WAG Gym/Pre Team Requirements?

[ntxgymmom]

My DD is 6 and was in a Rec Beginner class for a year and a half at a large, competitive gym. They would frequently evaluate her for Pre Team or moving her up to Level 3 but always said she wasn't ready. She has her pullover, hip circle, RO and bridge kickover. She has excellent lines and pays perfect attention in class. However, they always refused to move her up, saying she wasn't ready. I was constantly made to feel like "that mom" because I wanted more for her.

We recently moved a few hours away to a much smaller, less competitive gym. They placed her in the Rec Beginner class because of her age and after 2 weeks the team coach said that they were starting a Pre Team in a month or so and they want her to join.

Why is there so much inconsistency between gyms? Is it going to be this way going forward? I am a distance runner and am really appreciating how straight forward that sport is now. I wish gymnastics was the same way. I feel like I'm always in the dark.

 

[John]

My DD is 6 and was in a Rec Beginner class for a year and a half at a large, competitive gym. They would frequently evaluate her for Pre Team or moving her up to Level 3 but always said she wasn't ready. She has her pullover, hip circle, RO and bridge kickover. She has excellent lines and pays perfect attention in class. However, they always refused to move her up, saying she wasn't ready. I was constantly made to feel like "that mom" because I wanted more for her.

We recently moved a few hours away to a much smaller, less competitive gym. They placed her in the Rec Beginner class because of her age and after 2 weeks the team coach said that they were starting a Pre Team in a month or so and they want her to join.

Why is there so much inconsistency between gyms? Is it going to be this way going forward? I am a distance runner and am really appreciating how straight forward that sport is now. I wish gymnastics was the same way. I feel like I'm always in the dark.

Welcome to gymnastics. DD has trained at two gyms. The first gym had a list of skills posted that were needed to move from level to level. This seemed reasonable, but the list was never followed. Exceptions were made to keep girls down and also to allow girls to move up. The current gym is coaches discretion, and in reality so was the first gym. Moral of the story is the good coaches know what they are doing, attempt to open a line of communication with your DD's coaches. If you determine the coach/gym are not a good fit for your DD look at new gyms. When you find the gym that just right, sit back and enjoy your DD's growth.

 

[Mamabear123]

I think 5 & 6 are pretty typical ages for pre team so the other gym might have moved her to pre-team soon. With that said, no to gyms are alike in my opinion. Different gyms have different end goals. This sport is so complex because there are so many different paths and experiences that each gymnast can have.

 

[ntxgymmom]

I think 5 & 6 are pretty typical ages for pre team so the other gym might have moved her to pre-team soon.

It's interesting that you say that. When the team coach found out that she was 6, she said "Oh I didn't realize she was already 6." I didn't think to ask how she meant it, but it sounded like a negative thing. I've been trying really hard not to compare her to other gymnasts and just enjoy the ride but it's hard when you hear things like that.

 

[Mamabear123]

It's interesting that you say that. When the team coach found out that she was 6, she said "Oh I didn't realize she was already 6." I didn't think to ask how she meant it, but it sounded like a negative thing. I've been trying really hard not to compare her to other gymnasts and just enjoy the ride but it's hard when you hear things like that.

The coach might have thought your DD was younger so they expected to move her along a little slower; because in order to compete level 3, you have to be a least 6 years old. With her already being 6, they might want to track her a little quicker if they see the potential.

 

[ayyyrial]

Unfortunately each gym in the U.S. has different selection criteria for pre-team and team. Usually they have a list of skills that need to be achieved (maybe also expecting a certain level of consistency or mastery), plus behavioral factors (fearlessness, paying attention and following directions), plus maybe physical traits like body type and strength/flexibility - and age is often a consideration as well.

Age can go both ways as well - some gyms only want kids below a certain age to be on pre-team, but they would also need the child to be old enough for the class to be age-appropriate. E.g. I had a 4-year-old in a pre-K class once who had a lot of the skills needed for pre-team or even level 3. I'm not kidding...it's like something off of CGM YouTube, but she could do a pull-over, back hip circle, good cartwheels, and a backbend kickover completely by herself (I didn't do bridges with kids that young, but she came into the class already knowing it and wanted to show me), and a passable handstand, and had pretty good form. But there was no way we were going to move her into the pre-pre-team because she was just too young for that class to make sense. She stayed in the least popular time slot for my class so that she could get a lot of individualized attention that would also be age-appropriate.

 

[sce]

Pre-team jeans different things at different t gyms. Some gyms start competing at level 1 or 2, and gyms do have different standards for team and moving level to level.

 

[honu]

Our older DD did XC and track and my husband loves to comment how easy those were to understand. Older DD either ran faster or slower than the other person.

