E
emacmommy
I'm trying desperately not to rant so I will try and be as open minded as I can.
QUESTIONS (for those that don't want to read my whole background story):
* DO THE PARENTS NOT PAY US FOR THE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AND DETAILED PLANNING FOR THE SUCCESS OF THEIR GYMNAST?
* SHOULD THE GYMNAST AND/OR PARENT QUESTION THE PROGRESSIVE METHODS WE USE IN THE GYM?
* SHOULD A YOUNG TEENAGE GYMNAST BE ALLOWED TO WALK OUT OF PRACTICE IF SHE FEELS THE THINGS WE ARE WORKING DON'T APPLY TO HER OR SHE JUST PLAIN OLD DOESN'T WANT TO DO WHAT WE ARE WORKING ON?
I've dealt with difficult gymnasts/parents before, and I may be jumping the gun on this one, since we haven't played this out to the end and had a parent conference yet but here's the situation...
At the end of the competitive season we start to work on our all gym spring performance class/team routines. It takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour out of team skill practice time, usually depending on the behavior/attention span of the team on that day. For me it's a nice change of pace. We move from super picky, high consistency, super repetitive, competitive routines type practices to more creative, high energy, fun tumbling with increased conditioning and back to basic skills. This last month we also threw in some fear related challenges into the mix of things in our event training, such as toe fronts into the pit for optionals (even if they just get to their back) or jumping from low to high bar for say a Level 3 gymnast, just to give a range.
Well, we had a raving Spring Performance last Thursday, very successful and super fun, and I'm back to planning Team Practices for the month (my co-head coach and I take turns month to month). This time of year for me, like I said is back to basics, before school ends and I start loosing chunks of girls at a time to summer vacations. Emphasis for this month will be ballet/dance basics (toe point technique, tendu, rond de jambe, develope, grand battemattes, plies for leg strength and landings, arm work, turnout and posture... the basics of the basics. I don't use standard ballet music to try and keep things interesting, after all we are just gymnasts.
For event training and conditioning it will be core strength, leg turnout and quad work (keeping with the ballet), lots of shaping and a few step up skills we are struggling with to keep practice interesting (such as, cast HS on high bar, giants, backhandsprings on beam, and twisiting on floor for the optionals). That should give you some ground work to the atmosphere of practice. I planned on ballet for this week, jazz for next week and then bring the elements we learned in our dance room into our all team warm up that we already have set to music (it already incorporates all this stuff into a warm up setting, but right now everyone is slopping through).
Yesterday, the first day of this, I had a whopping 3 out of 12 Level 5+ show up to practice. (Ooops, out spit some rant.) Two of the three are in depsperate need of posture and toes point work, so this lesson specially applied to them. The third was my teenage Level 7 gymnast who felt none of this applied to her or gymnastics, she felt it was all hurting her knees (all we were doing was tendu at the time, slide foot out, point it to the floor, with leg straight) and without consulting me called her mom to say they weren't practicing anything worthwhile could she go home. We only spent 40 minutes in the dance room! After the dance session they went to beam with the other team coach which she reported all she got from our Optional was excuses about the session of ballet made her legs worthless and she couldn't get through anything, including the backhandspring that she so desperately needs (but that's another story). Same story when she went to bars. Bad attitude, complaints, can't do anything, etc.
Now, these other two compulsory gymnasts look up to her. One was trying so hard to be diligent, the other and younger one (only 9) was following along right in the "not taking practice seriously" category of our optional. ATTITUDE CANCER! Usually we would continue to hash this out with the gymnasts throughout practices, and here is where I might be jumping the gun because we haven't met with the parents yet, but when they called last night and supported her daughter's claim that our dance session had nothing to do with gymnastics and their daughter didn't want to do it... and they've scheduled private lessons even though she won't finish a complete workout with her team. I'M HAVING POTENTIONAL ISSUES!!!!!!
My workout plan is sound for all involved. True, some need it more than others, and this Optional, dance-wise, is fairly decent, but can still benefit from the reminders of posture, soft arms, landing through the feet, etc. Not to mention the plan ends with cleaning up our All Team Warm Up so we are ALL on the same page as to what is expected during the warm up.
Anyhow, I tried not to rant, and rationalize in writing instead. It helps me at least, and I haven't been able to get it off my mind since.
