My almost-7-year-old is in her second year of preteam. The first year was mostly about conditioning and not much work on skills, which seemed like the right focus at the time--after all, you have to be able to do a pull-up before you can do a pullover. She moved from L1 preteam to L2 preteam at the beginning of the summer, and this fall they finally began working on some of the L3 skills (BHC, shoot-through, beam leap and dismount, backwards roll to push-up position, progressions for BHS). About a month ago, the coach moved three new 5-year-olds up from L1 to L2. Since that time, my daughter reports that her group has done virtually no work on skills, only conditioning. For the past month, she claims that on floor all they have done is frog jumps and other conditioning (no handstand forward roll, backwards roll, handstand bridge kickover, etc.), they have done nothing other than pullovers and casts on bars, and they have only done walks and kicks on beam. I do not watch practice so I cannot verify the accuracy of her claims, although I do watch her private lessons (private lessons are unfortunately the norm at this gym) and I don't see much skill work going on there either.
My daughter desperately wants to compete L3 next fall, but unless they start teaching skills soon I just don't see how it will ever happen. My concerns are compounded by the fact that I recently realized that a large share of last year's L4 team is repeating at new L3, despite the fact that many of these girls entered the preteam program not two but THREE years before they began competing. I suspect that this is because they don't appear to do any uptraining during the season, and began working kips in August even though the first competition is in November. None of this seems quite right to me. Am I overly worried, or am I right to be concerned?
My daughter desperately wants to compete L3 next fall, but unless they start teaching skills soon I just don't see how it will ever happen. My concerns are compounded by the fact that I recently realized that a large share of last year's L4 team is repeating at new L3, despite the fact that many of these girls entered the preteam program not two but THREE years before they began competing. I suspect that this is because they don't appear to do any uptraining during the season, and began working kips in August even though the first competition is in November. None of this seems quite right to me. Am I overly worried, or am I right to be concerned?