Gymnastics is so different and gyms can vary greatly in their approach and philosophies. Our younger DD started rec classes at 5 years old. That gym preferred girls to be older for team and rarely placed anyone under 8 years old on team. It was a slow progression with 1 year in rec, 1 year in Advance something, and 2 years on pre-team/development. The gym was large and had several development teams that could lead to placement on the Excel or JO. After 2 years on developmental team, the gym placed my DD on Excel. DD was crushed because she wanted more hours and to be on the JO team. She is an assertive kid and she had even asked her coaches about her skills and ability to move to JO. Her coaches assured her she had the skills to move to the JO program. Well, in that gym the owner not the coaches made the final decisions and he placed her on Excel. DD (at 8 years old) asked owner for feedback because she was so confused and bummed about not joining JO. He mentioned numbers and only so many spots on JO and that is was nothing skillwise or specific to her. Well, I told DD if she really wanted JO I could look at other gyms and schedule an evaluation. We found another gym nearby that got her in for an evaluation. She was immediately placed in their JO program. The coach there also made a comment on well prepared she was with skills, strength and flexibility. Plus for that gym, DD was a bit older for team. They often had 6 or 7 year olds on team. The other gym was not really a super competitive gym, but what they did have was a huge number of girls at their gym in rec programs and then a huge (60 plus) girls in their developmental program. They were simply an established gym with a location that brought in a ton of business.

Fast forward and DD will be competing level 9 this year. She absolutely loves the sport. I always think back to our original gym and I am so happy I listened to DD who at 8 years old told me it was her dream to compete in the JO program. She would not have had that opportunity if we had stayed at our original gym. So yes, gyms vary greatly and you have to do your homework. DD moved gyms again when she was level 8. We realized the gym she was at had been great at the beginning but now it was not the right fit. They had only one or two level 9s and they had never had a level 10 gymnast. By now we were smarter more informed gym parents, we did tons of research and found an amazing gym for her.

Sorry to be so long, but the point is the journey in gymnastics is varied and sometimes confusing. No two gyms will be the same. One gym may be great for pre-team or compulsory levels. Another gym may have a fantastic Excel or T&T program. I wish it was simpler, but you will learn as you go and you are smart for already finding this site! Lots of good info here and others with experience.

Hope your DD has fun and enjoys the pre-team program!

 

[CoachAlex]

As others have said, every gym has their own "pre-team" requirements depending on their competition team structure. There are several competitive organizations in the US, the most common being the USAG JO program, but there is also USAG Xcel, USAIGC, AAU, and then some states have their own. So a gyms pre-team requirements will depend a lot on their competition program.

Also, you stated the first gym was a large, highly competitive gym which I am assuming has a well established team program. Once a gym has a developed program and a reputation for being a strong gym, they will usually be more selective with their competition team (usually, not always).

All gyms have different philosophies when it comes to a competitive program, since you are just starting out and it sounds like your daughter likes gymnastics and is interested in competing, I would find a program in which you and your child are comfortable, the coaches know what they are doing both skill-wise and coaching young kids, and go from there.

 

[coachmolly]

It really varies- gym size, gym philosophy, competitive stream, what level they begin competing. Gyms with a strong focus on developing elite/level 10 kids will often be more selective than gyms who are training kids for Xcel or with an end goal of high school gym. And some gyms just have some strange and arbitrary criteria that need to be met (skills, age, personality, body type). And a gym only taking the youngest, smallest, most skilled kids into their pre-team program is not necessarily indicative of a top notch competitive team.
I coach at a very small gym with a very small team so we are pretty selective in some sense because we need to keep numbers down. I don't coach many recreational classes, so I rely on feedback from the rec coaches and will then watch the child. If I'm interested and we have space, I talk to the parent right away. If we don't have a space open at the moment, I will make a note and send an invite when a space opens up. I think the biggest indicator of success I've had so far from my pre-team kids are from those who practically beg to be there. Will send their parents to talk to me, stay after class to watch team practice, seek me out at open gyms to show me their skills, etc. So when there is a kid in the gym who really wants it, I try to make a way for them to at least give pre-team a try.

 

[Aussie_coach]

The size of the gym and the size of the team will play a big roll in the criteria for selection.

If you have a small gym with 200 kids and you have 50 kid size on team, then a kid only needs to be in the top 25% to get in. If you have a gym with 2000 kids and only 50 spots on the team then only the top 2.5% will make it. That translates to a very different selection standard.

Also a lot more than skill goes into selecting gymnasts for team. Gyms may look for a variety of criteria including age of gymnast, height of gymnast, height of gymnasts parents, body type, weight, natural strength, natural flexibility, natural speed, focus, courage, personality, effort in class etc.

So first of all many gyms won't publish their selection criteria because it is very subjective. It is not as simple as saying - the kid gets on team if they can do a kip and a round off. Things like courage and coaching ility are hard to measure. A parent may feel like their child has this but a gym may not feel the same way.

