Giant help Again

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gym monkeys mom

Proud Parent
:worried: Ok so here goes my vent and then hopefully some advice from all of you. My DD is working on her level 8 stuff but, will compete Level 7 again due to her bars. So here is mine and her frustration she needs a giant. She has been working them for 1 1/2 years with the optional coach. Now, the optional coach is also the owner nice guy most of the time. This all being said I do like and respect him 99 percent of the time except on this one thing. How to teach this kid of mine a giant. He is not a good bar spotter due to a sore shoulder. This is not working for my DD. He says she is unwilling to learn them or not trying hard enough. She really is trying and is no longer worried now just really furstrated. She would like to work them with the other coach who mainly coaches Level 4, 5 & 6. The other coach is there at her practice and would work with her if her coach said she could. The other coachc is also a personal family firend but unwilling to cross the owner this i understand. Her coach says no keep working we have had many long meeting about this and I am really frustrated any advice?? My DD loves her club and team mates and her coach except for this on thing. I am willing to try anything. I really do love our club and really dont want to leave. HELP!
 
First of all Gym Monkey & Gym Monkey's Mom, Beetle and I send you big hugs and a trip from the Bar Fairy....:princess:

Now for the advice. Do you have a strap bar in your gym? Beetle actually learned her giants without a spot. She first did them on strap bar, after they were not scary on strap she moved to a pit bar. It is a high bar over our foam pit. Once she could clear the bar there, they were not scary any more.. she moved them to double bars. And they were just there... It think she was really lucky.

What is gym monkey doing? or not doin so to speak? Is she clearing the bar? Is she straight coming up the bar and then just not going over? or is she closing her shoulders so she isnt coming over in a hand stand? froggy like? I might have some ideas that can help different issues (I have heard lots of coaching! )

I really dont have good advice for the coaching issue - we have a similar issue in my gym, sometimes our coach just gets overwhelmed, I think. He is also the owner he is also a nice guy 95 % of the time but he also just gets set in his mind and there is nothing anyone can do to change it.. So typical male sometimes (sorry.. no offense to the men on the board).

How does Gym Monkey do at camp? Is there a possibility that she will get over a fear at camp? Then be able to comeback to her home gym and be able to get some progress?

Also, is there a way you can schedule a private with the other coach? Or is that overstepping the boundries?

Hang in there, Gym Monkey is a strong gymnast! She will get this skill! Then just think how great she will feel..

Hugs.
 
I was thinking the same thing about a camp. dd of mine has gotten several skills at camps during the summer and it tends to be non-threatening to the coach and gymnast.
 
Kristilyn 73,
She does them with coach with very little spot her coach puts her hand on her back and helps her cast into them. Monkey Girl says it is casting confidence she needs. Not sure if we can do a private or not. Her coach (our friend) would do one the owner coach is being sutbborn right now about these giants. he swears she isn't trying hard enough she says she is. She doesn't do camp or never has. I am beginging to think we should for giants lol. Can you just go to giant camp lol. Her coach has her working 3/4 giants push away before that she could cast to handstand and then when she came around the bottom would balk. I will watch and see if i can describe it better.:confused:
 
Is she doing more than one giant in a row? Giants get easier with more momentum. I remember learning giants. Once I was comfortable on the strap bar, I moved to the high bar and my coach would just make sure that I made it over. Usually, I would do two in a row. At first, he would help me with both, then I would only need help getting over the bar on the first one, and eventully I was doing them on my own.
 
Kristilyn 73,
She does them with coach with very little spot her coach puts her hand on her back and helps her cast into them. Monkey Girl says it is casting confidence she needs. Not sure if we can do a private or not. Her coach (our friend) would do one the owner coach is being sutbborn right now about these giants. he swears she isn't trying hard enough she says she is. She doesn't do camp or never has. I am beginging to think we should for giants lol. Can you just go to giant camp lol. Her coach has her working 3/4 giants push away before that she could cast to handstand and then when she came around the bottom would balk. I will watch and see if i can describe it better.:confused:

I'm not trying to defend this coach, but I've taught lots and lots of giants, and I won't teach one to a kid who won't do a cast handstand 3/4 giant and miss the bar. If a they can't do this, then the spotter is actually fighting the gymnast and it takes forever for the gymnast to learn a giant on their own...so it's pointless to fight.

And if she is balking at all, then something is reallly wrong, and she's really not ready to do a giant. I would have her go back and do a million 3/4 giants and put more effort into those first.
 
She actually can do a nice 3/4 so maybe I am describing the issue wrong. She can cast to handstand on low bar just not the single rail. Her coach has her doing cast to handstand 3/4 push outs on the single rail and that is what is scary to her. Coach sends her to work alone on them lots! This seems wrong to me. Bars has always been tough for her. She also does giants well with minimal spot from the other team coach. Going around the owner to do a private is not a option. The owners are the only ones to do privates right now. We are at a small gtm. Don't get me wrong I like our club and owners 95 percent of the time. This one issue is particularly frustrating to me, DD, and the other coach who is willling to try but, being told no by the owner. No one understands why he is being this way.
 
could you schedule a private lesson at another gym? if it is far enough away, no one would ever know you took her to another gym.

when DD was struggling w/her ROBHS, we took her to a gym in another state (2 hr drive each way) and just being w/a different coach, she was doing them within 20 min
 
I will say part of this stems to relationships. A coach must develop a good atmosphere that the gymnast will feel comfortable and be able to trust their coach to spot them. If a gymnast does not have trust in the coach when spotting, she will not go for it. I'm a bit of the opposite that much of the time I will not have trust in a gymnast and myself when trying new skills. Moreso, I just prefer to be used to a kid and they to me before I spot them in something they are used to spotting with another coach. Throwing in a spot on some skills in gymnastics is not something I like if I'm not familiar with the gymnast first. Once I am, no biggie.

