Parents Team Tryouts

[GymDadWA]

In reality many gyms select their team gymnasts on a set of subjective criteria. It may come down to factors like age, body type, height, perceived coachability, relationship with the coach, natural strength, natural flexibility, fearlessness, effort in training, parents height, parents body type, if they think the parents will be easy to work with, comp.iance, muscle twitch speed, ability to work under pressure etc.

It can often have very little to do with actual skills. It’s not the skills the kids have, but the potential to learn skills they want. Each gym has different values and different things they find important.

When parents ask the question “What does my child need to work on to get on team?” They are after an objective criteria, but in reality there isn’t one. The gym can’t say “she needs to shrink 5 inches”, or “she needs to be 3 years younger”, or “she needs to be born with fast muscle twitch” etc. It sounds like discrimination or they might lose the child because the child reasoned their goal may never be achieved.

So instead the gym sets an arbitrary standard, which they think the child is unlikely to achieve. Reality - it is very uncommon for kids in rec programs to achieve a kip ever.

Agreed, and you might not want to dig for an answer, saying "she needs a kip" probably was their way of letting you down easy, knowing the real answer might not be something you want to hear.

Of course they could be totally wrong on their assessment, lots of stories on this board about gymnasts that were denied an opportunity, switched gyms, and did better than their old team.