Any coaches/asst. coaches coming to London area for the Olympics?

[Devonelisa]

Need a room with an English family?

We moved from Greenville SC (Greenville Gymnastics Training Center) to Haywards Heath, England in 2011. I'm American, husband is British and our daughter Phoebe got her start in gymnastics in the US, moving quickly through level 1 and 2 requirements to join the Prep Opt Bronze team. She did her first invitational, placed 1st floor, 2nd beam and bars and all around, 4th in vault. We then were off for the holidays and moved to the UK over New Years. The English system is very different and her not having a back walkover was it for them, she was put in recreational classes to pay her dues. She's been there since February 2011 and has done 2 competitions, an in-house friendly and a regional 4 piece novices, again, placing 1st/2nd/3rd. The gym is split and her coaches are frustrated, they can see that she needs a challenge but have 'no room' to move her up. If I suggest things like making a shadow team I'm being a pushy American. We've been encouraged to look at other, smaller gyms in the area. The attitude here is she's 9, way too old, pointless really. I have 0 ambition but she's got the attitude, performance drive and confidence so I'm trying to rise to the occasion as her mother and find whatever opportunities I can for her. Next summer she'll be going to IGC, I try to put her in dance classes and such, help her practice moves at home, etc. At this point, I have no idea where she'd be in the US levels.
And therein is my idea. If there's someone with US coaching experience coming over and they need a place in commuter distance of London to stay, we've got a guest room and I'll happily drop them at the local station whenever and pick them up. In exchange, in some of their downtime, I'd like them to maybe work with our girls, see where they hit on the US levels (I have the chart her gym gave me when we moved), maybe give me some advice about how I can help them. If anyone is interested, pm me, I know they're reporting rents rocketing up and such and my husband commutes to central London (Fleet Street) from here every day and knows the rail and tube systems very well so can help with that stuff too.

And of course, if someone is travelling outside of the Olympics, that's fine too. We have one coach at our gym who worked in the US for 5 years before returning to the UK to marry and she agrees that it's 'very different' and that the US has 'many more pathways into gymnastics' so she's supportive of our frustration but has her hands tied by gym policies and can't do individual lessons or any such thing.

If anyone has any other ideas, Phoebe does watch YouTube videos for pointers and we have a British handyman friend who is designing a little 'gym conditioning' sort of playground thing to put in for them (monkey bars, climbing rope, some stationary bars, that sort of thing). Any videos or websites for reluctant-but-necessary pseudo coaches like me around the world, anything at all, we'd appreciate all thoughts.

 

[bogwoppit]

Firstly, welcome to the Chalkbucket.

This just strikes me as a very bad idea, inviting a stranger into your home to coach your little girl just gives me shudders.

My suggestion is to find a club where she is not looked upon as "too old", these are usually smaller gyms with a more diverse membership and often do vault and floor or even group gym.

Inviting a US coach over to train your dd at home, even if they are a deranged child molester, seems crazy when your DD is under the UK system. It also puts a coach in an uninsured position in a foreign country. Even very basic skills can lead to major injury. Just not a good idea.

Sorry to be such a downer, but the alarm bells just started ringing loudly, as well as all those red flags a-waving.

Coaching her at home is a bad plan as you could be teaching her skills wrongly and then coaches have to spend twice the time fixing skills learned poorly.

 

[Faith]

I agree with Bog. Dangerous thing to be advertising your home on the internet.

I think you need to find a club with a different philosophy. Our club certainly doesn't write older gymnasts off- when my DD joined team last year at 7 (they don't take them before that of 4-piece) there was a 9 year old and an 8 year old join with her. all are given the same coaching, it's willingness to work that gets you a spot on team, over age, shape, or even talent. DD herself was put on team without a BWO- she barely had a handstand, and just about had a cartwheel, no splits, no bar or beam skills. This is a tiny, tiny team as well with the pick of local kids.

I have to say my experience of UK gyms is it's relatively rare to have a club that dismisses all but the most promising, unless they've got a total glut of really talented, really hard working children.

Have a look on the BG website- I think there are a few clubs in easy reach. Do a bit of research and see. Small is sometimes better as you get noticed for your work ethic or less obvious talent, rather than the fact you can do x,y and z skills at 5 years old.

In this country as well as 4 piece there is a lot of sports acro, which is always worth bearing in mind for the older gymnast, or one who struggles on apparatus. The career is longer, you can start later, and it's a very good foundation for Cheer if you went back to the US.

