Parents L10 gymnast (The Reality Of College Gymnastics)

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I know it doesn't happen at nationals though
Not sure that is accurate. I have seen at least videos of girls competing at nationals with the vault my daughter does. I also know gymnasts on D1 teams who have competed it in the past.

but I understand your point and I am not arguing. If a gymnast can compete a vault with a start value of 9.9 and execute it close to perfection I think scoring a 9.7-9.8 should not be discounted.

with downgrading in NCAA vault values aren’t there many at top school not vaulting with a 10 start?
 
Not sure that is accurate. I have seen at least videos of girls competing at nationals with the vault my daughter does. I also know gymnasts on D1 teams who have competed it in the past.

but I understand your point and I am not arguing. If a gymnast can compete a vault with a start value of 9.9 and execute it close to perfection I think scoring a 9.7-9.8 should not be discounted.

with downgrading in NCAA vault values aren’t there many at top school not vaulting with a 10 start?
Ya, I'm sorry, I meant winning at nationals. I am pretty sure all the girls that won at nationals had 10 sv vaults. I know that there were plenty of girls vaulting without a 10 sv. I also understand your point. Clean gymnastics can often beat sloppy with higher skills.

Yes, at college the standard vault is the Y full which has 9.95 sv in NCAA. But pretty much all the top teams now have 4-5 vaulters doing Y1.5. (Michigan had 6) I suspect in the next 5 years Y1.5 will be even more prevalent.
 
This conversation is jumping into about 6 different topics… but I think they are all great… so discuss away. It’s a great read for anyone just wandering around the interweb that has a gymnast with high goals.
I know. I have been sharing some of this info with some of my gym mom friends (we are all struggling at the moment with a lot of the points discussed given our limitations over here), and the discussion is really eye opening. I don’t know if they will actually join CB, but we are all finding this info helpful.
 
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I will say that we got very lucky. We live just minutes from our gym and they didn't initially train elite, just started when they saw the upcoming talent. Our owners/coaches are amazing.
Incredibly lucky!! We can’t figure out the issue. I guess coaches do not want to invest the time or energy. We have interested and engaged parents. Certainly young kids at 10/11 years old who are competing level 8 and scoring well (several of our kids) have the potential to keep going, but everything just fizzles out on level 9. It is truly not the kids. I guess this is a whole other thread but I wish we had some guidance to build a program just to get these girls to 10, let alone elite.
 
Additional questions

Why let a child serious about wanting to do college gym, not be thoroughly informed about how skewed the opportunities are? So they can decide if the “cost” is worth it.

Shouldn‘t they know all the issues/pluses/minuses if they are deciding to essentially give up the rest of their childhood for gymnastics?

Shouldn‘t those conversations/re-evaluation be happening after every season?
Here’s where we are at, here is what needs to happen. Options are A,B and C. What are “we“ willing to do?
 
The topic of increasing Nationals scores comes up here on CB every few years. I used to believe that we needed to increase national qualifying score because we come from a region where girls with 37.5 would sit home but others reminded folks like me that Nationals is based on REGIONS not individuals. It is truly meant to be a competition of the regions. In order for that to happen, all regions should be properly represented, even if their competitor's are not competing as high level skills as others. Think the Olympics. Other countries compete with gymnastics who are not at the same caliber of skills as many of our gymnasts that sit home. However, given that so many college coaches want to see that "National Qualifier" on the resume and go to nationals to observe potential recruits, making it to nationals is a huge boost for some more than others.

As for regionals, I believe R8 (our region) is the only region that chose to increase their regional requirements. 35.5 for L9 and 35 for L10. Frankly I do not agree with this because not being able to place "regional qualifier" on your resume is huge especially when coaches do not realize that R8 has higher requirements. I understand why R8 increased it, due to expenses wanting to reduce the number of competitors (which it did not do significantly) but I still don't think it was right.

My idealistic viewpoint is that Elite (and training for it) is a different entity all together and should be kept separate. It is not "just" a level above L10. It takes so much more to be successful -The training is different, more intense, happens at earlier ages. However, I fully realize that this is not possible in the current system, with so few competitions and gymnasts. There must be some compromise. Aren't there "open" sessions in large meets?
 