Strap bar is a great thing. It's nice to have a single rail so a coach doesn't have to worry about having them swing through the bars when first learning them. Pit is a nice option as well but can be trickier to spot on ( unless you have channel bar or nice sturdy spotting position ).

Perhaps she is not comfortable with the coach or the coach is not giving off that vibe that is really allowing for her to go for it. She should be able to do privates with the other coach if the other coach is knowledgeable and able to spot. This could be an ego thing with coaching optionals though. Honestly, there are a lot of optional coaches that are ego monsters, male and females ( though I've met some really female nazis more than male optional nazis [ we nazi our boys more ]).


Since you're an optional, maybe look at Woodward's or any summer camp around. You have time.
 
I have to agree with the camp thing, then. If it is really an issue and the owner will not allow you to do a private lesson with the other coach, then a camp may be just what your dd needs to get this skill. A change of scenery and coaching might be just the remedy.

The situation at your gym does make me nervous, however. A coach needs to be able to let other people help teach gymnasts tricks- not just writing them off as being lazy, not trying, etc. There's a coach in my gym that does that and I am constantly going behind their back to teach the girls different tricks. If this coach /owner claims your dd is not working, and she truly is, who's to say it's not going to happen again down the road, on some other trick. The relationship just doesn't sound very healthy at this point.
 
Thanks for the encouragement. I really appreciate it. Ii would agree that our club is not always a healthy spot to be in. What keeps us their is the low hours 14 hours for Level 6 and up. Also 2 of the coaches one a boys and one a grils team coach are personal friends. They hope to take over running the club eventually. We also have lots of great team kids and friends. Its very hard to leave. The owners will probably turn over more of the teams coaching in the next few years to our friends until then sometimes it is a drag. The owner who coahes the boys team is great. Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate the vent and the helpful listening ears. I will try and pursue a private again with our friend. If I am unsucessful I will look into a camp. DD is not an overnight camper so I will need to try and find a good day camp in MN. She does ok with other friends at camp but, our club has never been a big out of town gymnatic camp group.
 
Just from your description it sounds like she is afraid of this skill. As a coach we never move anyone to level 8 without all the requirements especially giants.. Even though the giant is not a requirement for level 7 and the cast handstand is , all the gyms in our area in Illinois require their gymnasts to have giants. We practice on straps and move to pit sometimes lowering the pitbar. I would ask the headcoach for bar privates if he says no ask who he would recommend to help her get the confidence she needs to do this skill.
 
Gee, if it makes you feel any better, my dd had to do level 7 2x because it took her > a year to get the giant and she had great cast HS too so a weak cast was not the issue(and has great bars now). There were two issues fear and a too early tap (swing) because she was anxious. It also took a different coach to help too who knew exactly what was going on (sometimes just a different perspective helps as others point out). Once she conquered the fear (took a long time) she could tap later and she said she feels like she is tapping right before she goes over (which is probably not the case but illustrates how much later she had to learn to tap) .
 
Coach Dan Wittenstein of Arizona Sunrays does something called Over-Lo's. These start as a back extension roll to 30, 45, and 60 degrees of vertical. However, his point is not to think about the handstand and be patient. Strap bar teaches this in a way as well. It's ok to not the handstand in a sense. This is also necessary for multiple giants that build upon each other for big releases or a chinese tap.

Instead of just trying to do whatever ( generally sacrificing form with questionable technique ) to get to handstand, the idea is to be short of handstand on the other side of the bar.
 
We got permision from her head coach to attended a small practice that happens on wednessday afternoons her and 1 or 2 other girls. This will be with the coach she trusts to spot her the best and gain confidence on giants. Yeah!! I will keep you posted thanks for all the support and tips i really appreciate this group of folks.:)
 
We got permision from her head coach to attended a small practice that happens on wednessday afternoons her and 1 or 2 other girls. This will be with the coach she trusts to spot her the best and gain confidence on giants. Yeah!! I will keep you posted thanks for all the support and tips i really appreciate this group of folks.:)


That's great, maybe the head coach has finally realised his way is not working.
 
I'm glad to hear the update, that sounds like a really positive development. I had an interesting relationship with giants for some time, needed a spot, did weird stuff when I didn't have one. I competed them in L7 a few times, scratched bars at a few meets, etc. weird things going on there. Ended up doing just a free hip handstand into a layout flyaway on high bar at states because it was going to score higher. During the summer after I did L7 I had improved it a little but then I had some random mental flyaway issues that caused another setback and I wasn't doing it with a low bar. they did some group merging after we got back from a mid summer week break and the coach who usually worked with the advanced opt group (like 9s and 10s and some 8s at the time, we have a totally different system now but this was a long time ago) gave 10 giants/flyaway on the real bar set (oh no! the real bars) and I looked at her. She knew what I was thinking and she just said if I was going to work in that group I would do the assignment. I got in line, did it, and never had an issue with giants or flyaways again. I got a giant/double back really just a few months later and by then all the drama seemed like history. When I moved into L7, I couldn't even do a bent leg giant on strap bar - I had no concept of the tap. I really owe a ton to the coaches I had those years and to a large extent I feel like if I hadn't been in that environment I wouldn't have ever progressed on bars. I had never learned the basics and if they hadn't taken me back and then insisted that I WOULD do it, I probably would have just given off and written off bars.
 

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