 

[Flossyduck]

See below!

 

[Flossyduck]

Sorry, having trouble posting today - keeps kicking me out, then scrambles up my document.

Try again for clarity:

I can see that you are frustrated by the UK system, but unless you are planning on moving back to the US any time soon it would seem tomake sense to find a way to make the UK system work for your daughter.

The UK system is complicated but it does have quite a number of strands and ways of entry if the gym has the flexibility to offer them. Yes the elite level programme would be hard to get in to if you start later, and that might be what your gym is basing their feedback on? But there are the grades – both national grades and club grades. Most clubs have girls compete the club grades and you can compete them at any age, either ‘in age’ the year you turn 8, or ‘out of age’ if you start later. You don’t have to start at the beginning either and can jump a couple to start at the right point for your ability.

Outside of the levels and grades most clubs have are creational programme with a separate team who represent the club in floor and vault competitions and invitational four pieces.

Our personal experience is of two clubs, both very differen tin size and set up, but honestly they both offered all of the above strands –in age, out of age, grades, levels and recreational.

I think you have been quite unlucky to find a gym which doesn’t have a wider programme. I would have a look around and ask a lot of questions about progression and competition. There will be something out there for your daughter and I hope you find it, as it sounds as though she has a lot to offer.

 

[rd7]

I agree with the other UK posters, there are plenty of gyms that would take your daughter and be pleased to have her.

Your attitude seems to be very down on the UK system, have you had any experience of other UK gyms? Why have you stuck around that particular gym with your daughter in a rec class for over a year? Have you looked at the well established gym in east sussex beginning with U just as an example?

Bit confused about why you have asked for an american coach to come and stay in your house to coach your daughter when there are plenty of extremely well qualified coaches in the UK. We have to pass both practical and theory exams to become a coach, have a criminal record check and attend safe guarding children courses amongst other things.

You say that the attitude here is that 9 is way too old - where is here because that isn't the philosopy of UK gymnastics in general?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

bad idea.....

 

[Devonelisa]

I do appreciate all the concern and I know from a North American perspective it must be quite shocking but we live in a large farmhouse and I have helpers in and out all the time, window washer, gardener, handyman, etc. Both my husband and I are pretty good at vetting people since we have our own business and both have been hiring and firing both professionally and domestically for over 25 years. Add to that the fact that I would be there the entire time and quite possibly he or the gardener would be looking on and I really don't think a child molester is going to have much chance. I'm not going to wander off to answer the phone and leave them alone. We have a total of 9 children, from 24 down to 4, only the 3 youngest even under 10 and none of them have been handed over to a child molester thus far and we've had plenty of household help so I'm pretty confident of our track record and ability to watch over our own child in our own home.

We may well move back to the US, we maintain ties and our next home may be in Massachusetts or in southern France where we also have family and friends. For me, as a mother, with our family and lifestyle, the aim is to keep their options open internationally. We don't want our decision to return to the UK to better run the business to negatively impact her pursuit of her talent.

I am a bit down on the system here, it's not as positive as the US one and that's not just my opinion, others in the ex-pat community have observed the same thing, as have coaches who have worked in both countries. Phoebe asked to go to gymnastics at 3 and we put her own waiting lists but got no place. We moved to the US and had a choice of excellent, bright, well-staffed and well-equipped gyms, she was in classes within a month and progressed quickly. When we returned, 18 months later, Uckfield was one of the first we tried out as it's 10 minutes from our house. I called ahead, explained her results of the month before and her experience on team and asked if we could come check the gym out. I was told to bring her in on Saturday morning, ready to workout. We were greeted by a grim faced woman who didn't bother to say hello to us, just said 'come in the gym' to Phoebe without even a hint of a smile. She let her warm up and then marched her around the gym. She asked if she could do a front and back walkover and when Phoebe said that she hadn't been taught them yet, dragged a little girl out of class, had her demonstrate and said, 'see, easy.' Well, yes it is, once you've been *taught*. She put her up on the high bar, which she hadn't been on before, and asked her to do some tricks. Then she brought her out, said 'we'd put her in development for team', pointed to the receptionist and said 'she'll tell you the times' and walked away without a goodbye. We got the times but as we were walking to the car Phoebe said, 'that is not my gym.' I don't know if we hit them on a bad day or just a bad person or what but if they wanted to send us elsewhere they couldn't have done a better job. I've since been contacted by one of their team members parents, she was shopping for a new gym herself and her kid is on the national team. In the end, politics won the day, no other local gym 'had room' so she's back at Uck. If they could perhaps manage something approaching courtesy if not warmth, some awareness that they're dealing with children, then I'd happily give them a chance. They'd save me a fortune in petrol alone. We are currently checking out a number of smaller local gyms, although the one we're at is the best in area for those who want to go to international level they are quite focused on elite. She was bested at her recent 4 piece by a school in Angermering and you could see clear differences in the development of routines they gave to their girls, those competitions are just not the point of the gym we're at and they put less into it. She has no issues on any apparatus but would happily work into team or acro without disappointment. She enjoys competition, enjoys performing and responds well to having the bar raised on her. Likewise, she gets discouraged and bored when it's lowered. We're just trying to keep her learning and have some idea of what to tell IGC about her level when we sign her up for next year.

