Parents Can't do "easy" skills?

[3LittleGymmies]

Coaches, I would love your opinion on this.

My younger gymmie (6.5) just started Level 3 in July. She has quite a few more "advanced" skills... cartwheel on beam, back walkover on beam, handstand all the way up and complete split on beam, back walkover on floor, front walkover on floor, back extension roll (to handstand), press handstand, and she almost has her kip. These skills are all just about perfect... she is very much a perfectionist and physically can't make herself just chuck skills. But... she can't do her front hip circle or her shoot through/mill circle yet (without a spot, she doesn't even seem to try?) and she can't connect her ROBHS on floor even though she has a beautiful ROBHS on trampoline, and even a front tuck, aerial, and front handspring. She can do hundreds of push-ups nose to floor and sit ups, planks and press holds for days... great pull-up's - she is extremely strong and muscular, but she can't do leg lifts to the bar without help? She can't vault yet at all because she just hasn't figure out how to jump on the spring board properly. It just seems so weird! My older gymnast just learned skills in the order you're supposed to go in. My younger one seems to be kind of all over the place with skills because she learns from her sister... maybe this is common, too. Does it sound like a fear issue? Or like she might be convincing herself that these skills are harder than they really are? Or maybe she just isn't the kind of gymnast who will chuck skills and then learn the corrections and she will instead wait until she is 100% sure it will be perfect to do it? I'm having trouble understanding this and I am just having a hard time imagining her being ready to compete in a few months - which is totally fine, but also seems kind of silly since she has all of these other skills that she doesn't even need for a long time.

 

[raenndrops]

No "help" for you on this one, but if it makes you feel better, my YG (age 9-3/4) can do a FHS stepout and a FT step out, but can't do either to 2 feet. She just started going over the big vault a couple months ago (has been over a total of 18 times) and her 1/2 on-1/2 off is better than her FHS.
On bars, she STILL doesn't have a mill circle (2 years of old L4 and 1 year of new L3), but can do a long hang pullover on high bar and a flyaway (landing in stepout position of course, lol).

 

[profmom]

DD's back full is better than her back layout. She is still better at a FHS-front tuck than a FT, and front tumbling will only be a positive thing in her routines when she can start doing front twisting. She gets a better and more powerful block on the horse for her Yurchenko than she does for a FHS. She will surely put her layout stepout on the beam before a back tuck.

DS can't do a kip cast handstand. Heck, he can't do a kip cast to much more than horizontal. But he can do giants and a 1/2 pirouette. He can do a press handstand on rings, but can't hold a back lever, which little guys starting L5 can often do.

What can I say? It's a weird sport. Given time and determination, eventually they put it all together.

 

[JMACAZ]

My DD is transitioning back into artistic after a few months off-she also does T&T. At her first practice back she was asked to do a BWO. She couldn't. She could show them 2 ROBHS but no BWO. Ended up doing a bridge kick over LOL. Like profmom says it is a crazy sport and some things are just easier than others. She will get it

 

[aerials]

Some of the skills having timing in them as well as strength. The FHC issue can be that she hasn't got the timing down yet. Does she have long legs? That can be an issue for the shoot through and mill circle. Sometimes skills click and others don't.

 

[Sasha]

You've just described half of our pre-team and couple L3s who are also right around that age.

I'm not a coach, but I'd say that bars in general and getting the right timing and exact positioning to 'connect skills' are just whole different beasts than learning the individual floor/beam skills. I see a lot of kids learn the walkovers pretty quickly - and if they have strong cores with good balance, translate these to beam pretty quickly. And slightly more advanced tumbling (aerials/tuck) is also something a lot of kids pick up pretty quickly (if coaches will let them train them). I see this with the XCEL and Advanced Rec girls commonly.

