L10 Floor Scoring Question

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LMV

Proud Parent
L10 Floor Scoring Question
How would this routine score? [A numerical estimate is kind of what I’m looking for and also if you want to give a little breakdown on where the huge composition deductions and the execution/artistry that are probably inherent because of how the routine is put together.]

Start-Pose
Run (into tumbling)
T1-Barani-Whip-BLO with 2 twists (down one diagonal)
T2-Punch FT-FLO-FLO Full (back up the same diagonal)
1½ Turn with 1 leg horizontal into…(keeping leg extended)
T3-Front Walkover-Front Aerial-Front Aerial (heading back to the corner)
L1-Switch Side Leap-Straddle Leap Full-Chasse Chasse-Tour jete to ring (across the floor width wise)
T4-RO-Whip-Stretched Double Back (up the other diagonal which has been ignored until now)
Pose-Finish

*For the sake of discussion:
-You can presume that the tumbling is without deduction [although I realize that our daughter is human and thus when she competes that will probably not be the case especially since there is much more tumbling than she needs and theoretically it can all incur a deduction]
-You can presume that this routine will somehow take her thirty seconds so no short routine penalty. I believe her coach timed it at thirty five seconds when she ran through it the last time with him.
-Presume that the routine fits with the music [because the music will fit the routine by the time my husband is done playing with it]. As an aside, I know this is not what is usually done but is it unethical to do it this way? [Her coach feels it isn’t ideal but it isn’t really much different than what some choreographers do when they ask for music to be reworked for them. If this is the consensus I’m ok with this, if the consensus is otherwise it’s probably another argument for why don’t we just have her scratch floor for awhile? I don‘t want to give her the idea that it‘s ok to cheat but I‘m ok with us adapting this to what she is able to do because that is sort of the point of optionals.]
-It is my impression that this routine meets all L10 requirements and has sufficient difficulty and connections for a 10.0 start value. Her head coach is usually good with this and he didn’t mention it was missing anything but if there is something missing then you can certainly point that out.
-I know this is not ideal [her coach is well aware of this too] and there really isn’t any choreography but this what she is able to do at this point. Anything outside of this leads to a lot of floundering and drowning.
-If you judge L10 and you happen to come across this routine please forget I posted this and try to give her the benefit of the doubt [I’m not asking for sympathy just as much benefit of the doubt as you would give any other gymnast who’s mom hadn’t spilled the secrets behind her routine on a message board]


For the record, I’m asking this not because we don’t trust her coach. However, I do worry he may be a little optimistic about how this will be received. Her coach has been great at adapting to her challenges and limitations and just focusing on the positive. I think within this context if her dad or I express that we are making the decision she is going to just not compete floor for awhile they would respect it [and perhaps even agree we were right] but they won’t deny her this opportunity outright if we don’t. Hence, we would like a little more information so we can try to make the right decision for her overall. At the end of the day, scores are not the important thing but I think if her floor score is really low then that may lead to enough negative attention to be upsetting for her. In this case it might also be hard for her to qualify for regionals even if she did very well on the other three events and it might be more fair to allow her to compete as an event specialist this year while continuing to train floor with plans to compete it again when she is ready. It won’t be the end of the world if she misses regionals her first year at L10 either but I sort of feel like since she missed her L9 state meet [and thus an opportunity for regionals and semi-nats] due to a conflicting prior family commitment perhaps we shouldn’t send her into another season knowing that she probably won’t get to do any of the really big meets at the end.

I also know that we still have three months until her first meet and then another five months until states and regionals probably. She could [and I hope she will] be in a very different place by then and perhaps she will be able to deal with a floor routine that looks more like what other girls are doing and I’m sure her coaches will happily go with that if it’s possible. At the moment she is training temporarily at a different gym which adds another layer to all of this as well [and also means that any attempts at actually choreographing a real floor routine won’t happen until she returns to her regular gym]. We’re hoping that will be some time in October but it may be later than that.

Thanks in advance!
 
I'm not really getting what you're asking here...if the routine meets all the L10 "requirements" and in theory, has no deductions for execution, then it should be able to get a decent score ....and with her other 3 events, she should be able to qualify to States (a 32 in our State) and Regionals (34) ...I don't understand why your husband fine tunes the routine either (is he a coach or choreographer?) ...
 
Are you talking about having a routine with basically no choreography?

I would personally pick music 50-60 seconds in length, place chasses, hops, chaine turns and poses in as filler which as the season progresses gets switched for more creative movement. This would allow a little more time for 'rest' between tumbles.
 
I'm not really getting what you're asking here...if the routine meets all the L10 "requirements" and in theory, has no deductions for execution, then it should be able to get a decent score ....and with her other 3 events, she should be able to qualify to States (a 32 in our State) and Regionals (34) ...I don't understand why your husband fine tunes the routine either (is he a coach or choreographer?) ...

It is my understanding that a routine that has nothing but four tumbling passes and a leap series will incur some composition deductions as there isn't any additional choreography/dance. Additionally this probably sets up artistry deductions as there really isn't much opportunity to demonstrate artistry.