Currently she's competing in recreational, in age, and doing well. Her gym is looking for more competitive experience for her. But the US system is a bit faster moving at teaching skills and the perfection comes from practice. As a result, across the apparatus, her routines here in the UK are at the same skills she was performing in competition in December 2009, she's stagnating and frustrated by it. I'm not talking about learning to kip in our backyard, I'm talking about things like helping her practice her back flip, small tumbling skills on the mat, look over the USGA levels and let me know where a US coach would currently place her. I would happily hire a local coach to do this but most have no idea about USGA levels and the one US experienced coach we know isn't allowed to do any private lessons, in or out of gym, even just to evaluate level. So we thought with all the folks coming to London this summer, perhaps some coach or assistant coach might be willing to spend a couple of hours at ours, giving us an outside view.

And those shocked by letting strangers into your home should definitely avoid London this year, half the city is renting out rooms, to athletes, their families and friends, workers and fans. We're only unusual in that we're a bit further from the venues than most and not looking for money in exchange but a bit of advice/help. I've already offered to let a German athlete's father park his camper van on our large drive as we have a concrete boat base but he's looking for something closer to the swimming pool.

 

[Devonelisa]

Thanks Flossy. We are starting to look around and trying to find something with more potential for her.

RD7, we stuck around because it's so opaque. I know half the team parents now because they practice at the same times as her classes and the parents were singling her out and saying she'll be put on team, just wait it out. They said just as you're about to give up, you'll get that call. Indeed, we were in there with a little girl who had been on team, same age as Phoebe and they were neck-n-neck in performance, sometimes Daisy was best, sometimes Phoebe but they were the top two, quite obviously. About the time the other mother and I decided we'd give it one more month, she got the call that they wanted her on acro team. She had been aiming to get back on women's so was disappointed but did her trial and loved it. That gave some hope to what they were saying being true, just wait it out. We held on thinking they just need to see her compete and when she took 1st in age at their in-house we thought that would make a difference. Instead they pulled the girl who came in 4th behind her for a trial. We were shocked but thought if she got a trial surely Phoebe will too. But it never happened. That little girl, who has precision but is slower to pick up skills, is back in rec now. Then she got invited to do the 4 piece in Chichester and we thought okay, now they'll notice her. And the coach who was there did notice her performance and attitude and came up to us afterwards being very encouraging about her getting on team. She was invited to do team try-outs, did seemingly well but they were a coach short and it was down to one woman and she put through none of the kids she took around that day and that's that. Maybe we've been too lax or patient but we just kept thinking if we did everything they asked, she'd get her chance. We're now getting a bit more transparency and the coaches she works with are saying, quietly, look elsewhere for her opportunity.
But she loves her gym and doesn't want to leave it totally. She's discouraged but not giving up so I'm trying to do whatever we can to help her through this sticky bit.

 

[rd7]

I'm sad to hear of your DDs experiences at U. I was at a rec club close to them when they started up in the 80's and their philosophy was very different then. I'm sure the original owner is still on the board so hopefully you did just catch them on a bad day.

There is an artistic/acro club in TW, Kent which is fairly new and may be worth looking at Gymnastics Club in Tunbridge Wells Kent | Girls & Boys Gymnastics Kent | NDGA
I don't know of it myself as I've been out of the area now for a long time but the webbie looks good and it's a fairly easy journey.

I agree that UK gymnastics is lower key than in the US, we don't have college teams to aim for so it truly is for the love of the sport in most cases, I wouldn't agree that we are less positive but maybe there is less opportunity for artistic team places in some areas.

I wish you lots of luck and keep on looking for a place for your daughter, I'm sure something will come up soon.