Parents Moving on up(but wasn't easy!!)

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gym law mom

Proud Parent
I know I stuck this in another post, but just figured I had to give a little more brag to my gymmie. They did skills testing for all the optional girls last week---vault/bars on 1 day and then beam/floor the next. Coaches were walking around with skills sheets and clipboards, so the atmosphere was a little tense. They finished the 2nd day with about 45 minutes left of practice and were sent off to do some conditioning while the coaches met in the office. Coaches came out and tapped some on the head(mine included) and just said "you can go---see you next practice." One coach then came out in the lobby and asked 2 parents to come back in. So.............we left and nobody knew anything. My gymmie did text one of the girls that was asked to stay and she said they moved her up to L8--kind of. Well, for 48+ hours we had one stressed out kid. She nitpicked all the skills she did and of course the more she thought about them, the worse she felt she had done.

Monday rolled around(don't know if she heard a word said at school) and got to the gym. Asked her if she wanted me to come in---said no, she would call when she heard something. No call, so dh said he would go pick her up(we do carpool). He got there as practice was ending and asked her about move up. She said one coach came in while they were stretching and quickly pointed at those moving to L8, but my gymmie wasn't sure she pointed to her and then was reluctant to ask, so she went through the whole practice wondering. DH went in and asked the coach that did the pointing and she said "oh sure---she's L8." Ok, thrilled for my gymmie who had a coach tell her to quit just about 14 mos ago, but this whole skills test and move up could have been handled much much better.

On the up side for my gymmie, she will now get to go to 2 out of state meets(assuming she has all routines), she's thrilled and several of her best friends will be on the L8 team too. Downside is more hours---will increase to 20/week in Nov., more money/mo in tuition, her knees are acting up again(grrrrr).

Had a few minutes and just wanted to update everyone on our little saga.
 
Congratulations to DD for all her hard work. Sounds as though she really wants this, good luck for the upcoming season.:)

It is a shame that gyms seem to really enjoy their little secrets, do they realise the stress that it places on gymmies and their families. It is the one part of having gymmies that drives me bonkers.
 
That is awesome!! Congrats to your DD. That really really sucks how the gym handled things though. I just don't understand all the secretism. We get it with meets as well. Can't they make it easier? Post a list in the office, go ask the office. Anything but the way it seems to be at so many gyms.

Hope she gets her routines and has an awesome level 8 season!
 
That's awesome!! Kind of a tense nail-biter, but awesome just the same!!! Congrats to your dd!!! I know the feeling of tense "try-outs". At cheer they would have all the girls tryout by number and then after a week to 10 days they would post the results on the website grouped by what team and level and only by number. Everyone would be calling each other trying to figure out whose daughter's number is whose!!! Very very tense!!! LOL
 
Congrats to your dd!! She must be so excited!
That stinks that she had to go through all that worrying. It sounds like a lot of gyms need to come up with a better way of "moving" girls up.
 
It says I can post a q on this forum so:
" Do you think you could exchange the word 'secretism' for the word 'discression'?"

Perhaps you could put yourself in the place of the the coaches having to deliver sensitive news to some athletes that will upset them?

Thanks for looking at both sides.
 
This is a parent's forum.

I am sure if I were to post a similiar type of "question" on the coaches forum I would be reminded that as a parent it is not my place.

I understand that coaches have there way of doing things, but us parents see things differently at times and are just as entitled to the way we see things - right or wrong. Although the child is the gymnast, the parent is the client (who pays).

I may go and read over on the coaches forum and may ask a question looking for an opinion of coaches, but I would never post a question in another thread that is going around the intent to get a point across.

I am not trying to come off rude more so matter of fact, but I think your question is a little snarky and certainly wouldn't fly on the Coaches' forum if I did the same.
 
It says I can post a q on this forum so:
" Do you think you could exchange the word 'secretism' for the word 'discression'?"

Perhaps you could put yourself in the place of the the coaches having to deliver sensitive news to some athletes that will upset them?

Thanks for looking at both sides.

As this is the parents forum and we are discussing it from a parental perspective we probably see it as secretive. It is a very common feeling expressed by gymnasts and parents from gym all over.

I know for sure that coaching is a tough job, which is made even harder by parents constantly asking questions. As parents we want more clarity and information on our childs progress. The stress that our kids go through not knowing if or when or even how they will move up is enormous.

They are very young and have a hard time handling the unknown. It may not seem like a big deal to a coach whether a child knows on Friday or Monday, but it is incredibly hard for many kids.

Bad news is upsetting for sure, but sometimes clear guidelines ahead of time would alleviate some of the stress.

I am going to mirror this in the coaches forum, lets see what they think there.;)


But lets stick to replying in our own forums so we don't derail this celebration of GLM's news.
 
Congrats to your dd on moving to L8 - that is wonderful !!!

I don't know of too many gyms out there that are as good at communicating as parents would like - very frustrating at times.
 
What was frustrating about the whole experience was the coaches had decided on who would move up at the end of the 2nd day of testing. 1 girl was talked to with her mom about her coming to practice and giving it 100% on a consistent basis--I guess you could say she is on probation. The other girl and mom were told she could move to L8 based on her beam and floor and not compete due to her vault/bars or stay as a L7 for this year---they told her to think it over and let them know. She has decided to stay L7----incredible fear on bars and some on vault.

At that time of the day, only the optional girls were left in the gym, so 1 coach could have taken those selected to move up aside and simply told them. Also, all parents were there, so if anyone had questions they could be answered. From my understanding this is the 1st time they did it this way and hopefully they learned that it wasn't a good way. I did like the idea of the skills sheets since if a parent or gymmie wanted to see what skills were strong or weak it was available.

Kristilyn---Don't know about meets yet! I'm sure the coaches know since they have to start sending in meet fees etc. Last year they went to a meet in Orlando(hosted by Orlando Metro) and one in San Diego. The L7s only go to one out of state meet, so my gymmie went to the San Diego meet last year. Our fav in state invitational will the the 1st weekend of optional meet season this year, so I don't know if they'll go to that one.
 

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