Development Sessions

[Ex member]

As you know my youngest dd has just moved out if Rec. I never knew what sort of class that dd is now doing until now.

Yesterday I took my oldest dd to her session and I was planning on letting the person who usually works on the front desk about my dd's change in class so the direct debit can be amended (it's our responsibility to tell them of any changes), the person wasn't working that night but one of dd's old rec coaches was at the desk instead so I spoke to her and told her about dd not going to rec anymore as she had moved to a different class and she said "at last" and was really pleased that dd had been moved up - so it seems there was more than one rec coach that thought that my dd should have moved out of rec, but if that is the case why leave it so long? I asked what sort of session dd know does and I was told development (she teaches other development classes but not dd's), I was told that they wanted to sort out more hours for dd's development group but everything is up in the air at the moment trying to fit sessions in and the gym also runs quite a few rec sessions, 2 rec sessions mon - fri and rec all Saturday morning. Rec finishes at 6pm in dd's gym and dd's session starts at 6pm.

I am really happy that my dd has moved up but I realise that I don't know much about the development sessions and where that could lead to, I guess not every development session leads to grade work. At the moment I feel like a fish out of water, dd wasn't invited by letter just a quick chat from a coach asking if dd wanted to do it so I know nothing at all, I don't know how the sessions are run, how long the trial period lasts for etc.

I would really love to here what the development sessions are like all around the uk and what you do there - I understand that every gym is different.

My dd's first session was like this:

Run laps around the gym
Warm ups and stretches and conditioning
Bar Work - assisted pullovers, assisted casts and forwards roll over bar
Beam - arabesque balances (high beam), forwards rolls and cartwheels (low beam), a balance where you sit and lean back slightly with your hands on beam behind you and lift both legs in the air keeping them together (high beam)
Floor - Forwards rolls (with form), rolling from dish to arch and while on tummy sweep arms round to side and put hands in push up position and lift back and bottom to stand while hands still on floor.
Run around gym again and then more conditioning including rope climb

 

[Iwannabemargo]

Development is the UK equivalent of what most people on this site call Pre-team. P&F did development after rec. She did Floor and Vault competitions within the county and trained for grades. From memory she did about 8 months Rec, about the same development and then she moved to 4 piece, what would be called team. Her move was a lot quicker than others in her club though.

I would expect Rec to be 1-2 hours a week, development to be 2-4 hours a week and team 5+ hours a week depending on age.

To do grades I would expect her to be going twice a week.

Grade 14 skills arn't that demading, but she would need to be able to do them with good form, including straight chins on Bars and the Range and Conditioning (straddle lever, budgie perch on bench, 3 splits, bridge kick over)

 

[Flossyduck]

I think it does depend a bit on how the gym arranges their development classes. Some have different development groups, depending on what stream they are aiming for, but others have all the girls together until they decide what they are going to be competing. Our gym development classes start at twice a week for two hours and then increase to three times a week as they approach their age group competition year and I guess how long they spend in the group depends on their age when they move across from rec and also how quickly they progress.

There will be more emphasis on conditioning and good form on skills, so it can look initially as though progress slows down, as skills are broken down more to work on the shapes. It just means that when they finally put it all together it and do the skill they can do it correctly. The skills themselves will depend on whether they do grade 14 or level 5 to start with - some gyms (our first one) seem to do level 5 for most of the girls and then stream them, some (including ours until very recently) do grade 14 for all of them and then stream for level 4 or grade 13 and some (including ours now) do both from the off.

It sounds as though your dd is having an initial settling in and assessment period, after which I imagine they will give her some more hours and let you know what they are working towards. It's all good and she has plenty of time

 

[Ex member]

What you are saying Flossyduck makes a lot of sense, I think dd's group is a mixed one and they go from there, I am happy with slow progression as I prefer her to learn things properly with form and gain strength and flexibility, my dd is naturally graceful and she also does a dance class - she is doing modern dance grade 1 at the moment, dd's dance teacher gave me a letter inviting dd to take her grade 1 exam in feb - march time then move up to grade 2, we got the letter 2 days before she got invited to her new gymnastics session.

