Parents Xcel Bronze to JO3?

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SophiaPD

Proud Parent
DD7 might be able to try out for her gym's JO3 team in May; she is now finishing her first season of Xcel Bronze. I'd love to hear from coaches or parents who have seen girls make this transition. What are the biggest hurdles? Bars, I'd guess? Anything she could do at home to improve her chances? We'll ask her coach and do some privates, but would love to hear other advice.
 
If she has the big skills already the transition should be easy enough long as she is able to handle the additional practice hours.
 
My dd moved from XB to JO4 nearly 3 years ago.

Her biggest challenge, by far, has been bars. She only just got a 9 on bars again for the first time since moving over to JO. She was ahead for L4 on most of the other skills so putting her in L3 just for bars didn't make sense and her skills have definitely evened out over time. XB bars to L3 bars isn't nearly as big of a jump so it hopefully won't be a huge deal for your daughter.

The extra practice hours were definitely a challenge too. She went from 5-6 hours/week of practice to 12 hours/week of practice. But after the first month or so, she had adapted to it. Now she's going 20 hours a week as a L6 and it's not a big deal at all.

Of course, so much of this is going to be different based on what they competed in XB and what they've worked on already, but I hope I've been encouraging and that all goes well at her tryout!
 
My DD went from XB to level 3 a couple years ago. Her routines and skills were pretty much the same (she was a rare XB that competed a BHS) with the exception of a couple bar skills. She got the needed bar skills within a couple months. I think her year in bronze set her up for a pretty successful L3 season. It was basically like repeating a year for her.

There is a great range of skills that can be competed in XB so I think how smooth the transition is depends on how many skills that she has now that are the same for L3. It may also depend on how your coaches treat the Xcel and JO programs. We learned that JO is much more detail oriented and the scoring is tougher. If the Xcel coaches take a more relaxed approach, then the repetition and attention to tiny details that come with JO could also be an adjustment.
 
DD went from XB to JO4 a couple of years ago. She really wanted the higher hours and adapted to that pretty quickly. I think the biggest challenge is adjusting to the much tougher scoring, but she loves JO and is so happy she made the switch. Good luck to your daughter!
 
Does she have her ROBHS? That always seems to be the biggest obstacle for our girls at Level 3. The shoot through and mill circle on bars can also be killers but our team never holds girls back because of those since they disappear after level 3 anyway. Another big difference is the precision required in compulsory. They get deductions for text errors like not having their hand in just the right spot which is a big difference from Excel where you can tailor the routine to fit their style and strengths.
 
Thanks, this is really helpful. Vault looks the same. Floor is her strongest and should be okay. Beam worries me a bit -- is it a big leap from a L2 handstand dismount to L3 twisty-thing? Otherwise they look pretty similar. It's bars that are most troubling, because her bronze bars routine is so short -- pullover, back hip circle, straddle sole circle dismount. Seems like L3 bars has a lot of different parts to it and I don't know how difficult they are. And yes, hours would go from 5 to 11, but I think that's okay.
 
In your situation I'd probably ask about privates for bars and the beam dismount as well as finding out what other new skills she will need at the tryout.

The XB bars routine is the L1 JO routine (last I checked) so it's a two level jump to go to L3 from XB on bars. If your dd is competing the ROBHS on floor then that's great!

And yes, make sure to prepare her for potentially much lower scores if she moves over. My dd hardly got any medals at all during her L4 season after placing very well on almost every event at every meet in XB. But L5 was better and L6 has been better still. It took time and that's fine, but the potential for getting overly discouraged that first year after switching is probably pretty significant.
 
My DD went from XB to JO L4 when she was 7 (almost 8) years old. She is currently a 10 year old L7. We experienced tougher scoring in JO for sure, so definitely prepare your DD for that. But I wouldn't necessarily assume that bars will be an issue. I honestly think that different gymnasts have different strengths and weaknesses. For mine, vaulting over the table at L4 was the biggest issue. In XB she was already competing a RO-BHS, and had randomly picked up her kip (although she was competing a pullover in XB). Bars has always been a strength, and therefore was not a problem in JO. Her XB routine was the JO L1 routine, but only a year later she finished 5th on bars at L4 State. The year after she was 2nd on bars at L6 State... and so far so good with L7 bars.

The transition is definitely do-able. Good luck to your daughter. Let us know how it goes!
 
Every kid is different in what they struggle with, but beam dismount hasn't seemed to be a problem for any of our Level 3s. Does she get the chance to work on the Level 3 skills?
 

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