WAG Question and small rant about vault

[gymmomtotwo]

DD is 10 year old level 7 who just fell short of doing Level8 this year. This is totally fine, she was missing an important element one of the events. Her best event is vault. She has had a beautiful tsuk waiting in the wings for more than a year now for the rest of her events to catch up. She is sick to death of the front handspring vault and how during meet season it limits her ability to do any uptraining on vault. I totally get that gymnastics is a 4 event sport. So why oh why did I watch a level 8 session at an out of town meet, and see only about half of the Level 8 competitors actually perform a tsuk or yurchenko vault? I thought Level 8 was all about having that flipping vault. I was even more shocked to see some of our team's Level 8's doing this. Why does vault get a pass, and you don't ever have to upgrade your skills? Why are Level 8s doing a level 4 vault? I did some research and found that you can do them, but have a lower start value, so you are behind from the get go. I was surprised that our gym would allow that as they are sticklers for having skills months before meet season starts. Thoughts? Are you really a level 8 if you are doing front handsprings?

 

[raenndrops]

Flipping vaults are really an all or nothing thing. Our Level 8s all have twisting vaults. One has the potential to flip her yurchenko, but the FHS actually scores higher than either her flipped or her twisted yurchenko.
As long as they have the skills on the other events, they can deal with the 9.0 SV on vault.

 

[Committed]

DD is 10 year old level 7 who just fell short of doing Level8 this year. This is totally fine, she was missing an important element one of the events. Her best event is vault. She has had a beautiful tsuk waiting in the wings for more than a year now for the rest of her events to catch up. She is sick to death of the front handspring vault and how during meet season it limits her ability to do any uptraining on vault. I totally get that gymnastics is a 4 event sport. So why oh why did I watch a level 8 session at an out of town meet, and see only about half of the Level 8 competitors actually perform a tsuk or yurchenko vault? I thought Level 8 was all about having that flipping vault. I was even more shocked to see some of our team's Level 8's doing this. Why does vault get a pass, and you don't ever have to upgrade your skills? Why are Level 8s doing a level 4 vault? I did some research and found that you can do them, but have a lower start value, so you are behind from the get go. I was surprised that our gym would allow that as they are sticklers for having skills months before meet season starts. Thoughts? Are you really a level 8 if you are doing front handsprings?

Yurchenko is required for L8 at DDs gym - just as giants for L7 and a kip for L4.

 

[Seeker]

Lots of gyms have their gymnasts do a lower-value vault as they build strength, work on technique, build confidence, etc. My Dd's gym requires a flipping vault of 10.0 SV in order to compete L8, which is quite frustrating for many. I think there are a lot of good reasons for not competing the full value vault and quite frankly -- better executed, lower-value vaults often score better anyway. But each gym has their own set of standards and rules, so it is what it is. I do understand the frustration though!

 

[rbearclaw]

As soon as I read this post, I thought, wow, this will probably drum up some conversation on the board. I am interested to hear everyone's weigh in. In our situation, DD has all of her level 8 skills ready for next year, EXCEPT a flipping vault. She has a whole year to get it, so we will see what happens, but she is tiny and stinks at the FHS, so I am kinda holding my breath on the situation.

I've also sat at meets timing vault for level 8-10, and it is scary to see gymnasts chucking the flipping vault when they just aren't ready. I can see both sides to your argument, for sure.

 

[Seeker]

My dd was never very good at the FHS, but had a solid Yurchenko Pike during her L8 season. She crossed the 70-lb threshold that season which made a big difference as well. Moved on to L9 the following season with no issues.

 

[NutterButter]

Are you really a level 8 if you are doing front handsprings?

Yes! My DD has L8 medals and trophies to prove it; including a few on vault with the FHS.

DD's gym also has a rule that they need to flip for L8 but define 'having it'? This is where you'll see variety across gyms. My DD 'had it' back in November. Not consistently or up to the standards where she would be allowed to compete it but she had it. Then she lost it around the beginning of the year. Maybe she will have it again by state? Who knows. I admit it's a little odd to see DD place with a FHS but it is what it is. Her coaches won't let her 'chuck it' and I'm thankful for this. Her teammates who are flipping are placing in the top 3 and I expect once DD flips she too will be higher on the podium. But is she really a L8? Heck, yeah!

