MAG Difficulty v. execution II

[profmom]

First, I hope everyone's having a solid start to the season! It's been too quiet in this forum!

I'm curious how you all are finding the balance between difficulty and execution working out with a meet or two under your guys' belts. My beloved child had some exciting learning opportunities over the weekend that I wanted to share.

Those of you who've followed his journey know that he is not a gifted floor worker. He is still trying to develop the power and heft to do more advanced passes, but it looks to me like he's going to have to wait until at least next year to be doing double backs and double fulls (he's a skinny, slightly built 14 year old).

Anyway, we were at a big meet over the weekend and I am watching warmups. On floor, there are all these big guys who have been graced by the puberty fairy doing these amazing things on floor: double backs, double front and back fulls, even a double front and at least one 2.5 back. My poor child goes out and is all like, "OK, Imma warm up my back half." They all compete, and at the end of the day, to my utter shock, little dude with his really simple routine waltzes off with a floor medal. I was talking with his coach during awards, and his coach told me that the floor judge had actually complimented him on little dude's routine because it was nice to see a simple routine cleanly done.

This strategy does not completely rule his gymnastics -- he got dinged on pbars for bouncing his Tippelt off the bars and doing an ugly stutz, and racked up plenty of deductions on high bar for his nasty endo and even nastier and newer stalder. I don't know for sure, but I bet he took close to a point on his pommel dismount.

Just thought it was interesting and wondered what it's looking like for others.

 

[samsmama]

Only L7 here, but DS had a similar experience with p-bars last weekend. He'd been struggling with his bonuses all week, so he did a stripped down but very clean routine and ended up taking 2nd among a talented group of kids who were doing more difficult skills. It was a good reminder to him that the flashiest routines aren't always the winners.

 

[jenjean70]

Mine had a different experience. Some difficulty was added back in (necessary esp. on p-bars if he's going to do tech sequences) and he absolutely BOMBED! He fell on 4 out of 6 events and he hasn't fallen in a meet in 2 years. He scored 5 points lower in this meet than his first meet. Ugh! I know that he can do the skills and he didn't have fear but his head was NOT in the game. He looked tired and like he didn't want to be there and his coaches had a long talk with him after the meet about his attitude. They only had a one touch warm up on pbars, rings and high bar because of the number of kids. His pbar warm up was OK but when he did the routine he messed up his giant and it all went downhill from there. His floor warm up was really good he just didn't put the power into his front handspring front full and slipped other than that floor wasn't bad. His only good routine was pommel. His vault he does a timer the first time and throws his vault the second time. His warm up wasn't bad but when he went to do the vault he started weird and got his steps off and had to hurdle on the wrong leg. He didn't think about running through and starting again. Hopefully he will remember that if it ever happens again. This is his 2nd level 8 meet- he has a big meet coming up this weekend- hopefully it will be better than last week!

 

[M2Abi]

DS is Level 4 and competed his back handspring for the first time this weekend. He fell on it and his score was 2 points lower than when he competed without it.

 

[acam1103]

I have seen the same in the compulsory levels - sloppy bonuses being outscored by clean base routines. Our coaches seem to be pretty good at determining when the bonus will be advantageous. They work on them at practice but the boys are told before each meet which bonuses they will compete.

 

[skschlag]

D had a rough meet. But he did take a lot out of his floor routine and got 2nd. So it was a good thing. The word of the week for him: STAMINA

 

[Mom2twingymnasts]

This weekend, Michael did horrible on 2 events: pommel, his first event of the night and floor, his last event of the night. Floor seems to be a stamina thing. When it is towards the end of the meet, he just runs out of gas for it. Pommel, he said was good in warm-up but that he was just off when he went to compete. He said his circles just felt off and he couldn't get it together. He is generally a really clean gymnast. He did an extremely watered down p-bars and won that event. He also won rings because he was clean. He was a top placer on vault again because he was clean. He was in the Region Teams competition at Windy City which is a team competition. The individual athletes didn't get awards. He somehow learned his places from his coach.

 

[SPX]

Ds is only L4 but it has definitely come to his attention that sloppy bonuses do not win the day. He has been 4th aa at 2 meets because of deductions on bonuses, nearly a point off his robh at the first. He is now on a mission to make everything clean. I think his coach is happy the message has gotten through.

 

[jenjean70]

Mine had a different experience. Some difficulty was added back in (necessary esp. on p-bars if he's going to do tech sequences) and he absolutely BOMBED! He fell on 4 out of 6 events and he hasn't fallen in a meet in 2 years. He scored 5 points lower in this meet than his first meet. Ugh! I know that he can do the skills and he didn't have fear but his head was NOT in the game. He looked tired and like he didn't want to be there and his coaches had a long talk with him after the meet about his attitude. They only had a one touch warm up on pbars, rings and high bar because of the number of kids. His pbar warm up was OK but when he did the routine he messed up his giant and it all went downhill from there. His floor warm up was really good he just didn't put the power into his front handspring front full and slipped other than that floor wasn't bad. His only good routine was pommel. His vault he does a timer the first time and throws his vault the second time. His warm up wasn't bad but when he went to do the vault he started weird and got his steps off and had to hurdle on the wrong leg. He didn't think about running through and starting again. Hopefully he will remember that if it ever happens again. This is his 2nd level 8 meet- he has a big meet coming up this weekend- hopefully it will be better than last week!

