Okay guys please bear with me as I know this issue has been discussed ad nauseam, but I'd love your take on our situation now. And I will apologize up front for being so verbose, but I feel like the more information you have, the better you can comment.
I'm the aunt, but in our family there's a village raising our one and only dear sweet gym girl. I'm actually the one paying for the bulk of her gym expenses and I played a big role in picking our current gym. My sister resides full time in East TN while I am bi-coastal. My niece is 4 years old (will be 5 in August but will not start kindergarten this year due to birth date). We started her in her current gym back in September. She was immediately put into Advanced Kindergym which as they explained is pre-team prep. This was her first good gymnastics training place and she has excelled pretty well. The whole focus of this class was to build strength and to condition. She still can't get completely over on a standing cartwheel due to her tiny stature (34 inches and 33 pounds), but she shows some promise and goes over very well on a running cartwheel. I'm not going to say she's a future Olympian, but I think she is the right size and flexibility to pursue the sport perhaps for at least college.
The niece loves her teacher and loves the gym, but the gym only does Xcel. From a business standpoint I understand why they only do Xcel. It keeps more girls involved. I will also go on record as saying I'm very impressed with the gym staff from the owner on down, and I feel good about the choice in sending her there last year. Unfortunately when we made that choice we hadn't found Chalk Bucket and did not know the in's and out's of JO vs. Xcel. Now that I've read on here I find myself worried that this gym won't give her the foundation she needs should she decide later that she wants to pursue NCAA gymnastics.
I know the first thing anyone is going to say is "She's only 4 so why rush it?" because that's also what my sister says I think my sister is also afraid she will regress with a new teacher because she's so taken with the ones she has at her current gym.
There are only 2 gyms I've found in the area that do JO compulsories. One is a non-starter at this time because it's a lot farther to drive, and they have over 100 gymnasts. We'd look at that down the line, but not at this point. The other gym has a good reputation, but we did try it before choosing the current gym and it did not seem like a good fit for the preschool program.
She was invited to pre-team, but they said she's not quite strong enough yet so they sent her back. At the gym that does compulsories their pre-team is 5 year old's, but at her current gym most of the girls were 7 so of course she's not strong enough. And we don't disagree with the decision at all based on the current makeup of the group and her tiny stature. The girl is likely to be going to kindergarten in a car seat. LOL
I wa0nt to make it clear that I'm not having these thoughts because she was sent back It's not a "take my ball and go home" childish reaction. If they did compulsories this discussion would not even be happening. But since they don't, I'm wondering if it's a good time to switch gyms.
So my concerns are as follows:
1 How detrimental is it to leave her in and Xcel only program for her gymnastics growth?
2. Is it possible she will end up bored repeating advanced kindergym because they don't spend a lot of time doing skills (and she was showing signs of boredom in the spring - to the point that she wondered off a few times)? Once September rolls around, they don't take new girls in pre-team until the following June so she would be locked out of pre-team for 9 months at any gym if the move isn't done soon.
3. Would adding a second maybe tumbling only class be a good alternative to make up for possible boredom and give her a chance to improve her floor work to get her more ready for pre-team next year?
I'm an over-thinker I know, but I want to give her the best possible foundation so she will have every opportunity possible for her when it's time for her to make the decision for herself. And I'm afraid not putting her in with a compulsory program will be setting her up to fail. This is not something I want to do.
And one final statement, in no way am I saying she must do gymnastics and must pursue Stanford. We're not setting a path for her to follow, but I believe it is the parents' (or village's in our case) job to lay the foundation so if she has that dream she's ready to pursue it. Make sense?
Would love to hear from parents, especially those local who might be more familiar with local gyms and opinions on them.
I'm the aunt, but in our family there's a village raising our one and only dear sweet gym girl. I'm actually the one paying for the bulk of her gym expenses and I played a big role in picking our current gym. My sister resides full time in East TN while I am bi-coastal. My niece is 4 years old (will be 5 in August but will not start kindergarten this year due to birth date). We started her in her current gym back in September. She was immediately put into Advanced Kindergym which as they explained is pre-team prep. This was her first good gymnastics training place and she has excelled pretty well. The whole focus of this class was to build strength and to condition. She still can't get completely over on a standing cartwheel due to her tiny stature (34 inches and 33 pounds), but she shows some promise and goes over very well on a running cartwheel. I'm not going to say she's a future Olympian, but I think she is the right size and flexibility to pursue the sport perhaps for at least college.
The niece loves her teacher and loves the gym, but the gym only does Xcel. From a business standpoint I understand why they only do Xcel. It keeps more girls involved. I will also go on record as saying I'm very impressed with the gym staff from the owner on down, and I feel good about the choice in sending her there last year. Unfortunately when we made that choice we hadn't found Chalk Bucket and did not know the in's and out's of JO vs. Xcel. Now that I've read on here I find myself worried that this gym won't give her the foundation she needs should she decide later that she wants to pursue NCAA gymnastics.
I know the first thing anyone is going to say is "She's only 4 so why rush it?" because that's also what my sister says I think my sister is also afraid she will regress with a new teacher because she's so taken with the ones she has at her current gym.
There are only 2 gyms I've found in the area that do JO compulsories. One is a non-starter at this time because it's a lot farther to drive, and they have over 100 gymnasts. We'd look at that down the line, but not at this point. The other gym has a good reputation, but we did try it before choosing the current gym and it did not seem like a good fit for the preschool program.
She was invited to pre-team, but they said she's not quite strong enough yet so they sent her back. At the gym that does compulsories their pre-team is 5 year old's, but at her current gym most of the girls were 7 so of course she's not strong enough. And we don't disagree with the decision at all based on the current makeup of the group and her tiny stature. The girl is likely to be going to kindergarten in a car seat. LOL
I wa0nt to make it clear that I'm not having these thoughts because she was sent back It's not a "take my ball and go home" childish reaction. If they did compulsories this discussion would not even be happening. But since they don't, I'm wondering if it's a good time to switch gyms.
So my concerns are as follows:
1 How detrimental is it to leave her in and Xcel only program for her gymnastics growth?
2. Is it possible she will end up bored repeating advanced kindergym because they don't spend a lot of time doing skills (and she was showing signs of boredom in the spring - to the point that she wondered off a few times)? Once September rolls around, they don't take new girls in pre-team until the following June so she would be locked out of pre-team for 9 months at any gym if the move isn't done soon.
3. Would adding a second maybe tumbling only class be a good alternative to make up for possible boredom and give her a chance to improve her floor work to get her more ready for pre-team next year?
I'm an over-thinker I know, but I want to give her the best possible foundation so she will have every opportunity possible for her when it's time for her to make the decision for herself. And I'm afraid not putting her in with a compulsory program will be setting her up to fail. This is not something I want to do.
And one final statement, in no way am I saying she must do gymnastics and must pursue Stanford. We're not setting a path for her to follow, but I believe it is the parents' (or village's in our case) job to lay the foundation so if she has that dream she's ready to pursue it. Make sense?
Would love to hear from parents, especially those local who might be more familiar with local gyms and opinions on them.