 

[Seeker]

The fact that she's placing with a FHS is pretty solid evidence that a) it makes sense to compete skills that can be performed with the least amt of deduction, even if it is not a 10.0SV and b) some of those that are competing flipping vaults should not be...there are many gyms that have their kids chuck skills that they have no business competing. It is dangerous and scary to watch.

 

[NutterButter]

OP - I also want to add that I can totally see why you are frustrated. I would be too if my DD was in the same situation as your DD. Vent away anytime!

 

[tuckfull]

Gyms have their own rules for skills needed to compete each level but they sometimes differ from the actual COP. The rules for the Level 8 vault have changed these past few years in the hopes of decreasing the scary and unsafe flipping vaults that were happening at competitions. All of the Level 8s at my DD's gym have a flipping vault but they don't always compete it at meets ("lost" the landing, fears, coming back from mild injury, etc). But they are still Level 8 competitors and have plenty of podium placements, even with a FHS vault!

 

[Deleted member 14190]

DD is 10 year old level 7 who just fell short of doing Level8 this year. This is totally fine, she was missing an important element one of the events. Her best event is vault. She has had a beautiful tsuk waiting in the wings for more than a year now for the rest of her events to catch up. She is sick to death of the front handspring vault and how during meet season it limits her ability to do any uptraining on vault. I totally get that gymnastics is a 4 event sport. So why oh why did I watch a level 8 session at an out of town meet, and see only about half of the Level 8 competitors actually perform a tsuk or yurchenko vault? I thought Level 8 was all about having that flipping vault. I was even more shocked to see some of our team's Level 8's doing this. Why does vault get a pass, and you don't ever have to upgrade your skills? Why are Level 8s doing a level 4 vault? I did some research and found that you can do them, but have a lower start value, so you are behind from the get go. I was surprised that our gym would allow that as they are sticklers for having skills months before meet season starts. Thoughts? Are you really a level 8 if you are doing front handsprings?

well... it doesn't get a pass, they get lower scores for not flipping, particularly at regionals. So it's like missing an element. Frankly, we get a few kids here and there that just can't safely flip at meets. They may be able to perform at the gym but freak out at meets, pretty normal.

 

[CoachTodd]

All I could add would be if your DD's missing skill (s) are considered required and she will take a 1.0 hit in start value on multiple events. I haven't looked at the code in a while but we usually found a way to get Level 8 start values where they needed to be by substituting different skills. My guess is your DD's gym has specific requirements for Level 8 and Vault is the event they chose to focus on least since other gyms will also be taking a hit on vault. (just a guess)

 

[sevenatenine2]

So you're saying you're frustrated that your daughter is having to repeat 7 because she's missing an element needed for a 10.0 SV for L8, but you see other L8s missing the flipping vault, which seems like the same kind of thing in your mind?

I'm just clarifying. If so, I see the frustration. I also know that tons of kids are allowed to do 8 without flipping the vault but wouldn't be allowed to without a beam series, or whatever. I know it happens, but I don't know the rationale. Maybe those 8s without flipping vaults have coaches that don't want to hold them back on 3 events, thinking the vault will come when it does....while maybe your daughter's other three events can still be improved through another year of L7? I don't know the thinking...........

 

[ayyyrial]

Another thing to mention is that I know a lot of gymnasts who have a pretty good flipping vault, but they develop a mental block or have a weird scary error in practice so they need to put the flipping vault on hold for meets until their confidence is 100% back. So maybe some meets, they fall back on their FHS until they're ready. Maybe their vault or timers weren't good enough in warm-up so the coach says, we're doing the FHS today. This happens on other events, too (e.g. downgrading their acro series on beam to a back-up), but it's more noticeable on vault because there's only one skill in the entire routine.

Some gyms have the philosophy that if you're not going to have a 10.0 SV on an event, you scratch that event. Or, if you can't have an up-to-level routine on all 4 events, you're not ready to compete that level. Other times (or sometimes for specific gymnasts) they say, ok, you can compete bars even though your giants aren't competition-ready yet - but they are almost there and we expect that you'll be able to compete them by the end of the season.

