has a little way to go before she would be in JO Optionals. Maybe by the time she is ready, her gym will be offering it.
She is only 8 years old.
Xcel goes: Bronze (JO L1-3), Silver (JO L2-4), Gold (JO L4-6), Platinum (JO L5-7), and Diamond (JO L7-9). JO Optionals start at L6. That is roughly the equivalent to Xcel Platinum.
It all depends on how your gym will be using Xcel... some gyms want the girls to be maxing out the requirements to compete a level, other gyms will let girls get by with the minimum requirements, and still others fall somewhere in between.
There are girls that USED to compete JO L8 and 9 that compete Diamond.
If your choices are only JOGA and Xcel, I would go with Xcel :)
 
I think Xcel can be an option for right now depending on the quality of coaching, the structure of the program, and number of hours. Just like JO - all of that is dependent on the gym.

Long-term, I would agree with the others, I think JO offers the best chances for college gymnmastics.

Good luck!
 
OP said her daughter's goal was "college gymnastics" and that she "wanted what was best for her long term goals"...sorry but Xcel is not the best path to her long term goals. Even if a JO program requires a bit of a drive , that is what would benefit her the most for the goals as described. If she does Xcel at another gym for a year or two, and then decides she should have gone to a JO program, well then she'll be 10 starting in JO....

If she just wants to "do gymnastics while at college"..meaning club and not necessarily NCAA, then XCel or JOGA is fine.
 
My girls do xcel, and I disagree with a lot of the posters on here. Our upper level xcel girls do go on to compete for colleges. Sure they don't get scholarships to the NCAA ones, but plenty of our xcel kids have very successful college gymnastics careers. I think in part it depends on how your gym and state view xcel. At our gym, our silvers compete robhbt on floor. They must be able to do a kip on bars to move to silver. They must compete a bwo on beam. At meets the other silvers from other gyms are doing the same skills that our kids our. DD is training giants on bars and bhs on beam.
 
I am not setting out to bash Xcel, but as I have learned the hard way, there is only one path to college gymnastics. And on that path is at least 2 years at JO level 10. I make this statement with complete confidence after talking with MANY college coaches over the last couple of years. Being up to our eyeballs in the process has given us a new understanding of the craziness. And let me say, the above is just to be looked at by a college coach, not even talking scholarship. To get a scholarship you most likely need to be a level 10 as a freshman and have JO Nationals/NIT experience/success. This is just the reality of the situation. Oh, and don't forget, all of this assumes that the athlete is academically qualified to get into the school first and foremost.

To the OP, if you want to do what is "best" for your daughter and her goal is no-kidding, college gymnastics, you need to get her to a gym doing JO now, not later.

I am sorry if this offends anyone, but this is reality and I don't believe in sugar-coating things that are this serious. The OP wants to know what is best and all other options will put her behind her contemporaries that will be vying for the limited number of spots on college teams.

Good Luck.
 
My dd competes xcel and i would still agree that to do college gymnastics a gymnast would need to JO. I only say this because of the all misconceptions about xcel. Maybe college recruiters aren't looking at xcel. A lot of people think xcel is a lesser program. Some gyms it may be but not all. My dd is competing xcel platinum. Her routines have the same skills as the 6/7s. She also competes them just as well.
 
Okay I am gonna ramble a bit. This thread really struck me..

Meet director made a good point, although it drove something perhaps unintended home for me. In a way, I am lucky because my dd started FAR too late to seriously worry about any of this.

-You have to start your kid practically as a toddler, erase any semblance of a normal childhood or a normal family life, pay way more than any parent ever found reasonable for a sport, and push your child physically and emotionally to every limit possible just to *maybe* have a shot at college gymnastics.-
When it's all laid out the way it was.. Well it made me giggle a little at the extremeness of it all.

My DD will go to college on an academic scholarship. I have very little doubt about that and the preparation for such has taken nothing more than a library card and a nurtured love of school. She loves gymnastics (and dancing) but can do those for as long as she likes and stop when she falls out of love- no harm, no foul, and lots of life lessons learned.

All this stuff we parents and these kids go through to do gym in college. For what? The scholarship? The prestige? What comes after? College is for learning and growing up, and deciding on a career path. After we put gym as the sun in the universe for a kids whole life, what comes after college (assuming the whole thing goes to plan)? Is it really so bad to just do gymnastics in order to grow strong and have fun and just to get to do cool tricks? What's wrong with club level gymnastics? Isn't an academic scholarship a better goal for any kid, even a gymnast?

I am not talking Olympians here because honestly that's a world I cannot even fathom.

Anyway, random musing and ramble over.

As for the OP, what exactly are your gym options? Everyone threw JO into the mix, so is that even a possibility in terms of cost and travel and logistics?

Which program of the two you mentioned has coaches and other girls that will make your dd feel like she is at home in the gym? Which has the training hours, number of meets, and cost/level of commitment you are looking for? Where do girls in these gyms max out on skills?

We used to be at a usaigc gym with quite a few world champions (by level). Some of the girls were also optional JO girls and I can tell you they found the usaigc scoring harder overall, so don't be intimidated by any program because people say it's too hard either.
 
I know nothing about xcel, but my 2 girls did USAIGC and USAG and my older DD also did JOGA. For my DD, JOGA was a nice, relaxing pace away from the rigors of USAG with respect to skill requirements.

Someone referred to Temple's girls above, while some might have done high school gymnastics and maybe even JOGA at one point, I know that the 5 NJ girls they have on their current roster were Level 10 gymnasts.

To the OP if your DD wants to pursue college (NCAA, not club) gymnastics, I would agree with other posters who encourage USAG. However, if xcel or JOGA are your only options right now, I think I would go xcel ..... my understanding was that xcel girls could switch into USAG in the past, I don't know if that is still correct.

