Ilovebagels
Proud Parent
This is long
My daughter was on a pre level 4 team and our gym has a very strict testing policy for moving up. She was missing some of the skills for 4 during testing and the head coach decided she will be competing 3 not 4 as planned. Fine, except she was just coming off an injury during testing and now that it’s been a few weeks she has all her skills and they are looking really good (not a gymnast but look good to me). we are still four months out from competition season starting, too, which feels like a lot of time to me to clean up anything not perfect.
my daughter is devastated. She worked so hard to catch up after her injury and I hate that her hard work won’t be rewarded. I don’t even know how to explain hard work usually pays off just not this time. On top of that her hours will be decreasing (from 11 to 8) and she’s worried that she’ll lose her skills if she has to focus on level 3, which she will have to spend all summer learning. They said there will be no uptraining til after season is over and if we want to get privates to keep up her skills we can. (Which seems crazy to me).
I’ve spoken to the coach and seems like the decision is final. We did trials at two other gyms in the area who both want to put her on their level 4 teams. She worked out at these other gyms a few times and loves them both. Problem is I don’t really want to switch gyms and they are both far and not as good and super inconvenient, time wise. I also don’t want to be a gym hopper (current gym is already our second gym).
Given all this my question is - is it crazy to compete level 3 if you have all level 4 skills? Is that a common thing to compete a level lower? Will she be somehow more prepared for 4 next year by doing 3? I do see some advantages - don’t have to switch gyms, lower hours so she can do other things, maybe better chance at scoring better (although recall she never learned level 3), so not sure about that one.
What should I do?!
My daughter was on a pre level 4 team and our gym has a very strict testing policy for moving up. She was missing some of the skills for 4 during testing and the head coach decided she will be competing 3 not 4 as planned. Fine, except she was just coming off an injury during testing and now that it’s been a few weeks she has all her skills and they are looking really good (not a gymnast but look good to me). we are still four months out from competition season starting, too, which feels like a lot of time to me to clean up anything not perfect.
my daughter is devastated. She worked so hard to catch up after her injury and I hate that her hard work won’t be rewarded. I don’t even know how to explain hard work usually pays off just not this time. On top of that her hours will be decreasing (from 11 to 8) and she’s worried that she’ll lose her skills if she has to focus on level 3, which she will have to spend all summer learning. They said there will be no uptraining til after season is over and if we want to get privates to keep up her skills we can. (Which seems crazy to me).
I’ve spoken to the coach and seems like the decision is final. We did trials at two other gyms in the area who both want to put her on their level 4 teams. She worked out at these other gyms a few times and loves them both. Problem is I don’t really want to switch gyms and they are both far and not as good and super inconvenient, time wise. I also don’t want to be a gym hopper (current gym is already our second gym).
Given all this my question is - is it crazy to compete level 3 if you have all level 4 skills? Is that a common thing to compete a level lower? Will she be somehow more prepared for 4 next year by doing 3? I do see some advantages - don’t have to switch gyms, lower hours so she can do other things, maybe better chance at scoring better (although recall she never learned level 3), so not sure about that one.
What should I do?!