Secondly a lot of aspects of selection for team may be completely out of the control of the gymnast such as age, body type and height. Meaning no matter what that gymnast does they won't be selected. The gym is not nessesarily going to tell you that. They are a business and they need to make money, gyms with competitive teams make their money from the recreational kids. If they tell them they will never be selected for team when they know it is the goal of the gymnast they may lose the gymnast from the gym. Sure they may lose the, anyway when it takes to long to be accepted but not as fast if the kid thinks they have a chance. So they tell people they are not ready.

Thirdly, there is controversy in some of the selection criteria. For example weight. A very large number of gyms would look at things like weight when selecting a child and it's illegal to discriminate against poeple for factors such as weight. Butnthe reality is that gymnastics is a hard sport that puts very high demands on the body, with constant landings and pressure on the bones and joints. A young child has an immature skeleton and if they are carrying too much weight then stress injuries will often occur. It is also much harder to develop the strength to body weight ratio nessesary for learning advanced skills. Again this is probably not the case for your child but my point is, in certain situations they will say a gymnast is not ready in order to avoid saying something that could be construed as innaprpriate.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Yes, its always going to be that way.

Gyms have their own requirements for who competes and at what level. You find the gym that works best for you and yours.

This is a sport where unlike track where the best time wins, things can be decided in a back room.

Women's gymnastics Olympic Trials. Only the the 1st place finisher is guaranteed a spot. The rest of the team is decided in a back room based on what the coaches feel is best.

 

[e'smum]

we've been at the same gym since she's started. don't get me wrong, it's a great gym. coaches are awesome. but i swear the requirements for moving up changes yearly. lol . and i don't think it's the coaches fault. i feel like each year the skills advance more (dd is doing skills in lvl 7 that when i first saw a lvl 7 meet 3 years ago, only a couple of kids were doing). so each year, they have to evaluate skills needed in order to keep the gymnasts on track with other gyms we compete with. i feel like each year there's a new set of rules for skills. lol . it's probably not like that but there are subtle changes. it's the nature of the beast!

 

[thefellowsmom]

I think this is totally true. Each year the skills to be competitive seem to get harder and harder. Not a change in requirement but definitely what it takes to win. It naturally gets harder and harder to move up as you go through optionals so this transition period is certainly adding to the excitement!

We have been in several gyms in the same area and now have friends at several more and it is interesting to hear the stores and get the feel of how each gym works. All work totally different and pull kids into team on different tracks and certainly call them different things.

Some have structured development programs with team development levels from age three. I will say these are what I would consider the strongest gyms with the highest quality of gymnastics. We fell into this type of program luckily, but that would be something I would be looking for if I had a young one with goals of team.

Other gyms have tryouts and others have rec and then preteam or even just pull from the high rec levels. Every gym is different. The gym that we were at that pulled mostly from rec had a very different philosophy than what I had experienced. Their team was much larger and more diverse in skill level, age of gymnast relative tomlevel etc. This was great for a lot of families and kids but my daughter found she needed more than what they could offer her.

Then there is different ways of tracking team kids, whether excel or jo and such. First gym broke them up during the preteam process (at that gym that meant the year before they start competing). Current gym competes most kids through JO level 3 and then tracks the kids to excel or JO. This early development definitely leads to great excel gymnasts. These girls are great and might be on a JO team at a different gym. Some kids leave for different gyms at 'this point for that reason. They are just very picky about who they invite to the level 4-10 team.

I remember when we used to compete against them in old level four and they had so many kids and were so strong and organized. We always felt a little bit like the bad new bear team. But then at the levels above that there weren't nearly as many kids and of course all kinds of rumors flew around about why. Now we know and I get it. Both excel and JO team are very strong.

After rambling on, sorry, I guess the take away is that they all have different philosophies and ways of doing things and usually good reason for doing so that match their overall philosophy for their upper level teams. It may not make sense, certainly not to new parents. Ask around if you have questions. Most teams don't openly talk about how team works, weird but true although there are exceptions. I think it is a protection mechanism. Parents can be nutty.

 

[2gymkids]

Gymnastics is crazy. Every gym is very different and often the rules change or never made sense to begin with, lol. You may as well accept that now or it's going to be a long ride.
As long as your child is at a gym where they care about her as a person, she is making consistent progress (which will be sometimes two steps forward, one step back), she is generally enjoying gymnastics, and you trust the coaches to keep her best interest at heart, do your best to sit back and enjoy it and try not to get caught up in the crazy decision making process. It will just drive you crazy trying to figure it all out!

 

[Aussie_coach]

It is also absolutely normal to have selection criteria change from year to year. For a start the kids change from year to year. For example in our gym we happen to have a lot of super talented kids born in 2008, so if you have moderate talent and were born in 2008 it is much harder to get a spot.

