Parents Bronze invite

[Kirstenk]

So my daughter is 5, will be 6 end of summer.
She was invited to bronze team today. She was being evaluated at new gym since we moved. She was doing a rec class prior.
It was my understanding children went to preteam for a little while then went to team?
Or is bronze different and similar to a preteam set up and you go straight into that. It’s 5 hours a week.

 

[gymbeam]

It completely depends on the child and the gym.

Mine never did a preteam either. Her first gym was small and not very good. They allowed her to join the team a month after starting tumbling class. She competed in her first real meet with them (also Bronze) about 8 months after walking in the door.

On the other hand, at our current gym that would not be possible. Their Bronzes are super polished and strong and the average time getting there through rec, to preteam, to team is probably 3 years at minimum I’d say?

So you will definitely find a wide range of paths to team. Congratulations to her!

 

[Kirstenk]

Would that mean that this gym maybe isn’t so great? We are new here so not sure what to look at.
I know they have JO and a XCEL.

 

[GymDadWA]

Every gym is different and their definition of "preteam" is different. Some gyms consider team JO4 on up and use JO1-JO3 as preteam, others don't compete anything less than JO(INSERT NUMBER) and do preteam as training only with no competitions up to that point. Others use xcel or AAU or a state only program as their "preteam".

With a "preteam" designation whether they compete at all or not the focus is on learning skills, developing strength, and building gymnasts, with very limited focus on the competitions themselves or winning medals and trophies.

 

[MILgymFAM]

My daughter joined bronze team just weeks after joining rec and had a great season and wonderful gym “career”. I wouldn’t take it as any sign for/against the gym. Bronze doesn’t really require preteam first- the skills are very basic.

 

[jillc]

At the gym my DD goes to, they have both Xcel and JO. Preteam is really the path toward JO. Most of the girls that do Xcel go straight from rec to Xcel without doing pre team.

But like others have said, every gym is different.

I would not take it as a sign that gym is bad at all.

 

[jamieintexas]

Bronze doesn’t compete until January. If I get a talented kid now, I put them on the Bronze team. If they start in November, they go Pre-Team. If they start in August-October I just go with what is best for each child.

 

[IreneKa]

You should try to figure out how things work at your gym. My DD was invited to Xcel team when she was 7. I had no idea how things worked in gymnastics at that time, so we went with it. Later I understood that there were two paths. To get onto a JO path you had to go through pre-team. There were no pre-team for Xcel, they just invited kids from the rec onto the Bronze team. When a year later at 8 I inquired about switching her to JO, I was told no, because she was too old! We switched gyms and did get her onto a JO team elsewhere, but I had wished at the time that I knew the process better and could have gotten her in the right path sooner.
The good news is, your DD is still very young. At 5 there is no harm in letting her try it out in Xcel for a year, see if she likes it and wants more, or happy with a less intense Xcel program, or maybe she won't want to continue at all, who knows. Just educate yourself and know what to expect. Does the gym treat Xcel and JO as two separate paths without much movement between the two? Or they treat Xcel as a pre-team, and allow you to choose later on which path your child wants to take? Or they use Xcel to bypass JO compulsory levels? Or something else. Every gym is different, so you need to figure out how yours work.