Additional questions

Why let a child serious about wanting to do college gym, not be thoroughly informed about how skewed the opportunities are? So they can decide if the “cost” is worth it.

Shouldn‘t they know all the issues/pluses/minuses if they are deciding to essentially give up the rest of their childhood for gymnastics?

Shouldn‘t those conversations/re-evaluation be happening after every season?
Here’s where we are at, here is what needs to happen. Options are A,B and C. What are “we“ willing to do?
You’re assuming the parents haven’t been sucked into the dream first. Our gym has a whole host of just turned 8 year olds preparing to compete optionals, and training tops, who have all transitioned to homeschooling so they can get more gym hours because their kid is just so talented.

Somebody has to talk sense to the parents before the parents can talk sense to the kids. There is some serious insanity going on around me, and the kids are stuck in a level of commitment because of their parents “sacrifices” that makes them deeply unhappy
 
You’re assuming the parents haven’t been sucked into the dream first. Our gym has a whole host of just turned 8 year olds preparing to compete optionals, and training tops, who have all transitioned to homeschooling so they can get more gym hours because their kid is just so talented.

Somebody has to talk sense to the parents before the parents can talk sense to the kids. There is some serious insanity going on around me, and the kids are stuck in a level of commitment because of their parents “sacrifices” that makes them deeply unhappy
Parents are adults and should be doing their own research. It’s called “buyer beware”. My dream lasted about 30 seconds. My kid was a 38 scoring L2 on 5 hours a week.

Then I remembered she was doing a sport where the only gymnast guaranteed a spot on the Olympic team was the 1st place finisher at trials. The rest of the team was chosen in a back room. And further research (and it wasn’t hard research) I knew the odds and situation by L3.

The odds can be found rather quickly relatively speaking.

We are in a state where a 36 isn't getting you to regionals At level 7/8. Maybe at 9/10.
 
It is truly meant to be a competition of the regions. In order for that to happen, all regions should be properly represented, even if their competitor's are not competing as high level skills as others. Think the Olympics. Other countries compete with gymnastics who are not at the same caliber of skills as many of our gymnasts that sit home.
This pretty much it.

And let’s not forget, the US reserves the right to pick whoever they want for the Olympic team.
 
parents before the parents can talk sense to the kids. There is some serious insanity going on around me, and the kids are stuck in a level of commitment because of their parents “sacrifices” that makes them deeply unhappy
This is what makes me so sad. As I stated somewhere in this thread earlier it is the parents responsibility to look objectively at your child but some parents don’t want to see the realities and there are plenty of gyms out there exploiting it. I know people say team makes no money but why else do these homeschool programs exist in places that have not a shot in hell of producing. Is it the arrogance of the coaches?

my heart breaks for many of the kids I see who are unhappy but continue on.
 
Why let a child serious about wanting to do college gym, not be thoroughly informed about how skewed the opportunities are? So they can decide if the “cost” is worth it.

Shouldn‘t they know all the issues/pluses/minuses if they are deciding to essentially give up the rest of their childhood for gymnastics?
While I agree that kids and parents should be informed of just how hard it is to make a college team, the other tricky thing is that it keeps getting harder! It's kind of crazy. But one has to inform themselves on how skewed the opportunities are, and many people aren't doing that the way we chalkbucketers are.

On your second point, can we please let's stop with the "giving up the rest of their childhood for gymnastics" language? :) Not only is it inflammatory hyperbole, but it implies that there is some universal holy grail definition of childhood that doesn't actually exist. I refuse to talk about my child "sacrificing" for gymnastics. She's making a choice, and is privileged to be able to do so. She can choose to go to gymnastics instead of a football game (or not). There's nothing inherently better about a football game (or the "typical" childhood or high school experience) than gymnastics.
 
To add now that I have a kid who is competing Varsity sports. And her having friends also competing Varsity sports, I’m pretty sure we know someone in nearly every sport.

