WAG Options for lost JO program

[akmom]

Hi all. I'm new to this group. We live in Alaska and our only gym recently converted to Xcel only, partly because the gyms we compete with have also gone this route. My middle school daughter was really hoping to do gymnastics in college (not necessarily a scholarship, but that would be nice ). I think she can keep her skills developing in Xcel but she nees to compete in JO to advance if she wants to compete in college. Any thoughts on what we should do? Moving is unlikely. Her coach is not uber-motivated. She is not interested in considering joint JO and Xcel even for a sub-set of gymnasts. We are willing to travel for meets, of course, but I feel odd asking another gym if my daughter can tag along to competitions - and I am not even sure if that is OK. I welcome any ideas. This is a new change and my daughter is crushed. Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 18037]

It seems if you want her to stay JO. She needs to be At a gym that does JO

 

[akmom]

It seems if you want her to stay JO. She needs to be At a gym that does JO

Thanks. I know that she needs to stay be at a JO gym. I was looking for suggestions on how I might accomplish that under the circumstances. I was wondering if anyone had any experience (as a parent or coach) with having someone on their team as a guest for meets or if there was another way to work out the need to compete at the JO level.

 

[MILgymFAM]

My daughter competed as a guest at a gym in another state, but she did train with them once a week for three months. It *is* possible, but would be pretty far outside the norm.

 

[gymgal]

How close is the next JO gym? Is it possible to train there 1-2x/week while continuing at your current gym? Certainly, whatever you do (short of moving) is going to have to be an atypical arrangement. How old is she and what level? If she is older and higher level, then you could try to find a host family for her to stay with close to another gym. I would also recommend trying to get in contact with the some of the college coaches for where she is interested (will need the coach's help with this) and explain the unusual circumstances. There is nothing that precludes her from training the higher skills in an Xcel program, even if she can't compete them (I am not sure where diamond tops out in skills). If you have a few college coaches (likely D3) who are willing to work with the situation, it could happen. Also, looking into the college tumbling teams, which is growing as a sport.

 

[LJL07]

I sympathize. We don’t have many gyms in our state either that can train upper optionals, but we do at least have JO programs. We travel an hour each way to our gym. So my first question would be how close is the nearest gym with a JO program? And if it’s within reasonable driving distance, are there any teammates who might be willing to share a carpool? Both my husband and I work, so we pay a sitter as well to help with transportation. I believe xcel diamond is roughly comparable to level 8?? But I think you would have to register your daughter through usag as JO optional level xx to compete in JO meets. Would your gym allow this?

 

[akmom]

Hi everyone. Thank you for the suggestions and information. I am really glad I found this forum. It is a great resource.

Southeast Alaska is really a group of very large islands, so there are no road connections between communities. The nearest gyms would be a plane or ferry ride away. But I appreciate the information on reaching out to the unversity and other gyms elsewhere. We travel to the lower 48 to visit relatives and my husband travels for work. Perhaps we could work something out where she travels with him to work with a club outside AK a couple of times a year. I was concerned something like that would be considered too weird if I brought it up to another club - but I am encouraged to give it a try based on your suggestions. I do tink she can continue to gain a lot of skills in the local Xcel program. It just fnding the opportunities to continue competing in JO that is going to be challenging. Cheers!

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Hi everyone. Thank you for the suggestions and information. I am really glad I found this forum. It is a great resource.

Southeast Alaska is really a group of very large islands, so there are no road connections between communities. The nearest gyms would be a plane or ferry ride away. But I appreciate the information on reaching out to the unversity and other gyms elsewhere. We travel to the lower 48 to visit relatives and my husband travels for work. Perhaps we could work something out where she travels with him to work with a club outside AK a couple of times a year. I was concerned something like that would be considered too weird if I brought it up to another club - but I am encouraged to give it a try based on your suggestions. I do tink she can continue to gain a lot of skills in the local Xcel program. It just fnding the opportunities to continue competing in JO that is going to be challenging. Cheers!

I was going to say that it would be unlikely to find a gym that would guest coach JO.

But as you have unique geography circumstances perhaps gyms would be more open to the idea. I think it would take cooperation and communication regarding training plans between the 2 gyms

Good Luck.

 

[STU678]

I think it probably depends on your daughter's coaches and if they are willing to do a sort of team coaching situation with another gym for her. At my daughter's gym, they have a girl that trains with them once a week that is from a gym 3 hours away. From what I understand, her gym (which is in a more remote area) doesn't have the coaching/resources to get her where she wants to be, they know and are friendly with our coaches, so she comes to our gym. We often have girls from other gyms train with our girls for a week or so here and there throughout the year. We've never (that I'm aware) had a girl from another gym go to competitions with our girls, but I can totally see our coaches being open to the idea if it would help someone out!

 

[IreneKa]

Crazy idea, but maybe somewhere down the line, when she gets closer to the age that she needs to be noticed by the college coaches, she could go leave with a host family somewhere to train JO? Didn't Gabby Douglas live with another family while training at Chow's?

 

[Madden3]

This is an interesting situation.
My experience is with MAG. Many gyms have eliminated or never have had viable MAG programs. Over the years, I have seen with some frequency gyms bring only one gymnast to meets, and sometimes, the kid's mom or dad is the coach- and yes I mean in some cases they became coaches so they could coach their kid. I have also seen "local" (but often several hours apart) MAG gyms/coaches pull together to help boys stay in training/competition when for some reason or another their coach or gym is not able to provide either.
I do not think it is odd at all to ask another gym to let your daughter represent them at meets, as long as you pay her fair share of the meet costs. In fact I wonder if some smaller, less established gyms would welcome this. You certainly have a legitimate reason to be making this request, and the worst they can say is no.
With technology today, if your gym's coaches are willing to at least coach her JO, they could even discuss/show skills and routines during practice with the other gym's coach, without your daughter needing to travel to that other gym.

 

[Muddlethru]

If you provide us with the age and level of your daughter, you may get more specific suggestions.

In any event, my experience with coaches, and I’ve had many in many various settings, is they are helpful and accommodating. You may be surprised at the reception you receive particularly given your special situation. Try to make it to a JO gym two times a week if possible. In the interim, heavily condition. Strong and physically in shape gymnasts seem to get skills faster. Also try JO camps when there is one in your area. Make sure they are by reputable coaches.

Lastly, make sure all this running around and training is appropriate with the age of your daughter. You don’t want her to burn out either,

 

[Muddlethru]

Not to derail this thread, but I felt the need to state that OP’s situation is what makes having a girl go to nationals with a 35AA ok, While it does seem unfair that a gymnast scoring 37 is staying home and another from a weaker region is going with a 35AA, situations are distinctly different. Gymnasts from weaker regions are not less talented than the stronger regions. There is usually just a lack of good coaches and training. These regions and/or states still need to be represented.