Parents How long did it take your child to move up?

[snowbound]

Our gym varies from child to child, but my DD's first year I think her highest AA was a 32. She repeated, and first meet of the second season she got 37. That was pretty consistent for her all season. There were several girls who moved up to L5 pre-maturely and ended up scratching on the bars because they didn't have their kips. The real bummer was that as the season progressed, they weren't letting DD work on her L5 skills (all she wanted was to move up)

She did the whole season at L4, went to states and won a state championship (that didn't mean that much to her then, but she's really proud of it now) Our L4 states are early here, so the coach let her do one meet at L5 after her states were over. She got a 30AA (with only 2 weeks to learn the routines!)

They had her on track to do L5 all season again this year, but DD had a meeting with her coach and they agreed to make sure she is learning the skills so she can move up to L6 as soon as she is capable. That part is working out well. The gym passed a new rule that absolutely no one gets to move up unless they have all the necessary skills consistently. Also, since my DD is in a lower group, it got her away from some bad influences in a higher group (there is a girl who teases her about everything she can think of)

DD is 9YO, but she will have to compete as 10 because of where her B-day falls. Our first meet isn't until December. There's a good chance she will only do one meet at L5 to get the score to move to L6. She's only missing her back tuck (consistently) and her fly away at this point.

snowbound

 

[Gymmonkeymomma]

Also, Pixie is so tiny that she is struggling with the strength skills like vault and some of the bars skills. She's 8 but people think she is 6. She may need to repeat L4 again. We'll know at the end of the summer!

Same here for my Little Monkey who will turn 9 next week but is the size of a 6 yr old. So imagine how small she was when she was really 6?? She did L4 just weeks after turning 6. There was a whole discussion about moving her up...in the end, the decision was to move up and do 2 years of L5, which she did. It was amazing to see the progress between the first and 2nd season of L5 because of the gain in strength, size (well a little) and confidence that she sorely needed for vault and bars!

My older DD who is average-to-big for her age, and also started competing later (L4 on her 8th birthday) has done one season at each level (L5 and L6 actually in same calendar yr b/c of how seasons ran in our state) and now willl be repeating L8.

 

[Gymnasticsgirl521]

DD just 6 so she was too young to compete in any meets last year so she will have to compete Level 4 this year which will be her second year. Had her brithday been sooner she would be a level 5 this year. She is training a strange schedule that she is split between the 4/5.

In our gym it depends on the gymnasts scores. They have to hit consistantly a 34 to move to the next level. We have about 5 level 5/6 that are working for skills to make the move. We had about 50% of our team last year being second years at each level.

 

[Chalky]

I always think it's interesting to hear what AA score is required for moveups. What does you gym require?

 

[Skawt]

I always think it's interesting to hear what AA score is required for moveups. What does you gym require?

Out gym does not use scores at all for moving up. You have to have specific skills mastered. They say that scores show how well you are doing at your current level, not how ready you are for the next.

This has caused some issues with parents and gymnasts when lower scoring gymnasts move up while higher scoring ones have had to repeat.

 

[snowbound]

I don't think our gym require a score for move ups. We have had some kids start at level 5 but most start at 4. I can understand skipping 4 altogether since you never use most of those skills again at higher levels.

When DD was training for L5 but competing L4, the whole vault thing got really screwed up. She could vault over the table just fine, but in competition, her vault scores started dropping because she was used to having to "pop" off a hard surface instead of just falling backward. I wish our gym had started teaching the kip a lot earlier too. They have since changed that, they start teaching that as soon as they join the team because it takes a lot of girls a while to get, and sometimes they lose it again before it really sticks in there permanently!

snowbound

 

[gymjoy]

Out gym does not use scores at all for moving up. You have to have specific skills mastered. They say that scores show how well you are doing at your current level, not how ready you are for the next.

This has caused some issues with parents and gymnasts when lower scoring gymnasts move up while higher scoring ones have had to repeat.

My dd's gym is similar. The HC/owners decide who moves up when. Sometimes a lower scoring girl moves on while a higher scoring gymnast repeats a level. Most likely it is because the gymnast has not mastered a required skill for the next level. Sometimes it is because the coaches are not seeing the work ethic they would like to see from the gymnast. Other times a girl moves up because she is older, and the coaches are letting her move up to experience a higher level before leaving. (I have seen this happen a couple of times. The gymnast knows it is their last season, and that they have gone as far as they can in gymnastics. The coaches allow them to compete level 6 or level 7 or level 8 as a sort of swan-song.)
Not moving up is often harder for the parents to accept then the gymnast - especially if the parent is new to our gym and came from a gym that emphasizes scores. I find it (after adjusting myself) much better for the gymnast to have coaches that look at them individually - with their strengths and weaknesses, desires and personalities - not just their scores.

 

[gym law mom]

To answer the poll question, my gymmie went right to L5. The gym she started at did not compete L4, so all the girls in pre-team did about a 2yr program to work on basics and then the L5 skills. She never had to learn any of the L4 routines and we didn't suffer through learning a mill circle!

Our gym doesn't use a score or score average as move up criteria. The girls are given lists of skills for the next level---the lists are a little more straight forward for compulsory than optional since optional has so many variations. The girls wanting to move up have a skills pre-test and are told what needs to be worked on more etc. and then about 6 weeks after that have "testing." Usually 2 coaches score them on all the skills on the list and then sit down and discuss move up. My understanding is if the overall score on the skills is borderline then they also look at work ethic, maturity, past scores. This year we had a few L5s that after talking with the coaches decided not to even work the L6 skills list, but still did uptrain some L6 skills and will do a 2nd year of L5.