Input.....
QUESTIONS (for those that don't want to read my whole background story):
* DO THE PARENTS NOT PAY US FOR THE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AND DETAILED PLANNING FOR THE SUCCESS OF THEIR GYMNAST?
* SHOULD THE GYMNAST AND/OR PARENT QUESTION THE PROGRESSIVE METHODS WE USE IN THE GYM?
* SHOULD A YOUNG TEENAGE GYMNAST BE ALLOWED TO WALK OUT OF PRACTICE IF SHE FEELS THE THINGS WE ARE WORKING DON'T APPLY TO HER OR SHE JUST PLAIN OLD DOESN'T WANT TO DO WHAT WE ARE WORKING ON?
I've dealt with difficult gymnasts/parents before, and I may be jumping the gun on this one, since we haven't played this out to the end and had a parent conference yet but here's the situation...
At the end of the competitive season we start to work on our all gym spring performance class/team routines. It takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour out of team skill practice time, usually depending on the behavior/attention span of the team on that day. For me it's a nice change of pace. We move from super picky, high consistency, super repetitive, competitive routines type practices to more creative, high energy, fun tumbling with increased conditioning and back to basic skills. This last month we also threw in some fear related challenges into the mix of things in our event training, such as toe fronts into the pit for optionals (even if they just get to their back) or jumping from low to high bar for say a Level 3 gymnast, just to give a range.
Well, we had a raving Spring Performance last Thursday, very successful and super fun, and I'm back to planning Team Practices for the month (my co-head coach and I take turns month to month). This time of year for me, like I said is back to basics, before school ends and I start loosing chunks of girls at a time to summer vacations. Emphasis for this month will be ballet/dance basics (toe point technique, tendu, rond de jambe, develope, grand battemattes, plies for leg strength and landings, arm work, turnout and posture... the basics of the basics. I don't use standard ballet music to try and keep things interesting, after all we are just gymnasts.
For event training and conditioning it will be core strength, leg turnout and quad work (keeping with the ballet), lots of shaping and a few step up skills we are struggling with to keep practice interesting (such as, cast HS on high bar, giants, backhandsprings on beam, and twisiting on floor for the optionals). That should give you some ground work to the atmosphere of practice. I planned on ballet for this week, jazz for next week and then bring the elements we learned in our dance room into our all team warm up that we already have set to music (it already incorporates all this stuff into a warm up setting, but right now everyone is slopping through).
Yesterday, the first day of this, I had a whopping 3 out of 12 Level 5+ show up to practice. (Ooops, out spit some rant.) Two of the three are in depsperate need of posture and toes point work, so this lesson specially applied to them. The third was my teenage Level 7 gymnast who felt none of this applied to her or gymnastics, she felt it was all hurting her knees (all we were doing was tendu at the time, slide foot out, point it to the floor, with leg straight) and without consulting me called her mom to say they weren't practicing anything worthwhile could she go home. We only spent 40 minutes in the dance room! After the dance session they went to beam with the other team coach which she reported all she got from our Optional was excuses about the session of ballet made her legs worthless and she couldn't get through anything, including the backhandspring that she so desperately needs (but that's another story). Same story when she went to bars. Bad attitude, complaints, can't do anything, etc.
Now, these other two compulsory gymnasts look up to her. One was trying so hard to be diligent, the other and younger one (only 9) was following along right in the "not taking practice seriously" category of our optional. ATTITUDE CANCER! Usually we would continue to hash this out with the gymnasts throughout practices, and here is where I might be jumping the gun because we haven't met with the parents yet, but when they called last night and supported her daughter's claim that our dance session had nothing to do with gymnastics and their daughter didn't want to do it... and they've scheduled private lessons even though she won't finish a complete workout with her team. I'M HAVING POTENTIONAL ISSUES!!!!!!
My workout plan is sound for all involved. True, some need it more than others, and this Optional, dance-wise, is fairly decent, but can still benefit from the reminders of posture, soft arms, landing through the feet, etc. Not to mention the plan ends with cleaning up our All Team Warm Up so we are ALL on the same page as to what is expected during the warm up.
Anyhow, I tried not to rant, and rationalize in writing instead. It helps me at least, and I haven't been able to get it off my mind since.
Input.....