Parents 3 Year Old Loves Gymnastics - When does "play" end and "training" begin?

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Muah

Proud Parent
Hello!


I have a couple of questions relating to how gymnastics is taught at the earliest levels. Here they are up front, but the backstory follows...


My questions:


1) At what age does gymnastics start being taught in a formal way? In other words, when does it stop being “play” and turn into “training”?


2) Is modern gymnastics teaching all about doing something one way?


3) Is it detrimental to a child (especially a 3 year old) to do something “out of sequence” or “too advanced”?


I have a 3 year old daughter who LOVES gymnastics. My wife was also a gymnast up until her teenage years (20 years ago), and she has always wanted our daughter to get into the sport. After watching some video clips from the USA Olympic Trials, and my daughter was hooked! She is constantly doing vaults, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor routines all over the house. She knows all the names of the American women gymnasts. We followed this interest and signed her up for some children’s classes at a local gymnastics training center. She loves them!


Last weekend, after the structured part of the class was over, the kids got some free time to play around on whatever apparatus they wanted. Our daughter got on a balance beam which is 6 inches off the ground. She’s pretty good already at keeping her balance on it. While she was on it, I asked her, “Why don’t you try a twirl?” She was game, and did a nice little twirl, but fell off at the very end. No big deal, only 6 inches off the ground. My wife got all over me about it. “You can’t ask her to do that! She has to learn how to balance first! That’s like asking a child to start swimming right in the deep end of the pool! I was a gymnast, and you can’t do it that way!”


This incident made me curious about how sports are taught to really young children in the very beginning, and then transition into more serious interest in the sport. In the past 20 years, we have made lots of changes in how we teach sports. It used to be that every sport was taught in a very traditional, regimented way (“My way or the highway”). I admit, I don’t know much about gymnastics, but I can find similar trends in a sport I do know - golf. 20 years ago, every golf coach tried to teach what was thought to be the “perfect” golf swing, modeling it after Ben Hogan. That was considered the right way to do it, even if a person’s body type and ability made it impossible to achieve. 20 years ago, a guy named Tiger Woods showed up. He started a whole trend of making fitness a big part of the game, and golfers became real athletes. And since then, the trend is more toward taking a player’s natural swing and getting the most out of it, instead of trying to force him/her into an “ideal” golf swing. Athletes are cross training to challenge their minds and muscles to perform at a higher level. Being boxed in to just one way of doing things could very well slow down skills development.


I imagine the same thing has happened in gymnastics in the past 20 years. Of course, I get that there needs to be some structure and tradition in gymnastics training. But the statement “She’s not ready for that! Things have to be done in a certain order!” doesn’t sit right with me.


I am a believer that children should be allowed to explore and push their limits for many reasons - it creates a sense of adventure, instills confidence, and establishes a mindset of “try again” if they fail. This is, of course, with limitations. If my daughter is trying something blatantly dangerous, I give her a warning about it. And honestly, she is very good about knowing her limits/boundaries. There are plenty of things she doesn’t want to try because she is not comfortable with it.


My wife could be completely right about this, but maybe she’s not. I just feel that I need to hear the opinions and experiences of people who are involved in gymnastics right now, as opposed to how it was 20 years ago.


Thank you!
 
The first rule of gymnastics is for it to be fun. Gymnastics is better that way. At 3 years old just let her have fun. No need to get serious too fast or have someone live vicariously threw her. You don't want her to get burned out
 
1) At what age does gymnastics start being taught in a formal way? In other words, when does it stop being “play” and turn into “training”?


2) Is modern gymnastics teaching all about doing something one way?


3) Is it detrimental to a child (especially a 3 year old) to do something “out of sequence” or “too advanced”?

Let's see... a lot here, but let me try to hit some points..

1) Definitely at age 3, the approach is through play only. That "Play" like hanging on a bar, jumping over and around things, swinging on things, making shapes with your body.... hopefully presented in a fun and engaging age-appropriate way... that play is building foundations for later skills. They are just learning to control their bodies, and building strength, control, and maintaining their natural flexibility (toddlers/preschoolers are usually pretty flexible). Between age 4-6 is where things turn fuzzy because there are HUGE developmental differences between individual children. Some are ready to focus and have more natural body control and physical strength that enables increasing structure to a class and more expectations stringing instructions together, and building shapes into actual skills, while others still need the "preschool play" environment for much longer. There are 5 year olds holding solid handstands, perfect cartwheels, beautiful posture, turns on beam... competing actual routines.. and 6 year olds that can perform early tumbling and bar skills as beautifully as an 'average' 8-10 year old gymnast. Then there are 6 year olds who are still "looking at the daisies" so to speak and would go insane (and quit) if you demand that much focus from them. They need more pure play. And that's ok.

2) There are many teaching styles and drills to achieve skills, and different countries, for example, may tend to follow different sequences of skill development. But the foundational set of skills and how they must be executed "properly" in a judged competition to score well is consistent.