Update- coaches don't want him to run past on the vault- they said if you are committed to go for it because it can be worse if you are half and half. They also told him that they were proud of how hard he fought to stay on his feet for his vault. The coaches don't seem worried and he doesn't seem worried so we will see how this weekend goes.

 

[ruth merriam]

Our first meet was considered a “practice” meet. Which meant that he did only the easiest elements in each group and pulled all his hardest skills in favor of execution. I watched it and wondered what happened to all the skills he had worked on in summer that were not in his routine.

I thought he was going backward, but I talked to the coaches and what they wanted at the beginning of the season is clean rather than difficult. So there was a much narrower range, and kids who he normally beat by 5 points were pretty equal. The goal for the first couple meets is to get your basic routine as clean as possible and then work to get your hardest routine good by states.

 

[jenjean70]

I talked to DS last night and they are taking out his front handspring front full as a side pass and putting his whip half, half as a side pass and adding in the double full. I think they are seeing what he can do. He also said he's adding his endo back into his high bar routine and also adding a healey. His rings will stay the same- he should do his giant this week, they pulled it last week because it wasn't going well in warm up. They are upping the difficulty considerably so we'll see how it goes. This weekend should be interesting.....

 

[skschlag]

WOW Jenjean. I hope he is able to pull all of this off. He is so young and has so many years left to be pushing things like this.

For my son, they are changing a few things around. This past weekend he had a rough meet, and they ended up taking a ton out of his floor routine and he placed 2nd. It was definitely the right decision, and probably prevented an injury.

That would be my concern with pushing the harder skills, when kids are still struggling with the easier ones. Having a skill in isolation does not mean it can be safely performed in a routine. D has his back 2 1/2 punch full on the floor, but cannot yet do it in the course of a full floor routine. It is not worth the risk, the least of which is a lot of steps, the worst of which is an injury.

 

[jenjean70]

WOW Jenjean. I hope he is able to pull all of this off. He is so young and has so many years left to be pushing things like this.

For my son, they are changing a few things around. This past weekend he had a rough meet, and they ended up taking a ton out of his floor routine and he placed 2nd. It was definitely the right decision, and probably prevented an injury.

That would be my concern with pushing the harder skills, when kids are still struggling with the easier ones. Having a skill in isolation does not mean it can be safely performed in a routine. D has his back 2 1/2 punch full on the floor, but cannot yet do it in the course of a full floor routine. It is not worth the risk, the least of which is a lot of steps, the worst of which is an injury.

I see what you are saying. I know he can do everything in the routine but the double full when he is tired. I am assuming they will practice tonight and determine whether he is ready or not. Fingers crossed. He feels confident and even a little excited about it so that makes me feel better....

 

[profmom]

My guy has had a double back off pbars into the pit and occasionally onto a mat now for more than a year. Won't be in his routine until L10. Better safe than sorry, and no college coaches will be terribly interested in anything he competes prior to L10 anyway.

 

[jenjean70]

My guy has had a double back off pbars into the pit and occasionally onto a mat now for more than a year. Won't be in his routine until L10. Better safe than sorry, and no college coaches will be terribly interested in anything he competes prior to L10 anyway.

Thankfully they are not throwing in skills that are new to him. He is doing skills he's been working on for over a year now. They have started tkatchev drills so that he will be able do them in his routine in the next year or two. We actually had a level 9 gymnast last year doing tkatchevs and dismounting with a layout on high bar. He wasn't ready for the double back dismount. This weekend I saw an 11 year old, level 8 gymnast do the most beautiful full twisting double off high bar that I have ever seen. They want my DS to start twisting his high bar and rings dismount but he is not ready for that yet and will only attempt it into the pit and very rarely with a mat into the pit. I am not worried about his ability to do the skills just unsure if he has the stamina on floor yet. On p-bars he has to do his giant for tech sequence so the more he does it in meets the more confident he will be.

 

[jenjean70]

So- Meet #3 is in the books and they changed his floor routine again. It's very similar to his mock meet floor routine but instead of 6 tumbling passes it's now 4. I caught a few of his practices this week and the routine looked solid and he had a solid warm up. In competition his hand got stuck on his Russian on the floor so he stumbled a bit there. I don't think he held his handstand long enough but on the double full he said his back handspring was too high going into the skill AND let me just tell you- I don't know how he got around as much as he did and how he stayed on his feet. He said it must have been some crazy gypsy magic. LOL! His high bar looked good- missed handstand on the stalder but his heeley looked beautiful. He made his giant on parallel bars and while it needs cleaning it was good. He almost stuck his vault (he moved his foot when he didn't need to) and he added a Roth on pommel and made it in warm up but fell in competition. He ended up 14th AA in a tough competition with some of the most talented kids in the country. This is his meet compilation- floor is first with the crazy gypsy magic-


Also- they had about the same number of kids in the rotation as last meet but they had more time to warm up the events at this meet.