I am in no hurry for dd to do more hours at the moment as I want to see how she copes with this class as it is 6 pm to 8:30 pm, I am watching her and making sure she is not too tired as she is tiny for her age and has just turned 7 and until she gets used to these hours I don't want her doing any more as I don't want to risk burn out.

 

[gymdog]

so I spoke to her and told her about dd not going to rec anymore as she had moved to a different class and she said "at last" and was really pleased that dd had been moved up - so it seems there was more than one rec coach that thought that my dd should have moved out of rec, but if that is the case why leave it so long?

Per your post she can't do pull-up/pullover, which is required to move out of once a week type rec classes in most gyms.

 

[Faith]

Per your post she can't do pull-up/pullover, which is required to move out of once a week type rec classes in most gyms.

Not in the UK, generally. The British gymnastics standards for "rec" are quite low, designed to keep everyone in and teach general physical skills, rather than gymnastics. There's no competing at all. Your average rec session will be 50 minutes, split into warm up (very general stretching, no splits, maybe bridges), two drill "stations", one will likely be floor, rolls down a cheese wedge, jumping over bars, walking along a line, throwing bean bags into a hoop. The other may be apparatus based, so vault would be jumping from springboard to mat, walking along a bench and jumping off…

Your average rec kid from what I have seen here is likely going to get a BWO by about age 10/11, and maybe start working BHS at age 12/13. Even if they've been in rec since 2 years old.

There's no conditioning, and if they do bars it's once every few weeks, so unlikely that anyone will have a chin up or pullover. I know DD was selected for team without having a cartwheel, or handstand. She had no apparatus skills at all.

 

[Ex member]

Not in the UK, generally. The British gymnastics standards for "rec" are quite low, designed to keep everyone in and teach general physical skills, rather than gymnastics. There's no competing at all. Your average rec session will be 50 minutes, split into warm up (very general stretching, no splits, maybe bridges), two drill "stations", one will likely be floor, rolls down a cheese wedge, jumping over bars, walking along a line, throwing bean bags into a hoop. The other may be apparatus based, so vault would be jumping from springboard to mat, walking along a bench and jumping off…

Your average rec kid from what I have seen here is likely going to get a BWO by about age 10/11, and maybe start working BHS at age 12/13. Even if they've been in rec since 2 years old.

There's no conditioning, and if they do bars it's once every few weeks, so unlikely that anyone will have a chin up or pullover. I know DD was selected for team without having a cartwheel, or handstand. She had no apparatus skills at all.

I can second that, the rec class that dd used to go to was 1 hour long and the first 20 mins were spent playing a game and then light warm ups then the rest of the session is spent on 4 pieces of apparatus, so approx 10 mins apparatus and that includes having someone demonstrate what you have to do (the coach would pick someone at random), in the rec group that dd was in had around 26 girls split into 3 groups with a ratio of 7-9 girls per coach (or 2 coaches depending on the age of the group), going with that you can imagine that you hardly get any time on the apparatus per child per rotation and no conditioning.

As Faith said they didn't go on bars every week but when they did dd used to enjoy swinging in them and seemed quite strong for her petite size - she is on or just under the 4th centile for both height and weight.

The only time things are different is when they did BG badge week, they had 1 sometimes 2 sessions to practice and then they are tested for their badges, as they went through the badges they got harder to pass unless you had some sort of natural ability in gymnastics, dd passed all hers at her first attempt but the time she was 6.

Our gym does in house rec competitions and you practiced for this for around 4 sessions. The competitions are grouped by age and no matter how good you were in rec you had to compete the level according to age, for example there was a rec competition earlier this year on floor and vault and all the children who were born 2007 and 2006 competed level 1 and the children who were born 2005 and 2004 competed level 2 and the older ones level 3.

 

[Amusibus]

Rec didn't used to be so basic. I never did more than 4hrs/week as a rec kids thru high school and I could do lots more than that, including kips and front hip circles and flyaways. And layout full twists on floor. Rec kids now don't seem to learn much of anything. I'm 42, and did gymnastics back when the bars were super close together and the vault was a horse and the floor was hard and the trampoline looked like a woven art project your third grader brought home from school.