WAG L4 mobility score

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mommyof1

Proud Parent
Now that the L4 mobility score has been 34.0 for nearly two seasons, how do you all think it's working out in practice? Our L4 state meet is just a few weeks away, and I am still seeing large numbers of kids score below 34.0. At my daughter's most recent meet, 40 percent of the L4 girls who competed all four events failed to score 34.0 or above.

If we accept that a 34.0 is a valid and reliable indicator that the child has mastered the L4 skills on all four events and is prepared to be successful at L5, the fact that so many kids are not demonstrating mastery this late in the season makes me wonder whether L3 is adequately preparing kids for L4. Perhaps the leap from L3 to L4 is just too big.

The two events I wonder most about are vault and bars. Vault is by far the weakest event for my daughter's team. A few of the bigger, springier, and more naturally talented kids seem to have picked up the FHS vault largely by osmosis, but for most of the kids it's a real challenge. Many of them are routinely scoring in the 7's, and it's pretty scary to watch. It seems as if there should be an intermediate step between the L3 handstand flatback on the mat and the FHS over the table. Maybe L4 should have a handstand flatback onto a mat behind the table? Adding the timers in L6 and L7 to bridge the gap between the FHS and the flipping vaults seems like such a logical move--should there be something similar at L3 or L4 to make the introduction to the FHS more gradual?

Bars also seems like a huge leap from L3 to L4. Again, a couple of kids on my daughter's team who just have a natural inclination for bars were able to make the transition without too much difficulty, but for the most part even the kids who did well on bars in L3 are having a lot of difficulty at L4. The ones who competed a kip in L3 seem to have the easiest time, but it's hard to tell in which direction causation runs. Are these kids doing better at L4 bars because they had more time to perfect their kips in L3, or were they able to get their kips early in L3 because they are just naturally better at bars?

Honestly, as a parent all of this makes me think it would be better not to compete L3 at all and instead focus on training for L4. My daughter's gym forces nearly everyone to compete two seasons of L3, and then many of them still do poorly at L4 and are forced to repeat. The fact that kids from many other gyms are also scoring below 34.0 makes me think it's a systemic issue and not just a gym-specific problem with L3 coaching. Thoughts?
 
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My DD is currently competing 4. I can’t say that I have been watching very closely, but from what I have seen, some of the girls with low scoring routines don’t appear to be ready for level 4. On floor, when I see bent arms and flailing legs on the first BHS, I worry about the second one they are doing. It just doesn’t seem safe. The vaults are barely getting over the table, and the girl’s arms are very bent and their chest is hitting the bar on kips. And throughout all routines are bent arms and legs, toes not pointed, and they are typically loose throughout and not tight. It’s sloppy gymnastics even without the harder skills.

I’m far from a gymnastics expert. I’m very much learning as I go. But it appears to me that the girls that are scoring low probably did not master level 3 and it’s not safe for them to be competing level 4. If your arms are bent and you have frog legs on your first BHS then you surely shouldn’t be attempting a second one. I think it’s one thing to have low scores because you don’t have your kip yet. But when there is consistent form issues, I think those should be fixed in the gym before they compete.
 
I think the 34 is reasonable but I think that's the highest it should go. My daughter routinely scores 33-35 and is in the bottom quarter if you rank her level of almost every meet. Her teammates are similar. None of them look unsafe out there. Through no fault of their own they had a rough foundation for level 2-3 so the form is just not there. My daughter always manages to get a 34 near the end of the season each year (she's done level 3, 4 and now 6). I wish she would do it sooner so she didn't feel so much pressure to get that 34 (needed for states as well). Maybe they could say or a 33.5 twice or something for kids that just can't quite get that 34.
 
Are you assuming that because they didn’t score a 34 at States they have not achieved a 34 at any other meet???
 
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Are you assuming that because they didn’t score a 34 at States they have not achieved a 34 at any other meet???
No she said states in not for a few weeks yet. And I think she is looking at the percentage of gymnasts not reaching 34 at any given meet, which of course doesn't mean they have not ever gotten a 34+. But even given that everyone has a rough meet now and then, it does seem surprising that a full 40% are not hitting that at a meet.
 
I'm in Ontario, so I don't know if that changes things, but at my dd's most recent meet I would say it was about 25% not making 34. The worst age group wa sthe youngest, about 40%. The others ranged from 20-30%. We don't have mobility scores though, and our provincials are not til May so they have time to improve.
 