It truly is often those darn bars that just take more time with quite a few kids. The mill circle is the bane of many L3s! And FHC is way harder than it looks! Took some of our L3s AGES to get these, and one of our repeating L3s STILL doesn't have a great mill circle. I wish they would kill it, even though my DD acquires bars easily so far (her struggles are elsewhere).

And your DD is not even 7 yet, so it makes perfect sense to me that her young brain just hasn't quite mastered the mind-body control for some of the skills. Sure, some other ones may get it sooner, but it sounds like your DD is well on her way to a fantastic gymnastics career with her floor/beam qualities, her strength, and it WILL click for her. Just give her a little time to mature and her brain will catch up. Hope that doesn't sound disrespectful in any way - I have just noticed that the magic age for many gymnasts where they start to finally put it all together is around 7.5 - 8.5.

Also, the leg-lifts are a specific strength skill. Just because one is generally strong doesn't mean leg lifts will be easy. You have to train those specific muscles.

Don't worry! She sounds awesome!

 

[sce]

She is young and it is not uncommon to better ins some areas than others. Not sure if some of it is a fear issue. Usually not with a 6yo. The bar skills are as much about timing as strength. Trust her coaches to be progressing her in each of the areas.

 

[3LittleGymmies]

I definitely trust her coaches and I'm not worried.. just confused, lol!

 

[2littlegymmiesmom]

My oldest DD (7) who is training level 4/5 is very similar. She always wants to learn the bigger, harder skills and sometimes loses focus on the easier or perhaps in her 7 year old mind, not as fun skills. She pushes herself with the more difficult skills, always wanting to do them and to learn more and sometimes (at least to me anyway) seems to not works as hard at the other skills. For instance She can do a BHS and BWO on beam and has been spotted doing BT and side aerial on the beam but her jumps and leaps are really not that great and she doesn't always land her cartwheel or nail her handstand dismount. On floor she can do standing BT, Punch fronts, front handsprings, layout step outs on tramp, half twists into the pit and other crazy things but cannot connect her ROBHS at all!! On bars She recently got her kip but definitely still working on straight arms and got back her long lost squat on, sometimes catches the bar on the jump to high bar and other times doesn't, yet she did a cast to handstand the other day practically on her own. I am always so confused by all this! HC did tell me once that sometimes when young kids have some talent and they learn so much so fast it can be hard for them to process it all and since the "big" skills are the ones that they really want to do they do lose focus on some of the other skills. She just told me they just try to keep them focused and repetition, repetition on the skills and eventually they will get them. I try to tell DD that I know she really wants to do the "big" skills but that she needs to take it slow and learn things one step at a time, everything Builds on something else and that she doesn't want to learn something with bad form and develop bad habits that need to be corrected later. Not sure it helps much or that she listens through. Lol

 

[gymdog]

Sounds like a 6 year old. Hang on for a long ride. It just takes time. In the mean time to improve leg lifts I have them try laying down on their back on the floor and lift their legs over their head (arms up).

 

[Committed]

Sounds like my DD, she got her kip before her FHC. Luckily she was able to skip L3.
As she's gotten older (though she's only 7), her best events have changed. First it was floor, then bars, now she's scoring well (& confident) on beam.
I'm a little surprised your DDs coach is allowing her to work many of the skills you've mentioned, even though she doesn't have many of the basics.

 

[iwannacoach]

Kids all have their unique gifts, strengths, and weaknesses. Celebrate what you can and be patient with the rest.

 

[lovegymnastics22]

I think the FHC is the hardest level 3 skill!! And doing it straight arm to cast and connecting to the shoot through to mill circle-- our lvl 3 girls are still working on getting that perfect and we are in meet season. And they had been uptraining beam cartwheel/BWOs and all the lvl4 floor tricks this summer and could do them all as well. You can force your body through the other skills you mention with bad form but you can't do that with the bar skills. So what you are describing sounds like most girls in our gym.

Probably she has trained herself to learn the skills she can "show off" to her big sister. Not a lot of chances to do that with bars except in the gym. If she just started in July, I'm sure she has plenty of time to get the bar skills if she focuses on them.

