Parents Australia Futures league competitive stream

[1gymmom1]

Hi everyone, new gymnastic parent here. Can someone please tell me the difference between the Futures league competitive stream and the "traditional" competitive streams. My child is interested in competitive gymnastics and wants to one day compete nationally hopefully. Her gym offers the Futures league competitive stream and I am wandering if this is a good start for her or if i would be holding her back. Any information or advice on this will be very much appreciated.

 

[JBS]

@Aussie_coach Do you know this?

 

[JessSyd]

Aussie Coach may know more - most of what I know about this came from a brief discussion at a gym committee meeting nearly a year ago. So it may not be entirely up to date.

My understanding is that Future League is the ‘competitive’ stream offered by Recreational Gymnastics Australia, which is an organisation set up by Belgravia Leisure Group (who own gyms and swimming pools across Australia) to provide gyms (their own, and others that have since joined) with an alternative to affiliation with Gymnastics Australia.

It’s still relatively new so most gyms are GA affiliated, not RGA afilliated. RGA have their own insurance, coach training pathway, and competitions. The competitions are designed to be low key, and have a fairly flexible format - less rigid about skills and levels and even, I think, things like what counts as mens vs women’s gymnastics. Kids in this program will learn gymnastics and have fun, but they’ll never compete for Australia - there’s just no pathway to that through RGA. Many future league programs don’t put in the hours that Australian Levels (the traditional program) require. The future league goal is for kids to have fun and to stay in the sport, so they don’t want long training hours as a barrier.

Gymnastics Australia is the organisation that is affiliated with FIG (the international governing body), so the only path to high level competition in Australia is through them. They also have a well developed competition structure for non-elite gymnasts, ranging from well attended regional competitions, to state level competitions, and nationals & national clubs.

Will she have fun in Future league - yes! Will she compete at national level - no, not really. Will it hold her back? Not necessarily. If she starts in this program and proves to have extraordinary talent, most coaches with integrity would mention that to you, and recommend to you that you move her to an appropriate training environment if she’s interested in taking that path.

For example we had a kid walk into our gym from a two hour a week rec program, on the recommendation of her coach, and go straight into level five. She is insanely naturally talented. And a year down the track, she’s now much tidier and has filled in the skill gaps she had acquired. Now we are trying to convince her parents that a near future shift to an elite gym would maximise her opportunities if she’s eyeing off elite gymnastics (I don’t think she is, alas).

 

[1gymmom1]

Aussie Coach may know more - most of what I know about this came from a brief discussion at a gym committee meeting nearly a year ago. So it may not be entirely up to date.

My understanding is that Future League is the ‘competitive’ stream offered by Recreational Gymnastics Australia, which is an organisation set up by Belgravia Leisure Group (who own gyms and swimming pools across Australia) to provide gyms (their own, and others that have since joined) with an alternative to affiliation with Gymnastics Australia.

It’s still relatively new so most gyms are GA affiliated, not RGA afilliated. RGA have their own insurance, coach training pathway, and competitions. The competitions are designed to be low key, and have a fairly flexible format - less rigid about skills and levels and even, I think, things like what counts as mens vs women’s gymnastics. Kids in this program will learn gymnastics and have fun, but they’ll never compete for Australia - there’s just no pathway to that through RGA. Many future league programs don’t put in the hours that Australian Levels (the traditional program) require. The future league goal is for kids to have fun and to stay in the sport, so they don’t want long training hours as a barrier.

Gymnastics Australia is the organisation that is affiliated with FIG (the international governing body), so the only path to high level competition in Australia is through them. They also have a well developed competition structure for non-elite gymnasts, ranging from well attended regional competitions, to state level competitions, and nationals & national clubs.

Will she have fun in Future league - yes! Will she compete at national level - no, not really. Will it hold her back? Not necessarily. If she starts in this program and proves to have extraordinary talent, most coaches with integrity would mention that to you, and recommend to you that you move her to an appropriate training environment if she’s interested in taking that path.

For example we had a kid walk into our gym from a two hour a week rec program, on the recommendation of her coach, and go straight into level five. She is insanely naturally talented. And a year down the track, she’s now much tidier and has filled in the skill gaps she had acquired. Now we are trying to convince her parents that a near future shift to an elite gym would maximise her opportunities if she’s eyeing off elite gymnastics (I don’t think she is, alas).

Thank you so much for this information as it leaves me with alot to think about. Her goal is try and to compete for Australia and Futures league might not be the best competitive stream for her so we will be looking into other clubs.