No she said states in not for a few weeks yet. And I think she is looking at the percentage of gymnasts not reaching 34 at any given meet, which of course doesn't mean they have not ever gotten a 34+. But even given that everyone has a rough meet now and then, it does seem surprising that a full 40% are not hitting that at a meet.

Yes, exactly this. I think that if a substantial proportion of kids are not getting a 34 at every meet (seems to range from 25 to 40 percent), something is not right. Either the mobility score is too high or the system is not set up to prepare kids for L4. My guess is the latter.
 
No she said states in not for a few weeks yet. And I think she is looking at the percentage of gymnasts not reaching 34 at any given meet, which of course doesn't mean they have not ever gotten a 34+. But even given that everyone has a rough meet now and then, it does seem surprising that a full 40% are not hitting that at a meet.
Yes but even at anyone particular meet, not scoring 34 doesn’t mean they haven’t at another meet.

Also, was it a low scoring meet in general. And what were the actual scores that weren’t under 34.. big difference if the meet was scoring on the lower side and many got 33s.

Also you need to factor in the low scorers who likely not be scoring even the previous score out number. Those need to be taken out of the 25-40 %
 
I think it's pretty reasonable. Level 4 has lots of foundation skills that are necessary for later success in the sport and I think a higher mobility score helps ensure proficiency. I'm coaching a group of kids who barely scored out of 4 and most of their summer was like remediation for incredibly basic skills that, despite scoring a 34, they still hadn't really mastered (kip casts, leaps/jumps, proper front handsprings on floor). There were a few girls in the group who had not scored out of 4 but were placed in this group due to numbers and they were even farther behind. I really did not think they would ever be ready for level 5. They have managed and are slowly getting better through the season, but it's been hard. I can't imagine what it would be like if the mobility score were 32.

I think reasons for low scoring in level 4 vary from one gym to another. Lack of preparation at the lower levels, moving kids up too quickly, spending so much time perfecting the little details of the level 3 routines that working towards level 4 skills is non existent, large gymnast to coach ratios, the list goes on. It's interesting that it seems to be happening to multiple gyms in your area- do those gyms have a history of producing solid upper level optionals?
 
My daughter is a current level 4- there are a few girls who scored 37+ in level 3 who have not managed to hit 34 all around and several who have floated between 33 and 34. Then we have a few 34/35 kids, then the repeat level 4’s and ‘superstars’ who have been scoring 35-37’s. (FWIW our biggest scorer also takes several private lessons a week so that kind of skews the data as her hours are not the same as the other girls)

The biggest struggle seems to be vault and bars. The first year level 4’s who are doing the best are the ones who also competed a kip in their level 3 bar routines, so they were a little ‘ahead’ on bars and maybe more naturally inclined to do well in the first place.
We are at a lower hours gym (9 for level 4) which is only one more hour than they trained for level 3. I think for our gym it’s a combination of level 4 being a big jump skill wise but not a big enough jump hour wise. I think our coaches do a great job, but level 4 just requires so much more skill than 3.

My question is- what score actually shows proficiency in each event, individually, not necessarily as an all around? Is a 8.5 on floor actually proficient? I honestly have no idea.
 
Personally, not that USAG cares what I think...... I thought 31 was too low. And 34 is too high. I’m good with 33. Or perhaps multiple meets at 32.

But out of curiosity I too a snap shot peak at meets in our area.

So what I noticed quickly

Most of the meets have much less then a 40% not hitting 34. And when the percentage seems to be higher it seems there are way more 33s. 25 % might be accurate and that includes those 33s

Many of the 33 scorers have met the 34 at other meets.

Some of 30-32 kids have met 34 elsewhere, particularly if I see an event that just looked a bad day. One kids floor just looked like she it was off. Sure enough all her other 4 meets she 34 and higher. She just had a bad floor day.

I also noticed a pattern which is clearly gym related. As in most of the low scorers all seem to be from the same gym or 2. So clearly it’s a training issue.
 
Honestly, as a parent all of this makes me think it would be better not to compete L3 at all and instead focus on training for L4. My daughter's gym forces nearly everyone to compete two seasons of L3, and then many of them still do poorly at L4 and are forced to repeat. The fact that kids from many other gyms are also scoring below 34.0 makes me think it's a systemic issue and not just a gym-specific problem with L3 coaching. Thoughts?

