WAG Small gym - optionals

[wgymmom]

If you have a small gym and optionals, do they all practice and group together as teammates with all optional levels, or just within their own level? I.E. if you have 7's and 9's, are they insular groups? Our gym used to be where the optionals all stuck with each other - they would all sit together at a table at a banquet. But now it seems to be separating into level affiliation. Just wondering how it is elsewhere.

 

[Seeker]

At DD old gym, L7+ practiced together. There were not very many of them (6) and they were primarily L7-9. We have since moved on to a larger gym. The optional team all practices at the same time, but they rotate within their level groups so there isn't much cross-level interaction. They do conditioning, warmup and cool down together.

 

[z2akids]

We have about a dozen optionals, mostly 6s, but a couple at 7, 8 and 9. They all train together.

 

[Mrs. Puma]

Yes. But the optional team is only 7 and 8 right now, so it works fine.

 

[kmc]

All our optionals practice at the same time. Levels 6&7 (5) rotate together and Levels 8,9&10 (11) rotate together.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Our 5 and ups practice at the same time. They group though as just 5s and then 7 and up. we have no 6s.

They tend to hang out with their groups on breaks at parties, etc. but they also tend to be of similar ages.

 

[gwenmom]

Five and above train together. There are 12 of them.

 

[beachgirl]

Currently 1 L6, 4 L7, 1 L8, 2 L9, 1 L10 and they all train together. In the summer the L10 is leaving for college and the 5 L5s will move up, so that will be 14 in the group.

 

[wallinbl]

DD's old gym had all optionals together (7-10). The new gym has them split up by level and training group with the levels. Training groups tend to have girls working on the same skills, so you might see a group of level 8's working Tsuks and a different group working Yurchenkos.

 

[gg_bug]

We have L6-L7 and excel all together.

 

[CoachMeg]

Our level 6s and up train together. We have about 13 optionals, but we split them into two groups. Usually by height though just because it makes spotting easier and bar/vault settings are usually the same. So we call them the "short" and "tall" optionals. We have a majority of 6s, a couple 7s, one 8, and one 9. The level 9 right now is recovering from an injury so she just comes in for flexibility and strength and then leaves - so it's really not that diverse of a group. Plus all our level 6s compete level 7 skills minus giants, so they aren't really working that different of skills.

 

[profmom]

On the boys' side, the optionals (L8+) train together with a handful of guys who will move to optionals next year. They do have to work in two groups because of size on vault and pbars because of equipment settings. As a group there is a bit of division between the optionals and the non-optionals, but they are generally pretty tight. DS works out in that group and is begging me to take him to the optional sessions at states so he can support his teammates.

 

[pt coach]

It depends on the numbers each year, but right now 6 is a group, 7-8 is a group and 9-10 is a group. Each group has about 10-12 kids. 6,7 and 8 have the same schedule and 9-10 have the same schedule.

 

[skschlag]

Our girls optionals work out levels 7+ together, and they divide based on height as well (or bar settings..not sure which). Usually 2 groups, sometimes 3.

D's group only has 8 if everyone shows up. 5 are D's size, 3 are smaller. So they will do 2 groups for ps and vault...one group using the norbert while the other group vaults on the real vault. Pbars, we have 3 so they justs set them differently.

 

[Lisbeth]

Our gym has no L6s. L7s train together with their own coaches. L9-10 practice together the same days/times. L8s practice sometimes with the 9/10s and one day just by themselves. L8-10 has their own set of coaches.

 

[Lovinggym]

We are a small gym. All optionals are trained together. L6-7 one group and L8+ another group.

 

[profmom]

I feel bad for our coach, who actually has three different vault settings and pbars settings within the L6 team alone! He's been by himself at every meet this season and our team is currently configured like a snake that swallowed an elephant with L6 as the elephant in the middle (11 guys).

I think it's great if there's enough of a critical mass for kids who are working on releases to have their own training group.

 

[lhmom]

When the optional team at DD's gym was smaller, they all practiced together. They have a much larger group now so it's usually level 6's, then level 7/8 and 9/10's. They all still warm-up together with the 10's leading it.

 

[tuckfull]

We have about 15 optionals - most of them at L6, a few L8s and one L10. Even on the nights they train together, they are split up into a mix of groups: the L8s with a handful of L6s (which always changes so it doesn't seem to be based on height or skill all the time). L10 is typically doing her own thing with HC. The dynamics of the current optional group is pretty positive at the moment but it wasn't always that way when we had a much bigger number of optionals a few years ago.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

We used to be at a small gym. There were 2 groups of "optionals". One group trained in the afternoon and the girls attended a specialty athlete school program. The other was an evening group. Any level girl could be in either group. It all depended if they wanted to attend the school, or homeschool or had an accommodating regular school.