I am a new Lurker who joined just to respond to this post. Several of the responses asked who you were trying to attract so maybe others are like me?
Background: My daughter just turned 6, was asked to join pre-team with intent of Excel Bronze starting in June. I'm sure I googled some gymnastics question since this is certainly not my wheel house and wound up here. Now I come back just to read. I've joined some facebook pages but I tend to like what I read here more it's less bragging and more info. Pre-Covid probably ages 3-4 we enrolled our daughter in the community center gymnastics classes with the idea being that balance, strength, flexibility ect. would help her with other sports. Covid shut everything down so we did nothing for over a year fast forward to last summer I found that the gymnastics gym was open so we enrolled there. After a couple of months of beginner was told she should enroll in advanced beginner. In that mean time she also had her first season of soccer that was ending so I planned on upping her gymnastics from 1 day a week to 2. Within that week of soccer season ending and going to two classes we were informed by the pre-travel soccer coach that she should be in that program and the gym e-mailed asking about interest in Pre-team. So to say the least I am just trying to figure out how long I will be able to balance and not make a kindergartener choose.
Observations:
It's really hard to "bucket" topics here everything is so varying. For example in people talking about pre-team I have seen it from 4 year olds that can barely do a cartwheel to JO level 3 that doesn't compete yet. That is a HUGE difference and the experience/ expectations will be entirely different.
Sometimes the gripes about the expense and time of gymnastics compared to other sports is eyerolling. As someone who played competitive soccer growing up I know my parents had to sacrifice a ton to support that. Every sport as you progress the cost and time commitment go up. The only difference I really see is that gymnastics starts getting crazy while they are much younger.
Topics I would like to see:
As a pre-team parent with a child that wants to practice at home and I am in no position to actually assist with gymnastics some strength training exercises to work on that would assist would be very useful. Example she is working on standing up from a backbend. Her coach suggested the wall walks they do and to try to do it from a higher surface. She can do the wall walks super easy and it doesn't seem to be activating the muscles she needs to strengthen since her arms can muscle her through so her quads and hip flexors don't need to do the work. As a former athlete I can guess that hanging leg lifts and some squats may assist but that would just be me guessing and may not be correct.
It would also be interesting to see more conversations on how you can be a dual sport athlete. Obviously as you get into crazy hours that is not feasible and may not be safe but that may not be the end game. Gymnastics might just be the base for another sport. For example when I was in middle school I would run indoor track in the winter time. We would still have soccer a few nights a week but it kept you in shape the rest of the week. Are there other complimenting activities for "off-days". Or the situation where gymnastics is a semi-short term pursuit, what's next what does it prepare you for? I didn't pick up a lacrosse stick until the summer before I was a freshmen in HS made JV that year and Varsity next year and only chose that sport because my HS was state champs. Would I have been able to do that without playing soccer my whole childhood of course not. I could have easily played in college but I chose soccer because that was my real passion.
I think the summary is I lurked because I am new so I don't really have anything to ask. I do think a tutorial on common terms would be useful for newbies. My real goal is to try to figure out how I best support my daughter and get her to her potential with her being the driving force not me.
Background: My daughter just turned 6, was asked to join pre-team with intent of Excel Bronze starting in June. I'm sure I googled some gymnastics question since this is certainly not my wheel house and wound up here. Now I come back just to read. I've joined some facebook pages but I tend to like what I read here more it's less bragging and more info. Pre-Covid probably ages 3-4 we enrolled our daughter in the community center gymnastics classes with the idea being that balance, strength, flexibility ect. would help her with other sports. Covid shut everything down so we did nothing for over a year fast forward to last summer I found that the gymnastics gym was open so we enrolled there. After a couple of months of beginner was told she should enroll in advanced beginner. In that mean time she also had her first season of soccer that was ending so I planned on upping her gymnastics from 1 day a week to 2. Within that week of soccer season ending and going to two classes we were informed by the pre-travel soccer coach that she should be in that program and the gym e-mailed asking about interest in Pre-team. So to say the least I am just trying to figure out how long I will be able to balance and not make a kindergartener choose.
Observations:
It's really hard to "bucket" topics here everything is so varying. For example in people talking about pre-team I have seen it from 4 year olds that can barely do a cartwheel to JO level 3 that doesn't compete yet. That is a HUGE difference and the experience/ expectations will be entirely different.
Sometimes the gripes about the expense and time of gymnastics compared to other sports is eyerolling. As someone who played competitive soccer growing up I know my parents had to sacrifice a ton to support that. Every sport as you progress the cost and time commitment go up. The only difference I really see is that gymnastics starts getting crazy while they are much younger.
Topics I would like to see:
As a pre-team parent with a child that wants to practice at home and I am in no position to actually assist with gymnastics some strength training exercises to work on that would assist would be very useful. Example she is working on standing up from a backbend. Her coach suggested the wall walks they do and to try to do it from a higher surface. She can do the wall walks super easy and it doesn't seem to be activating the muscles she needs to strengthen since her arms can muscle her through so her quads and hip flexors don't need to do the work. As a former athlete I can guess that hanging leg lifts and some squats may assist but that would just be me guessing and may not be correct.
It would also be interesting to see more conversations on how you can be a dual sport athlete. Obviously as you get into crazy hours that is not feasible and may not be safe but that may not be the end game. Gymnastics might just be the base for another sport. For example when I was in middle school I would run indoor track in the winter time. We would still have soccer a few nights a week but it kept you in shape the rest of the week. Are there other complimenting activities for "off-days". Or the situation where gymnastics is a semi-short term pursuit, what's next what does it prepare you for? I didn't pick up a lacrosse stick until the summer before I was a freshmen in HS made JV that year and Varsity next year and only chose that sport because my HS was state champs. Would I have been able to do that without playing soccer my whole childhood of course not. I could have easily played in college but I chose soccer because that was my real passion.
I think the summary is I lurked because I am new so I don't really have anything to ask. I do think a tutorial on common terms would be useful for newbies. My real goal is to try to figure out how I best support my daughter and get her to her potential with her being the driving force not me.