You can be a rockstar in your “section“ and in sports like gymnastics and track where you qualify individually at sectionals to advance to states. You can be a 1st place champion in your section. And be much weaker then other kids who never even qualify to go to states. And then get trounced at states by stronger sections.

That’s how it goes. All sections weak or strong get to send their best. And the best of them will finish at the top. Much like gymnastics regionals.

This is not unique to gymnastics
 
While I agree that kids and parents should be informed of just how hard it is to make a college team, the other tricky thing is that it keeps getting harder! It's kind of crazy. But one has to inform themselves on how skewed the opportunities are, and many people aren't doing that the way we chalkbucketers are.

On your second point, can we please let's stop with the "giving up the rest of their childhood for gymnastics" language? :) Not only is it inflammatory hyperbole, but it implies that there is some universal holy grail definition of childhood that doesn't actually exist. I refuse to talk about my child "sacrificing" for gymnastics. She's making a choice, and is privileged to be able to do so. She can choose to go to gymnastics instead of a football game (or not). There's nothing inherently better about a football game (or the "typical" childhood or high school experience) than gymnastics.
I 100% agree. My daughter is well on her way to fulfilling her dream of college and this is without ever home schooling and not giving up her life for gymnastics. She has a well rounded full life, it's not completely centered around the sport (though it used to be).
 
She's making a choice, and is privileged to be able to do so. She can choose to go to gymnastics instead of a football game (or not). There's nothing inherently better about a football game (or the "typical" childhood or high school experience) than gymnastics.
Everyone makes choice. My point is, is the kid (not specifically yours) making a fully informed choice.
 
I 100% agree. My daughter is well on her way to fulfilling her dream of college and this is without ever home schooling and not giving up her life for gymnastics. She has a well rounded full life, it's not completely centered around the sport (though it used to be).
So she made a different choice. Good for her. She also incredibly talented.
 
On your second point, can we please let's stop with the "giving up the rest of their childhood for gymnastics" language? :) Not only is it inflammatory hyperbole, but it implies that there is some universal holy grail definition of childhood that doesn't actually exist. I refuse to talk about my child "sacrificing" for gymnastics. She's making a choice, and is privileged to be able to do so. She can choose to go to gymnastics instead of a football game (or not). There's nothing inherently better about a football game (or the "typical" childhood or high school experience) than gymnastics.
I was just going to comment on the same thing. It happens a lot on some of these posts where personal opinion is projected as some immutable fact. Maybe some love having a childhood spent in the gym with their friends and great experiences? Maybe that doesn't sound like a childhood to you, but doesn't mean it not for others. I understand folks have different ideas of childhood and schooling and such, but honestly everyone has their own path and there is no 100% correct parenting plan out there.
 
Just a reminder of an old thread here... if you haven't read over this one then check it out...


By reading through this current thread one could almost state that the future of Elite is Level 10.
 
I was just going to comment on the same thing. It happens a lot on some of these posts where personal opinion is projected as some immutable fact. Maybe some love having a childhood spent in the gym with their friends and great experiences? Maybe that doesn't sound like a childhood to you, but doesn't mean it not for others. I understand folks have different ideas of childhood and schooling and such, but honestly everyone has their own path and there is no 100% correct parenting plan out there.
The fact is many gymnasts give up many things for many hours in the gym. That is an actual thing.

The question is are they making that choice fully informed knowing the odds.
My kid is not all gym all the time. She has friends who are all gym. I do however know, those kids are fully informed on the odds, as is mine.

Would a kid give up playing multiple sports, sleepovers, football games, extra art classes or playing an instrument in their school orchestra or band. If they knew the actual odds of doing gym in college? Do parents readdress with their gymnasts regularly? Would these parents actually even be willing to, no matter how much “money” they already be into gym for?
 
Maybe some love having a childhood spent in the gym with their friends and great experiences?
Those kids, who truly love all those hours won’t regret any of them. No matter what level they end at or even if they get a scholarship in college. Because they love it. Not because it was their job to get a ride.

Those kids will do club gymnastics in college, simply because they love gymnastics. And those kids are all sorts of levels from 4-10.
 

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