As for my husband, he's an attorney and a musician. He and our oldest daughter did record the music she used for L8/L9. They started from a piece our daughter was working on which her little sister thought was cool and would be neat to use. They did some adapting and her coach was ok with the finished product. This year her coach specifically asked him to do this for her because it's hard to find anything that fits as there isn't any choreography.
 
Are you talking about having a routine with basically no choreography?

I would personally pick music 50-60 seconds in length, place chasses, hops, chaine turns and poses in as filler which as the season progresses gets switched for more creative movement. This would allow a little more time for 'rest' between tumbles.

What I listed above is the planned routine from start to finish, so, essentially, yes. What you're suggesting sounds simple but is a bit beyond something she is actually able to do. My sense is that this is a good reason to just scratch floor and the more I think about this I think maybe I just need to be a mom and make that decision for her [unless some miracle occurs and she is capable of pulling things together].
 
I judge under the FIG code (1.3 in artistry deductions!) so I guess you will need to wait for someone else to let you know what specifically your DD could loose points for. If it is a memory issue, It would seem difficult doing a short routine then having to change it completely. If it is an endurance issue then I guess scratching might be a better option. If confidence is the problem, using dance elements and modifying them might be the way to go.
 
it's a 10.0 start value. the rest is anyones guess until she competes.
 
I judge under the FIG code (1.3 in artistry deductions!) so I guess you will need to wait for someone else to let you know what specifically your DD could loose points for. If it is a memory issue, It would seem difficult doing a short routine then having to change it completely. If it is an endurance issue then I guess scratching might be a better option. If confidence is the problem, using dance elements and modifying them might be the way to go.

Thanks for your input. She has a lot of underlying self esteem and insecurity issues and we're working on that with her and have been since she came to live with us. Since then I’ve learned a lot and I’ve come to realize that the gym has become her safe place and that to her life makes a lot more sense if she is swinging bars so I’ve tried to respect this and take it into consideration when I’m making decisions on her behalf. Ultimately I can’t endorse anything I feel is unsafe but I think I have gotten a little better at making allowing her to continue with gymnastics a priority as long it doesn’t interfere with her health and overall well being. She very much wants to compete. She is excited about bars and getting to do her big vault and she does well with these events because she can take a deep breath and execute and even smile when it's over. Even with beam she is solid usually because it is just one skill connected to another skill and there really isn't much artistry required.
 
well, she has enough to break a 9.2 by my estimation. all things being equal and she makes the same mistakes that everyone tends to make. 9.2 is pretty good nowadays.:)
 
Here are a couple "stylish" old men's routines - maybe she could learn some of these moves? A little more toward the acro side but maybe it would be some progress.

http://youtu.be/R1yDeJLT6tU

http://youtu.be/9jw35jiaVtY

It sounds like if she will go out and compete a routine even minus choreography, that's something, and maybe progress can be incremental from there. Avoiding it all together may not be best - maybe doing a really good job and nailing the tumbling will give her the confidence to add in some choreography.
 
What level is she already?

If she's still a 9, why not keep her a 9 and not have to worry about the jump to 10 if she's having ongoing self esteem and confidence issues. Even with those issues, I think she could still have a little bit of dance/artistry in her routine...there are plenty of girls out there who think they can dance and aren't that strong in the dance portion of their routine so she doesn't have to be a great dancer , just have something to go along with the tumbling (and satisfy the requirements) ...
 
that^^^with the exception of the top 3 at nationals, the girls have great tumbling and just good dance...if that's what you call it anymore. the code is screwy and we now call it "good choreography".:)
 
Gymdog,

As far as where she is, it’s hard to explain. I think sheis in a better place now than she was a few months ago but, honestly, she was probably struggling less in January than she is now so it’s hard to focus on some recent progress. One of her biological parents spent most of the spring thwarting orders of protection and stalking her. Eventually the judge modified the protective order, made it beyond enforceable, and things settled down. Unfortunately this and the original abuse led to quite severe PTSD and chronic horrible nightmares. Throughout this she seemed to do a lot better in the gym than many other places and so we realized that perhaps pulling her out of gymnastics would be a bad idea. Her coach agreed with this and he really did work with us through the later spring and this summer [which we appreciate immensely].

We really tried [and we think she really tried] with TF-CBT but we finally accepted that she needed something more than twice a week therapy. She is currently doing a partial day program for PTSD [which uses a TF-CBT model and is very parent collaborative which she needs] and this does seem to be helping even though I miss her and her dad terribly. We weren’t able to find what she needed anywhere nearby but did manage to find a program out of state so she and her dad have been living down there so she can do this. [I went to medical school in the same area so we do still own another home there, it could be worse I suppose.] Her coach here has a friend who owns a gym down there and he worked things out so she could train there in the mornings before going to her partial program. Apparently they both borrowed most of their coaching strategies from their college coach so there is familiarity and her dad thinks it is going ok. I think that finding a way to let her continue to train has helped her be in a better place to really work hard with everything else as well.