 

[littlegirlsdream]

Thinking back to that age my DD had the same bar issues. Although she didn't have a kip. Here is a very strange part, hip pull overs (though not done often) still have a slightly odd look to them..too pikey. Floor she could do a lot at 6 yrs old, competed old level 4 that year and that was her best event, beam was good, vault was good but took a hit but when she had to front handspring over vault. Now 5 years later..floor is still her strongest event but the other 3 events have finally caught up. Bars was the last to catch up score and skill wise. This occurred just last year, so 4 levels later

Now my younger dd just starting out lvl 2 is polar opposite, great bars, upper body and core strength, less flexibility and much weaker floor skills. It is an interesting sport to say the least

 

[3LittleGymmies]

Sounds like my DD, she got her kip before her FHC. Luckily she was able to skip L3.
As she's gotten older (though she's only 7), her best events have changed. First it was floor, then bars, now she's scoring well (& confident) on beam.
I'm a little surprised your DDs coach is allowing her to work many of the skills you've mentioned, even though she doesn't have many of the basics.

They have an upgrade day, but a lot of it (floor and beam) she just picked up really easily at home playing around with her sister.

 

[LJL07]

My dd (7 year old) tumbles with pretty decent form now ROBHS, can do standing back tuck, front tuck, Kip on bars, etc., but she has a lot of trouble with balance beam and slow, controlled movement. It took her the longest time to get a decent looking heel snap turn, yet her little sister who doesn't have the speed or fearlessness can do pretty heel snap turns all day long. Her mill circle and shoot through is good at some practices and not so good at other practices. I think this is a common problem even with talented kids. It's a body control immaturity issue. In my DD's case her body is working faster than she can control it. It takes a while for some of this to bake and some of them might be slower to get the skills and more form oriented, while others get skills fast but struggle with the details (form). I know, believe me, I KNOW how frustrating this is to watch, but I think time and maturity is the only fix. This sport requires some serious patience!!

 

[LJL07]

My oldest DD (7) who is training level 4/5 is very similar. She always wants to learn the bigger, harder skills and sometimes loses focus on the easier or perhaps in her 7 year old mind, not as fun skills. She pushes herself with the more difficult skills, always wanting to do them and to learn more and sometimes (at least to me anyway) seems to not works as hard at the other skills. For instance She can do a BHS and BWO on beam and has been spotted doing BT and side aerial on the beam but her jumps and leaps are really not that great and she doesn't always land her cartwheel or nail her handstand dismount. On floor she can do standing BT, Punch fronts, front handsprings, layout step outs on tramp, half twists into the pit and other crazy things but cannot connect her ROBHS at all!! On bars She recently got her kip but definitely still working on straight arms and got back her long lost squat on, sometimes catches the bar on the jump to high bar and other times doesn't, yet she did a cast to handstand the other day practically on her own. I am always so confused by all this! HC did tell me once that sometimes when young kids have some talent and they learn so much so fast it can be hard for them to process it all and since the "big" skills are the ones that they really want to do they do lose focus on some of the other skills. She just told me they just try to keep them focused and repetition, repetition on the skills and eventually they will get them. I try to tell DD that I know she really wants to do the "big" skills but that she needs to take it slow and learn things one step at a time, everything Builds on something else and that she doesn't want to learn something with bad form and develop bad habits that need to be corrected later. Not sure it helps much or that she listens through. Lol

goodness, I needed this post today myself. Sounds like my daughter to a T. The "easy" stuff is just sloppy but I am always wowed by how fast she learns the "hard" stuff. I am so, so glad she isn't the only one. She was placed her on level 2, which is frustrating, but her coaches are still positive about the talent. Hijack over! Op, hang in there. I think there are many of us with kids working through these little issues. They all develop at different rates--just like babies hitting their developmental milestones in different orders.