Parents Changing a club? Advices Needed

[ZiguiLady]

Hello,

My daughter 9 yrs old competing L4 this year. I am hesitating about moving her to a different club closer to our home.
She has been in the current gym for 4 years and she loves it. This is a great gym with elite program and family like atmosphere. The coach put her in the TOPs program but I know she is relatively less talented compared with other kids. But She is making good progress since she got in the TOPs with head coach.


Now here is the other side. Commute time is huge (2hrs/day) and she is basically fully scheduled every day. She always say she only wants to train up to lv6 because she is scared of the skills of higher levels. Here is another good gym closer to us(half of the commute time) but some people Say this gym has very different atmosphere. I am thinking if she is going to quit sooner or later, it makes no sense to spend so much time on it. She can do more using the time. I also don’t want elimination the possibility to go upper because she is still young . Don’t know how much a club can make a gymnast grow differently.

Please give me some advice . Thank you very much!

 

[gym_dad32608]

Well you know better than anyone on this board about your child and your family situation, what can work, what cannot work. A couple things, not as advice, but to consider.

If she is doing TOPS, even "less talented" she probably will be a level 6 next year.

Just because a gymnast at 9 says they are scared of a skill at 9 doesn't mean they cant or wont do the skill at 10. Good coaches are very talented at slowly progressing difficult skills to eliminate or minimize the fear factor.

Being in a positive and welcoming gym is alone worth the price of admission.

If you have been doing the commute for 4 years, can you do it one more year as she transitions to L6 and see if she feels the same about quitting?

 

[HopefulGymnast]

I am thinking if she is going to quit sooner or later, it makes no sense to spend so much time on it

This confuses me a bit. I would think either it's worth spending time on or it isn't. There's no end result with this, just the lessons she picks up along the way, and she'll pick those up whether she quits in one year or in ten. But everybody quits sooner or later, that goes for almost everything.

I think it's worth taking into account if it's worth it now. If she surprises you and does want to keep going into higher levels, you can always reassess then if it's still doable.

 

[ZiguiLady]

Well you know better than anyone on this board about your child and your family situation, what can work, what cannot work. A couple things, not as advice, but to consider.

If she is doing TOPS, even "less talented" she probably will be a level 6 next year.

Just because a gymnast at 9 says they are scared of a skill at 9 doesn't mean they cant or wont do the skill at 10. Good coaches are very talented at slowly progressing difficult skills to eliminate or minimize the fear factor.

Being in a positive and welcoming gym is alone worth the price of admission.

If you have been doing the commute for 4 years, can you do it one more year as she transitions to L6 and see if she feels the same about quitting?

Thank you so much for your reply. It gave me valuable insights. We recently moved further away from this gym so I started to think about transfer to another gym. I will think it over and leave it to be decided by my daughter herself. Thank you

 

[ZiguiLady]

Thank you, HopefulGymnast! Your massage is valuable to me and I think it over very carefully.

 

[Milomom]

Hello,

My daughter 9 yrs old competing L4 this year. I am hesitating about moving her to a different club closer to our home.
She has been in the current gym for 4 years and she loves it. This is a great gym with elite program and family like atmosphere. The coach put her in the TOPs program but I know she is relatively less talented compared with other kids. But She is making good progress since she got in the TOPs with head coach.


Now here is the other side. Commute time is huge (2hrs/day) and she is basically fully scheduled every day. She always say she only wants to train up to lv6 because she is scared of the skills of higher levels. Here is another good gym closer to us(half of the commute time) but some people Say this gym has very different atmosphere. I am thinking if she is going to quit sooner or later, it makes no sense to spend so much time on it. She can do more using the time. I also don’t want elimination the possibility to go upper because she is still young . Don’t know how much a club can make a gymnast grow differently.

Please give me some advice . Thank you very much!

have you done a trial at the other gym to know for yourself what the atmosphere is like? 2 hours a day in the car is a lot.

 

[ZiguiLady]

have you done a trial at the other gym to know for yourself what the atmosphere is like? 2 hours a day in the car is a lot.

Actually we did try earlier this year and she ended up crying before it finished. It was kinda funny because the coach was trying to spotting her more than other girls ( I think they tried to show their special care to a new gymnast) but my daughter took it as a blaming attitude. LOL she recently started to learn an instrument and she complained about no practicing time. I wonder if I move her to a new gym now , will the new place make her score a lot worse given the similar quality coaches? Thank you so much for your reply!

 

[Tmacs]

When my daughter was level 4, she wanted to just make it to optionals for one year at L6. Once she got there, she took off and is now L8 and wants to try for college. It's hard to know now what she will want in a few years. If the gym is working, I'd keep her there.