This above is why our gym ditched L3 in favor of Xcel Silver. They are getting girls over the vault table sooner, and spending less time on shoot throughs and mill circles and more time on kips earlier. My dd did 2 years of L3 (before the gym ditched L3) and I would say that the new crop of girls coming up through Xcel Silver in lieu of L3 are stronger on bars and vault sooner than dd's group was.

** yes I know this is not the spirit in which Xcel is intended. :)
 
My question is- what score actually shows proficiency in each event, individually, not necessarily as an all around? Is a 8.5 on floor actually proficient? I honestly have no idea.
I think score is just one small part of the whole picture. Scoring a 34 is one indication that an athlete has reached a level of proficiency that would allow them to safely move to the next level. Many gyms have their own score which must be achieved to move up (36 is a common one). But lots of other things come into play- how many skills do they have for the next level? Are they physically strong enough for the next level? Are they mentally strong enough for the next level? Do they have mental blocks that would be better served by another year in level 4? And most gyms have their own rules regarding mobility. I don't know that it would be the best idea for a gym to just say anyone who gets a 34 gets to move up because so much more is at play.
 
This above is why our gym ditched L3 in favor of Xcel Silver. They are getting girls over the vault table sooner, and spending less time on shoot throughs and mill circles and more time on kips earlier. My dd did 2 years of L3 (before the gym ditched L3) and I would say that the new crop of girls coming up through Xcel Silver in lieu of L3 are stronger on bars and vault sooner than dd's group was.

** yes I know this is not the spirit in which Xcel is intended. :)
I think if I ran my own program I would lean in this direction as well, even though that's not really the purpose of Xcel. Maybe not a whole season of Xcel, but a few meets so they learn how to compete while building solid basics without worrying about the little nit picky details of level 3.
 
This above is why our gym ditched L3 in favor of Xcel Silver. They are getting girls over the vault table sooner, and spending less time on shoot throughs and mill circles and more time on kips earlier. My dd did 2 years of L3 (before the gym ditched L3) and I would say that the new crop of girls coming up through Xcel Silver in lieu of L3 are stronger on bars and vault sooner than dd's group was.

** yes I know this is not the spirit in which Xcel is intended. :)
Actually since the JO start point is L4. How gyms get them there is really up to them. I don't even see it as a conflict as you are not using Xcel to skip required JO levels.
 
40% of a meet scoring under 34 this late in the season does seem like a lot. Like @ldw said, is it just a couple of gyms who have this problem? If that is the case, it is clearly a training issue at those gyms. I sat through 2 seasons of level 4 with my DD, and both years her whole team scored over 34 at least once (that was before the rule change for mobility, but it was 34 to go to state which is how I know). This wasn't some superstar elite gym, nor was it some state-winning "hold them back in compulsories" gym. The girls who were getting 36s in level 4 were often getting 34s in level 5, so level 4 is really the time to clean up form, otherwise level 5 is really, really tough.

But the idea of Silver being better training than level 3 is very interesting. I could see how this could be the case.
 
I checked again, and there was another partial session of L4 that scored much higher. (Appears that the host gym split its team across two sessions to maximize its medal count.) So the overall “pass rate” was 71% across both sessions. Better than 60%, but it still seems low at this point in the season in a system that is designed to progress most kids one level per year.
 
I checked again, and there was another partial session of L4 that scored much higher. (Appears that the host gym split its team across two sessions to maximize its medal count.) So the overall “pass rate” was 71% across both sessions. Better than 60%, but it still seems low at this point in the season in a system that is designed to progress most kids one level per year.
The system is not designed this way, even though most parents and a lot of coaches think it is. One of the reasons why they increased the score was specifically to ensure that girls who clearly had not mastered the level had to repeat that level. Letting them progress to the next level not only causes more struggles for the gymnast but also the potential for more injuries by doing skills they are not ready for.

The bigger question is how many gymnasts will be affected by this mobility score vs being held back by the coaches own decision when the mobility score was lower? How many gyms have their own system in place to force these gymnasts to repeat when they are under a 34?
 
I checked again, and there was another partial session of L4 that scored much higher. (Appears that the host gym split its team across two sessions to maximize its medal count.) So the overall “pass rate” was 71% across both sessions. Better than 60%, but it still seems low at this point in the season in a system that is designed to progress most kids one level per year.

Are you sure that they are maximizing their medal count? Why would a gym be that invested in medals for level 4s?
 

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