WAG How long did it take you or your DD to get from rec to the pre team?

[Ari97]

Just wondering

 

[gymmiemom]

My DD moved to team pretty quickly. March of last year was when she started gym (6 years old). A few weeks later she was moved to preteam/devo and a few weeks after that she moved to team. She competed L3 last year and will compete new L4 this fall.

 

[GymCoachR2]

A lot of times it depends on the gym because "pre-team" is a loose term. Different gyms expect kids to spend different amounts of time in pre-team, and some gyms even have multiple levels of their "pre-team." Oh, it also depends on what level their pre-team feeds into.

 

[Vincati]

DD was a level 1 for two months then moved to gold team, which is a level that's more advanced than level 2, but not as advanced as pre-team. She got to pre-team after about a year and quarter in gold team. She then stayed in prep-3 as we call it for about 2.5 years before moving up to level 3.

 

[StatsMom]

My DD took a class for about 8 weeks at age 5, and at the end of the class they invited her to pre-team. About 6 months later it was time for move-ups (June) and at that point she was invited to the Level 4 team. Now she's almost 9 competing Level 6.

 

[thefellowsmom]

when my daughter was three we moved from little gym mommy and me classes to our current gym. Upon evaluation she was put in a developmental preschool class and progressed through those. She moved to preteam shortly before she turned five. Preteam at the time was a little more than level 2. Things were in flux at the time, but some kids moved to level 3 and some to level 4 out of preteam and girls generally spend 1 to 2 years there. Wow, the timing is all a little fuzzy but she was six when she started working out with the level 4 girls and started team officially the next season. She just turned nine and should compete new level 6 or 7 next season if everything goes as planned.

 

[okie]

My dd moved to preteam when she was six (she started with mommy and me at 18 months). At the time our gym had level 1, 2, and 3 classes through the rec gym. So, making preteam meant being advanced level 3/4 (red group) or AAU level 4 (gold group). They then progressed to team - USAG level 4. At our gym, girls aren't invited to preteam until they are six. My dd spent 6 months in preteam and is now training for new level 3/4.

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[Committed]

We were at a rec gym which was just starting a jo team. All they had to be was a level 3/4. DD was asked to join a few months after turning 5yo. There was no preteam. There is now, but as long as you are close to the level, anyone can join.

 

[my4buffaloes]

My dd did rec classes from ages 3-5. We moved and took 9 months off. Then I signed her up for a homeschool class and within 2 weeks they wanted her on team.

 

[GymBeeMom]

At 3 years old, DD did rec class. At 4 years old moved to developmental class. At 5 years old moved to pre-team and switched to level 4 part way through. Competed level 4 at 6 years old.

 

[Krystan]

DD started gym at age 9, whisked through all of the rec levels in about half a year, was on pre-team for another 6 months, then moved to L5. I think because she started late she made a lot of leaps and bounds right at the beginning, but now she's progressing at an average pace. At our gym, younger ones will be pulled out into the developmental program, but older kids have to go through the rec levels to get to team (usually prep-op, but they let some cross over like my dd - very confusing).

 

[mylittlemiss]

My current gymnast DD was 5 1/2 when she started on pre-team. Before that she was in rec classes from age 2. She was held, so to speak in a developmental class for a session, while the pre-team group was being formed before it started up. That was in January of 2011, and she started competing as a 6 year old level 4 later that same year. When my older DD (former gymnast) had just turned 6, she started gymnastics. She moved up quickly and was on pre-team within a few months. She didn't start competing for about a year after that.

 

[MaryA]

DD started gymnastics at about the same time she started Kindergarten (though she had previously participated in "Tumble Bus"... anyone else have that?). One Saturday morning in the early spring, I dropped one of my twins off at dance and the other at gymnastics. When I picked up my dancer, the teacher took me aside and said she had asked her to do the solo part in the spring recital (a bee in a class full of dancing flowers). Then, already bursting with pride, I went to pick up her sister at gym and she told me excitedly "Mom, I've been invited to do Gym Stars (pre-team) and I know why!" and she slid down to the floor into a split (which I had no idea she could do). In retrospect, that was the day I probably should have just planned on giving the gym and the dance studio open access to our bank account right then and there. Certainly our lives were never the same.

 

[mommyof1]

(though she had previously participated in "Tumble Bus"... anyone else have that?)

Yes! My daughter is in gymnastics because of the Tumble Bus (ours was called the "Fun Bus"), but not because she actually got on the bus. In kindergarten, her after-school program brought in the Fun Bus once a week, but it was really geared towards preschoolers and cost almost as much as a real gymnastics class. I thought the Fun Bus was a waste of money, so I told her that if she stopped bugging me to do the Fun Bus I would sign her up for gymnastics instead. A year later, I was paying for preteam instead of the Fun Bus.

 

[2littlegymnasts]

Both of my girls started rec at 3 years old. Oldest started team when she was 5 and yonger one started team when she was 4 (our gym starts competing at level 1).

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[gymmomtoo]

We don't really have a pre-team but have a team track program. DD spent just over a year in preschool classes (started just before her third birthday and was invited to the team track class a few months after her fourth birthday)

 

[sglemon]

1 year of rec. I was surprise when they chose this dd, so quickly. She just turned 4. I actually laughed at the coach when she talked with me. She had no skills, no upper body strength, nothing I thought they would be looking for. By the end of that first year of preteam, she was one of the better girls in her group. She had, all the skills they taught her, plus some additional, which put her ahead, all with her perfect little form.

 

[Vincati]

DD started gymnastics at about the same time she started Kindergarten (though she had previously participated in "Tumble Bus"... anyone else have that?). One Saturday morning in the early spring, I dropped one of my twins off at dance and the other at gymnastics. When I picked up my dancer, the teacher took me aside and said she had asked her to do the solo part in the spring recital (a bee in a class full of dancing flowers). Then, already bursting with pride, I went to pick up her sister at gym and she told me excitedly "Mom, I've been invited to do Gym Stars (pre-team) and I know why!" and she slid down to the floor into a split (which I had no idea she could do). In retrospect, that was the day I probably should have just planned on giving the gym and the dance studio open access to our bank account right then and there. Certainly our lives were never the same.

We have Tumble Bus here too MaryA.

 

[txgymfan]

There is Tumble bus in Texas! The kids are so cute in it!

 

[Gymmommy71]

DD did one trail practice in a regular rec class for her age group, and at the end of it the hc came up to me and told me she should start attending the preteam class from then on, and gave me a schedule for when it met and explained how it was invite-only, etc. I never even paid for a regular rec class, just went straight to registering for preteam. As time went on I started to realize how extremely rare it is that a kid gets an invite like that so quickly, and in retrospect she didn't have a lot of the things that most kids usually would need before getting an invite (like she could only do a chin-up, not a full pullover, her handstand wasn't great, and she was *really* afraid of the high beam, but they probably saw her good splits, her pretty form in her cartwheel, and how she could do a decent chin-up w/o any real training, and wanted to snatch her up before I tried the other gym down the road (it *was* a trail lesson). Like another poster said, it was one of those "just give direct access to my checking account" moments, and gymnastics has been such a big part of our family's life ever since. I'm actually getting a little sentimental now just remembering that day right now .