Originally her coach felt that she would just use her L9 routine for L10 but they would alter the tumbling slightly. He told us he would do this so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting a new routine because he didn’t want to put extra pressure on her. It was a nice thought. He realized over the summer that she was going to have a really hard time with that which led to the routine I posted which is basically all tumbling with a leap series. She can do that routine because it’s like the other events where all she has to do is execute skills. It’s very concrete and she can do that. It’s the abstract which she has trouble with. I think it all goes back to the PTSD along with the self esteem and insecurity issues. At the moment I’m praying that she will recover from the PTSD and that eventually she will heal enough that it all settles out. Her therapist thought that a lot of the insecurity was just going to be reality until we could finalize the adoption and I’m not sure I disagree. Unfortunately, because one biological parent is determined to drag out the TPR as long as possibly possible, we haven’t been able to do that yet.

She clearly does want to continue with competitive gymnastics. Her coach specifically told her that it would be ok to take a break from competing and just train and that sometimes that is the best thing someone can do. This actually is a gym philosophy and certain levels [ie L7] are actually considered more training levels where the focus is on competing enough to stay sharp while focusing on maintaining skills progressions through the season to be ready for the jump to the next level. However, with how everything did play out for her, he actually wondered if perhaps he had sent some mixed messages and wanted to clear that up. His sense is that she can compete very well on bars, vault, and beam because she has the skills and she can just take and deep breath and execute. He thinks she takes pride in the vault she worked so hard on and in hitting all her handstands on bars so he feels allowing her to compete is positive. I tend to agree. You may be right that the best idea is to just let her do a watered down floor routine for now to let her do something.

Thank you for the links to the men’s tumbling. I will show them to our daughter because I think she would think they were neat and I do think that it would be much easier for her to incorporate some basic acro than to add in thirty seconds of moving to the music. So perhaps this could be the first step and then she can work from there. I know they were playing around with some of this over the summer but then I guess the front walkover into the aerials fit better with the turn. She had this kind of slow and exaggerated split cartwheel that she did and went down into a split right after landing but they didn‘t use that for some reason. My SIL also said that it might be neat for her to just pick a few of the yoga positions she likes and put them in. It would be different from what other kids are doing and it would break up the tumbling [and I think this might be enough like just another skill that it could work]. I also think the “floor pommel” in the first routine looks kind of cool [although maybe not for an eleven year old little girl].
 
If she's still a 9, why not keep her a 9 and not have to worry about the jump to 10 if she's having ongoing self esteem and confidence issues. Even with those issues, I think she could still have a little bit of dance/artistry in her routine...there are plenty of girls out there who think they can dance and aren't that strong in the dance portion of their routine so she doesn't have to be a great dancer , just have something to go along with the tumbling (and satisfy the requirements) ...

I realize that it probably sounds like the solution is to just repeat L9 but:
-She now has a nice Tsuk layout full for vault. Her coach feels she is ready to compete it and she desperately wants to compete it. She would not be allowed to compete this vault if she repeated L9. She also has a Yurchenko full [in the tucked position] which I think may be ok at L9 but she really prefers the Tsuk entry and worked very hard to get her layout full.
-In L9 they are only allowed one D skill per routine so she was limited in what she could do for bars last year. I believe that her planned L10 bars routine would not start above an 8.0 because of the incurred deductions for extra D/E skills. Actually it may even start lower than that because I think with a D dismount she would also lose credit for the dismount special requirement.
-Most importantly, according to her coach, he doesn’t see why she wouldn’t have the same challenges with L9 floor that she is having with L10. In his opinion there isn’t a difference in artistry expectations or potential deductions between L9/L10. If she didn’t have the tumbling difficulty it would make sense to repeat L9 and just take the time to let her mature into the tumbling. However, she seems to have tumbling that is up to the accepted L10 standard. She has gotten her double back into a layout position and she had a very nice front full and a back layout with two twists in L9 that she will be able to use for L10 this year. She has also been working the double twist for her front full since sometime last winter, according to her coach she has the rotation part down and has been getting them into the pit but she is still learning how to control the extra speed and power she generates with the second twist. He made the executive decision to take a step back with this and let her grow a little more before they try to come out of the pit with the skill. I have no idea really [I was a soccer brat from age five throughout college when I like to think I grew up so this is all new] but this sounded like a logical approach. In general her coach seems to be very proactive and cautious with skills. His approach is to work progressions, pieces, and drills until he is confident that they will be successful, then he lets them try “for realâ€￾ [and then they move forward to fix the little finer nuances and develop muscle memory].
-It is less that she thinks she can’t dance and more that performing is something she can’t really do. Bars and vault don’t really require performance just technique and execution of skills she is comfortable with and honestly enjoys.
 
LMV - she will be in my thoughts and I'm so glad you guys are going to such great lengths to provide these resources for her. It is kind of a nightmare but your commitment is apparent and I hope that the love will prevail in the end. Thinking good thoughts the the TPR goes through and the adoption is finalized. Such a talented child, I am sure she has a bright future...even if she just remains competitive on vault and bars, that is a fine track to be on.
 
Now see that is a routine she could do. ;)

the more you write the more i learn about your situation. it's remarkable to me that she can still train/focus and do just some of the skills that she is doing.
 

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