It also depends on the specific gymnast. For example, my teammate in high school was a senior, her last year of competing. She had done 2 or 3 years of L7 (old L7), didn't have a flipping vault but did have a twisting one. Her bars routine was also not quite up to level. My gym usually required gymnasts to have a flipping vault for L8, but considering that it was her last year there, it didn't make sense to keep her at L7 again for a flipping vault she'd probably never learn.

 

[gymdog]

Short answer - they seem to be progressing on the vault when levels are determined or actually have it but get to the hard landing or meet and can't safely do it. Same story every year since the dawn of gymnastics time It's almost impossible to place AA without flipping (at most meets) so it's not really "okay" but at least they can qualify to states and compete their other stuff. They will repeat 8 if they aren't flipping by the end of the year so don't worry about it too much.

 

[Gymmamabear]

All gyms have different rules. The confusing thing about gymnastics is I feel like the rules change based on the kid though! ;-) In our gym this year there was a list of required skills for 8 and as long as you had all but 1 skill you were good to go. But if the kids were missing more than one than it was level 7.

Another thing to think about is maybe the other girls were above and beyond on the other events. Not just doing the bare minimum level 8 skills so they let them move up. My daughter is a level 8 and I don't think I've seen any FHS vaults this year at any meets. I see a lot of tuck Tsuk's with the smaller kids but not FHSs.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

I would also remind that the levels and the skills required in each level are made up by people. There isn't a magic book of gymnastics that classifies all the skills to different levels. Actually a flipping vault might be relatively much harder skill than other level 8 requirements, they just happen to exist in the same level. In the end, it's always a pretty artificial system. It may not be natural to progress along the man-made frames and in the pace that the particular levels system requires on every event. It's very normal to have level X skills on event A and level Y skills on event B.

In other countries skill requirement order may be very different in each level and even opposite to another system's requirements. For example in the US gymnasts compete a RO BHS for the first time in the same level with a BHC on bars. Here the gymnasts compete a RO BHS for the first time in the same level with a free hip circle to 45 degrees above horizontal on bars. In the US gymnast compete the 180 degrees split jump on beam in the same level with a back tuck on floor. Here gymnasts compete 180 split jump in the same level with a backward roll to push up position on floor.

We don't have 4 levels with the same vault. We have just 6 levels total and the vault progression goes like this:
level B: straight jump up to 75 cm mat stack, following by a kick to handstand flatback
level C: USAG level 3 vault but up to 100 cm mat stack, and post-flight is required
level D: FHS up to 110 cm mat stack
level E: FHS, tsuk or yurchenko timer ovet the vault table (125cm) to the mat stack behind the table (height on the table level)
level F: any vault you want from the FIG COP, about half of the gymnasts do flipping vaults at meets
level G: same as in the level F

Usually vault is never the event that holds the gymnasts back from moving to the next level

 

[stillhoping]

Doing lower value skills at a meet may be due to injury. There are 8s on our team recovering from injuries that are restricted from practicing multiple repetitions on vault, but were cleared to do one front handspring in a meet to get a qualifying score for state. They are expected to be able to fully compete at state.

 

[Aussie_coach]

It is quite possible that these gymnasts have more deductions on their flipping vault than the difference in start value between that and the front handsprings. You are better off doing a vault with a lower start value if you deductions are going to be significantly less.

It seems to me that your daughter may be a victim of a coaching issue. Many coaches seem to feel they need to coach all their gymnasts at the same level, and on the same level for all apparatus. This is limiting the gymnasts potential. If the gymnast has a higher level of ability on vault she should be training vault on a higher level. You don't need to have all team mates working on the same skills at the same time, most drills can be worked to incorporate a variety of levels without even changing the equipment. You also don't need to have gymnasts working at the same level on each apparatus. If the gymnast is awesome on Bault she works that at a higher level, if she struggles on bars yiu work that at a lower level and so on. The only thing that needs to be done at the same level are competition routines.

The idea that she does not up training in competition season is also limiting. Gymnasts press better when they up train year round. Stopping the skill learning for several months to just do routines and comp skills is the cause of many mental blocks and lost skills.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

Quick question aren't they changing the vault requirements starting next year? For L7 and L8?