While JOGA is not a bad program (as I said, it was very good for my DD) it really is limited in the respect that you are not exposed to competing with kids outside the state, or different judging in other parts of the country that you will get at the college level.
 
OP said her daughter's goal was "college gymnastics" and that she "wanted what was best for her long term goals"...sorry but Xcel is not the best path to her long term goals. Even if a JO program requires a bit of a drive , that is what would benefit her the most for the goals as described. If she does Xcel at another gym for a year or two, and then decides she should have gone to a JO program, well then she'll be 10 starting in JO....

If she just wants to "do gymnastics while at college"..meaning club and not necessarily NCAA, then XCel or JOGA is fine.
Her daughter is 8 years old. Switching to a gym with a longer drive and a lot of unknowns may cause the girl to quit LONG BEFORE she gets to college.

If she starts JO at 10 years old and scores out of L4 and L5 and is ready for L7 (2 years in Xcel COULD get her to that point, depending on the gym factors), then she would Be L7 at 10 years old. Even if she did 2 years per level from that point, she would be a L10 by 16 (if she didn't need 2 years per level, it would be sooner)... so she would be able to get 2-3 years at L10 (as @MeetDirector stated would be needed for college gymnastics).

The options given by OP were Xcel or JOGA... which of THESE would benefit her long term goals... and I think that Xcel fits in this circumstance.
 
What MILgymFAM said...... :) And I tend to ramble too, so here goes.....

I'm not an expert on JO; our daughter (10) is competing Xcel Silver but training at the Xcel Gold level. Our state is really competitive regarding Xcel and it's a huge program here, but even saying that, the JO program is more strenuous, requires many more hours, and more "perfection" with form. If a child is looking for college gymnastics, I'd have to assume JO is the way to go.

But.....your daughter is 8. Trust me, anything can change regarding her goals and I'm sure she will pursue those goals with a passion, whatever they turn out to be. We never talk college athletics with our kids, and ours are a little older than the OP's.

To paint a picture, our son (13) is a huge soccer player and has been playing since he was 4. He plays club at a competitive, high level, trains on and off the field quite a bit, does extra training clinics, plays in a competitive summer club league, and in the end is playing soccer year-round. But, even with that in mind, academic scholarships are provided much more readily for those kids who are strong academically, and we put school above any sports. For him to get a D1, D2 or D3 college offer to play soccer would be incredibly hard. The competition is insane.

For us, sports are great. They teach our kids - and all kids - the value of hard work, dealing with disappointment, losing with grace, and pushing yourself to do something you didn't know you could do. But, there is no way JO would work for us as we ski every weekend during the winter and both of our kids are in racing programs. Plus, our daughter isn't interested in gymnastics practice 6 days per week, and we aren't either. Our son plays soccer 6 days a week and can't get enough of it, but even his soccer schedule is no where near as heavy as JO gymnastics would require. I'm in constant admiration for the kids who train in the JO program, as at our gym, they miss out on birthday parties and a lot of other 'regular' childhood activities. However, it's their choice and those kids train like crazy, and it's awesome to see.

Our Xcel program is very difficult and competitive, but I can't say it's quite in step with JO. We love it, but if your daughter or you are looking for college scholarships, I would have to think JO is the route you'd want.

And I love what MILgymFAM said. A healthy dose of perspective is critical. Our daughter also started later (6-7 years old) with gymnastics, so JO was not really an option for us, either. Our situation erased a lot of the decision-making we had to do and for that, I'm glad. She loves her team, does well, cheers on the girls who are struggling, and if she herself has a bad vault, bar routine, or whatever at a meet, still comes up to us smiling and says "I know what to work on for next time." She's so strong and is a great skier in large part due to her gym training. It's made her a better person. Just the other night, we were talking about disappointment, and she said something like "it's just like if you have a bad meet - you have to get up and keep going and work harder for the next time."

That's why we do this. :)
 
I agree with all who have said JO is the program to be in if you plan to compete Varsity level in college. If she is happy to compete club level in college than any program would be fine. My dd had been in 2 gyms through her entire JO career. The 1st one she was in from rec through to her Senior yr of HS (L10) tracked you. If you couldn't cut JO you went to the "other" program. They were never seen as equal and honestly the "other (they did JOGA then switched to USAIGC)"were used as threats to the JO girls. If you don't do this skill, we will put you to the "other" team. If you repeated a level too many times, maybe because of a skill, they would put you down to the "other" program.

At her last gym, her senior yr of HS and L10 again. I do not know how it really worked because I wasn't there (she basically drove herself), but I do know there was no flip flopping from one program to the other. You were either tracked JO or JOGA.

In my honest opinion, I do not care if JO and Excel/USAIGC/JOGA all look equal on paper, in almost any gym if you talk to a JO girl, they would rather quit than go to those programs because of the stigma that the coaches put on the "other" programs - from my experience. I do not see college coaches having rows of bleachers at USAIGC Nationals (like you clearly see at JO Nationals) to watch girls compete, nor are there rows of college coaches at JOGA States looking to recruit girls. These are just the facts.

If you have a child that dreams of college gymnastics, varisty level, get her in JO, it will give her her best shot. If you do not have the ability to get her in a JO program, it might be time to help your child focus on other goals, like being able to compete club at college.

As for scholarships, I always felt that academic scholarships were way better than athletic. If you child can get an academic & then go in and maintain their GPA, they should keep that scholarship. My child is a decent student, very hard worker and it just doesn't come easy, an academic scholarship was never in her future, thankfully she was one of those kids who got an athletic scholarship. Without her gymnastics, she would of had no scholarship of any form. We are very thankful for her talents.
 

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