 

[SurpriseGymMom]

I think it is natural for requirements to be different between gyms, as well as change and evolve within gyms. As the person who selects kids for the preteam/developmental team I have certainly revised my criteria and process the past few years. I work within what our team program as a whole is doing, and right now that is getting younger, more aggressive talent. A few years ago I would have taken an 8-9yo with suitable skills to get ready for L3 the following year, today I would place that same kid in Xcel instead. I absolutely believe that there is a spot for almost every kid in some sort of competitive gymnastics, but the requirements do certainly seem to get tougher at a younger age these days. To be honest, I am not sure my own daughter (currently a 13-yo L8) would have squeeked by at the current state, she would have probably been slated for Xcel (and would probably had a blast with that as well!).

 

[AlijahsMom]

Age can go both ways as well - some gyms only want kids below a certain age to be on pre-team, but they would also need the child to be old enough for the class to be age-appropriate. E.g. I had a 4-year-old in a pre-K class once who had a lot of the skills needed for pre-team or even level 3. I'm not kidding...it's like something off of CGM YouTube, but she could do a pull-over, back hip circle, good cartwheels, and a backbend kickover completely by herself (I didn't do bridges with kids that young, but she came into the class already knowing it and wanted to show me), and a passable handstand, and had pretty good form. But there was no way we were going to move her into the pre-pre-team because she was just too young for that class to make sense. She stayed in the least popular time slot for my class so that she could get a lot of individualized attention that would also be age-appropriate.

I feel like you're practically talking about my kiddo. Although, she's only 2.5. She's not as advanced as you mentioned, but I wouldn't be shocked if she is by that age. She goes to class 3x a week. 2 mom and me and 1 private. The groups are for her sensory needs. She has a lot less sensory seeking and maladaptive behaviors on gym days to begin with. The privates were originally to work on her listening skills in a sensory-rich environment.

What she's lacking through developmental delays (speech delay, speech processing delays and sensory seeking issues, along with severe aggression and social skill issues), she completely makes up for in her athletic abilities.

She was practically born with a 6 pack. Had a 10 second flexed arm hang at 6 months, now around 30 seconds before she starts goofing off. She has had underweight issues since birth, yet gained 4 lbs. in a month of starting gym, and it's all muscle. She also is ridiculously flexible and has great balance for her age.

Within the first month of her just being in toy class she had one of the (what I'm assuming from what observed) elite level coaches comment on how he's noticed her and her strength/abilities. He even joked about elite tracking her now. Her private coached has already started talking about putting her into the special conditioning class a year early (3.5 vs. 4.5) because she's already at around a 4-5 strength level. And they're not just some overly excited coaches. They're a well established high achieving school, with multiple Olympian alumni.

Basically though, my point of responding to this comment in particular is to point out that not all CGM's are purposely CGM's. I want to avoid becoming one at all costs (I taught Tae Kwon Do for years, and boy, if you think gymnastics attracted the crazies...). Ur there's absolutely no denying my kid has unnatural abilities, every coach that even just sees her comments on her and most of the other parents. Now how far she'll go? That depends on her.

Also, if you've ever seen the old TLC special on the strongest toddler ever (or something like that, his name is Liam Hoekstra), that's basically my kid, but I can verify it. My sister even joked about it within minutes of her being born because she was so muscular. Whether she has a myostatin deficiency though, we do not know yet.

 

[josie55]

@AlijahsMom that is fascinating and I really hope you keep the board updated on your dd's journey! I love how you say:

not all CGM's are purposely CGM's

I truly believe that the parent's don't come into the sport crazy, but the sport makes them (us?) that way. Our kids are being constantly assessed, which is weird in and of itself. In addition, they/we are putting large amount of resources into the sport, and it becomes a large part of our lives, so naturally we want to make sure we are making the right choices, even though most of the time we feel like our choices/control are pretty limited.

It takes a lot of mental skills and strength to ensure that we as parents keep a healthy mindset through it all, and CB really helps with that. In your case, having a kid who is particularly special and having her unique attributes pointed out regularly, you will have to work extra hard to keep from becoming a CGM. It sounds like you're already doing this, so congrats!

 

[Deleted member 18037]

I truly believe that the parent's don't come into the sport crazy, but the sport makes them (us?) that way

Oh I completely disagree.

There is a C*P- crazy *pick your sport/activity parent type.

It's just a question of where they show up and where they were before and where they move onto.

There are blogs that talk about them. Changing The Game Project comes to mind.

There have been countless TV reality shows about them. Think Dance Moms and Toddlers and Tiaras.

You see the Crazy Dad Coaches, every weekend on the soccer, baseball and basketball courts and fields. Signs posted all over the place about how the grownups should behave.

Stage moms, at schools and on and on.

It's a definite personality type. Relatively easy to spot. And they show themselves rather quickly