Why doesn't being a good compulsory mean you will be a good optional?

[ChristianGymnast]

Most of the time, you're a better optional than compulsory. This is b/c the WHOLE routines for compulsory are judged. The compulsory judges know every little error in your dance and skills. In optionals, you make up your own routines. On floor, they basically only judge your tumbling and other skills(leaps,jumps, ect.) b/c they don't know if in your dance your foot is supposed to be pointed, bent legs, ect. Same with beam. On bars, you can kind of wing things. You can add little things to save you from falling (example: sole circle to save squat/pike on.) Vault is vault. Vault is the only thing thats not much different. As long as your skills are consistent, solid, and done with good form, you will probably be a better optional than compulsory. :huge:

Definitely. I'd always forget my routine in compulsories (still do!) but now I can kinda improvise. Also, the judges aren't looking at the book to compare your form with a random drawing.

 

[ChristianGymnast]

Totally aside from the skills, the age has a lot to do with it too. A lot of kids are very dedicated gymnasts when they are younger but as they get older other factors come into play.

Some teens develop a lot of fear and are unable to move onto the higher skills, where they may have been relatively fearless at the compulsary levels.

The time committment is also big. Most compulsaries train about 4 days a week - 12-16 hours. But Optionals are generally 20-30 hours a week. This is a much bigger committment at a time of their life when theings are getting harder to make this committment.

Socially hanging out with friends becomes very important, and alsways having to go to the gym can make that hard. many kids get more serious about school work and want to spend more time studying. Once in Middle or high school kids often want to get more involved with school teams and clubs,

Many want to get a boyfriend or a part time job. All of which is made very hard with gymnastics.

I agree, commitment's a big part of it. Hmm, but 20 - 30 hours seems a bit much, I still only have 16 hour practices as a level 8 - thought that was average.

 

[slkbeambabe07]

In compulsories, dance isn't stressed as much as it is in optionals with creativity and artistry. That could be a reason.

 

[CoachTodd]

In compulsories, dance isn't stressed as much as it is in optionals with creativity and artistry. That could be a reason.

I tend to disagree.
In compulsories, there are very specific dance skills that are to be done in a very specific way at a very specific place in the music. If they aren't done there are massive deductions.
In optionals, you can choose the dance skill you are good at and put it where ever you want and may even have a couple of different choices as to how you want to do that skill.

 

[gymdog]

If they aren't done there are massive deductions.

"Text" errors are actually a pretty small deduction since it's capped over the whole routine. Omitting a major element would incur a big deduction (i.e. if the kid did not do her leap). The "dance" deductions that are probably racking up over the routine are posture and quality of movement errors, which can apply in optionals too ("awkwardness"). Lots of even fairly good compulsories can look awkward doing the dance. But in optionals sometimes you can construct a more dynamic routine that hides that a little better. It's definitely been an observation that kids with certain body types/styles of gymnastics (the balletic look) tend to do better at compulsories even if they aren't necessarily as powerful.

 

[NotAMom]

I think it's true about dancing being more important from a scoring standpoint as a compulsory where all the dance steps and sequences are mandatory. OTOH, I have seen some high scoring optional routines that has next to no dancing at all.

With that said, I also think alkbeambabe is correct in that in regular training, dancing isn't as imposed (and can be far easier) on the compulsory kids hence the low scores to start out. Many compulsory kids don't like the dance aspect so they don't go and get away with it. The typical younger age in compulsory might have something to do with the lax rule also.

 

[iluvgym]

Okay, without reading the three pages of replies first, this is one of my favorite topics so if I'm being redundant to what's already been mentioned then I apologize in advance.

Scoring well at the compulsory routines comes from a bunch of things: a decent amount of talent, lots of repetition of the same text over and over and over (sometimes this may means you are spending so much time perfecting the text of a routine - where your arms go on choreography, etc - that you give up time which could be better spent preparing drills and skills for the future), nice flexibility, and repeating levels for a few seasons.

One gymnast may have been a state champion at level 4 her second season
Then maybe didn't come in top 3 next season as a 5 so repeated 5 and did well the second season at 5. then after two seasons at 6 was a great level 6. By now she's 12 and is so worried about being perfect and has never "worked up" a level that she's afraid of anything new. So she finally gets to level 7 or 8 by the time she's 13 or 14.