3) What is most important to know with a 3 year old is DO NOT RUSH development. It is unsafe to do many skills at 3 with a toddler physiology, even if the child 'can' be trained to do them (like back flips for example). Even things like 'bridges' are controversial at this age for spine development. If your daughter does stick in through age 4-5 and is invited to a 'pre-team' track/class, the temptation will be to want to rush and do as many skills as possible as quickly as possible. Because that is natural and fun, and they learn so quickly it is SOOO tempting to want to push them to do the next big skill (believe me - I'm a parent of multiple gymnasts). But if they learn a skill with improper form, it will be HARDER and take LONGER to correct, and lead to enormous frustration. If the child has only "Recreational" (non team) intention, then form beyond proper safety is not so important. But if your child aims to compete, the execution of the skill is the important part, not the skill itself. Per your specific question about playing around on a low beam at age 3? Probably not much issue there if safely matted unless she continues to practice the 'bad turn' over and over and over again in the same manner for weeks and months on end to make a habit. Unlikely. And that is only bad IF she becomes a team gymnast. Otherwise, who cares if she has a funky turn ;)
 
So to sum that dissertation above, let her play. Do her funky turns. If she moves into a pre-team in a year or two or three, then the coach can work actual turning form.

Let her play :)
 
at 14, gym is still fun for my son. The thought of missing is not ;) he would be there all the time given the chance. That is what you want to cultivate.
 
Just remember that playing around at gymnastics is a rather different proposition than playing around at soccer or baseball. Trying to do some of these things without training or outside of a gym can lead to serious injury or death, and you aren't necessarily a good judge of what's dangerous.

My daughter fell off a beam doing a "twirl" -- actually a full turn -- at age 10 and broke her humerus clean through. Granted, it was a high beam, and granted, it was in the gym, but the whole point of gymnastics is to make hard stuff look easy. And they are all taught how to fall safely, though even that's not 100%, as my daughter's injury shows.

And strong second to Skschlag! If it's not fun, why have them do it?
 
Ok....

1) At what age does gymnastics start being taught in a formal way? In other words, when does it stop being “play” and turn into “training”?
Depends on the child (seriously, there's no real answer for this), like everyone else says though, if it stops being fun, the child should find a different sport.

2) Is modern gymnastics teaching all about doing something one way?
The correct way. Plain and simple. If kids try things on their own, with their parents, or with improperly trained coaches, they could seriously injure themselves.
(Btw, it was still considered "modern gymnastics" 20 years ago)

3) Is it detrimental to a child (especially a 3 year old) to do something “out of sequence” or “too advanced”?
It can be. Some of the best gymnasts in the world fall off the beam while doing "a little twirl"....if your 3 year old is brand new at the sport and hasn't learned even half turns yet, asking her to try this could be dangerous. Your wife is right. Listen to her.


Gymnastics of course has evolved over the last 20 years...by way of more difficult skills, new skills, different training methods, etc. but in no way have the basics changed. You wouldn't ask a toddler to try and run before they could walk would you? This is the same thing. This isn't about new ways to teach sports, it's about safety, and that won't wver change.


Also, if your kid is doing gymnastics at home off the furniture, teach her to stop, this is also incredibly dangerous (although I still can't figure out how she's pretending to do bar and vault routines at home but whatever)

If she's having fun right now, that's all that matters, if serious training is in her future, you'll get to it when it comes....just enjoy your toddler right now and have fun!
 
"The correct way."
This is extremely important. My daughter learned things incorrectly in her preschool and beginner rec classes, and when she joined the level 2 team at another gym, she spent the first several months relearning things..it was difficult and frustrating for her.
 
Just remember that playing around at gymnastics is a rather different proposition than playing around at soccer or baseball. Trying to do some of these things without training or outside of a gym can lead to serious injury or death, and you aren't necessarily a good judge of what's dangerous.

Oh so much this!!!!!

OP you mentioned you know a lot about golf and how the teaching styles for that have changed. Not even close to the same thing as gymnastics (my husband is an avid golfer, I'm not trying to undermine the sport)

Playing around on equipment incorrectly in gymnastics can lead to serious bone or head injuries.....it would be pretty difficult to land on your head while trying to incorrectly improve your golf swing.
 
Ok, I'll give this a bit of a go since you brought golf into it...;)

(I'm not going to say anything about fun and the the 3 yr old other than it should be fun when you are 3. Fun and safe).

About the developmental questions you asked...I agree with your wife - there really are certain progressions that need to come first...balance, comfortable on equipment, even learning how to fall. I think the biggest difference here between gymnastics and golf is that you can hurt yourself instantly with a bad fall, bad technique, etc. With golf, you might not hurt yourself right away with a bad swing, but odds are it will catch up to you eventually with tweaked muscles, sore back, etc.

Now with the golf comparison, I would say that certainly over the last 20 years golf has become more athletic, but it's also become more like gymnastics in that they are starting younger and younger. Their swings are very technical and those golfers definitely have followed progressions to get there. Natural swing or not, there is a fundamental aspect of physics (I'm thinking swing plane) that will improve your game and get you more distance, accuracy. There is also the equipment part of the equation. That beam is 4 inches wide! You don't have good technique on a full turn, you're not going to stay on it (regularly, anyway). And I'm sure you can relate to having that "bad habit" part of your swing or game that prevents you from being a pro :p (unless you are a pro, then ignore this).

I love golf, but I sure do suck at it! I wish I had started when I was young! With a good golf coach :).

ETA: This also makes me think of the saying "perfect practice makes perfect". I can keep swinging away with my crappy swing all day (and I do, for 18 holes at least); and while I love it and I can certainly play that way just fine...it's not getting me any closer to a single digit handicap!
 
Here is the answer. Your wife is correct. Listen to her.

And why you would think someone with actual experience in gymnastics would not know. And that you, with no experience didn't trust that answer, is a whole 'nother issue.
 
And to add.

Do you know what is dangerous and damaging to her long term health.

My daughter at 2 decided to use our free standing couch as a balance beam and tumble track. I went hmmmm I need to get her where she learn this stuff safely.
 

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