Another gymnast may never "win" during the compulsory levels, but as she's competing those levels she is always training up for the next levels and for the future with the correct drills and skills and does well but she and her club are not all caught up with having to win at the lower levels before she moves up. She's learned throughout her training that it's okay to try new things, it's never been boring because you're always training for tomorrow as opposed to only training what's in your routines for today. Long term goals as opposed to only short term goals (being level 4 state champ).

Many gyms have a good balance of this but I am sure you see many gyms produce compulsory after compulsory state champ. But how many level 9 and 10 kids have they had. And when the day is over college coaches don't care that you were the level 6 state champ because you repeated the season 3 times because your club needed your bars score for state.

It just depends on what a kid's final ambitions and goals are, as well as how much ability and commitment they have. In the end though which type of gymnast do you think would get that college scholarship? And the idea of "oh there's hardly any scholarships available so why try, just be happy winning the lower levels" is a total copout and is actually way less fun!

 

[NotAMom]

Another gymnast may never "win" during the compulsory levels, but as she's competing those levels she is always training up for the next levels and for the future with the correct drills and skills and does well but she and her club are not all caught up with having to win at the lower levels before she moves up. She's learned throughout her training that it's okay to try new things, it's never been boring because you're always training for tomorrow as opposed to only training what's in your routines for today. Long term goals as opposed to only short term goals (being level 4 state champ).

Or, a gymnast does not score well at compulsory but is always uptraining and is moved up to the optional early. She never had time to work on perfecting her form at a earlier level/age hence the score that she receives gets worse and worse as she advances. In time she gets so discouraged and burnt out that her skills digresses more and more. Eventually she quits and never looks back.

Point being... Focus on short term and low level success isn't good but neither is moving too fast without taking the time to learn the fundamentals (and missing some success along the way). Ironically, both scenarios may yield the same at the end.

 

[iluvgym]

Or, a gymnast does not score well at compulsory but is always uptraining and is moved up to the optional early. She never had time to work on perfecting her form at a earlier level/age hence the score that she receives gets worse and worse as she advances. In time she gets so discouraged and burnt out that her skills digresses more and more. Eventually she quits and never looks back.

Point being... Focus on short term and low level success isn't good but neither is moving too fast without taking the time to learn the fundamentals (and missing some success along the way). Ironically, both scenarios may yield the same at the end.

Well that is true. But if one can score a 36 something at say, level 5, then they're obviously not sloppy and are doing the skills correctly. So why do THREE seasons of it? You've already mastered it! My point is that some people see level 5 as the end all be all and all it really is is a step in the direction of becoming a good optional gymnast. Winning the level 5 olympics becomes all about business for the gym. I've been on both sides as a coach, and the kids who are always learning and not being held back and the ones who usually will stick it out to the end.

 

[iluvgym]

And as for form and learning it early on, that is one of the most important things in gymnastics! But this isn't achieved by repeating the text of a compulsory routine over and over and over. It's learn thru proper warmup and conditioning with EXCELLENT form!

 

[NotAMom]

Yeah, I too have an issue with kids who repeat a low level for multiple years just to dominate the score -- unless she struggles with one up skills big time.

 

[GetaGrip]

I hope you know that you have to overcome that at some point, right?
\

I do know that I actually was working on back handsprings for a while, and then I had a really bad fall on one that put me out of gym for a week. I got really scared, and then I had to start over. I didn't have much time to learn one either, because I did 6/7 and my gym doesn't like us to work ahead unless we have EXCEPTIONAL routines.


On the post topic, another thing that I should point out is that you have to learn skills a lot quicker in optional levels. In compulsory levels, you learn maybe one or two new skills a level each year. That gives you A LOT of time to work on them and get them clean. But for optionals, you have to learn MANY new skills, and often have to get them with in a short span of time. Here's an example of a girl at my gym who I think will follow this:

Lily is a pretty good gymnast. She just finished level 4 and made it to states, but not by much. However, Lily can do all of the level 7 tumbling with minimal deductions, and can do flyaways with generally no spot. Lily picks up skills really quickly, and like me, doesn't like compulsories too much because of the lack of interesting skills. A lot of girls are like this, and sometimes, these are the girls that will take the top spots on the podium in higher levels.

-Lauren