Competition-ready skills?

[justanothergymmom]

When does your gym consider a skill "competition-ready"? Is there a certain number of times it must be executed successfully? Do you have to "have" the skill within a certain amount of time before the meet? And what does it mean to "have" the skill? Is form taken into consideration or is it enough to be able to just execute the skill? Are the rules the same for all gymnasts or are exceptions made? I am mostly curious about upper level optional skills. Thanks so much for any input!

 

[Optionals United]

Well for my gym, competition ready is different than having a skill. Having a skill is when you are going consitantly for the skill, doing it safely, w/no spots,doing it on hard ground or almost hard ground or high beam, and when you are ready to start really foucusing on the details of the skills(pointed toes,really straight legs ect.)

Competition ready is basically when you have the skill consistent going for it every time even when you are off, landing the skill pratically all the time,and it is something that could easily be done in competition(in a routine).Also they have good form. Every coach has thier own view of what competition ready and having a skill is. Some think that when they "have" a skill it is competition ready ect. But this explanation is just what i beilve those meanings are and what you see in my gym.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

When does your gym consider a skill "competition-ready"? Is there a certain number of times it must be executed successfully? Do you have to "have" the skill within a certain amount of time before the meet? And what does it mean to "have" the skill? Is form taken into consideration or is it enough to be able to just execute the skill? Are the rules the same for all gymnasts or are exceptions made? I am mostly curious about upper level optional skills. Thanks so much for any input!

essentially, competition ready means when an athlete has performed the skill within the routine numerous times over the course of what could be several months and as long as a couple of years of preparedness to verify skill stability.

example: the athlete must first learn a double back. could have been done beginning with loose foam pit>to stacking mats in the pit>to stacking mats above floor level>
to stacking mats up to 2 feet above floor level>to executing on to resi-pit>to executing on to resi-pit with an 8 inch mat>to executing on to a resi-pit with two 8 inch mats>to executing on to a resi-pit with a 'hard' 4 inch mat.

next: after months of repetition and the above measurements proscribed by a coach it will be then be to the coach's minds eye if the athlete is ready to put it to a hard top or regular floor. now let's say that all has been done. the athlete is landing very stable double backs on the floor hard top.

next: it's time to put the music on. the music begins. suzy goes to the corner after some choreography and prepares to begin running in to her double back. suzy vigorously pushes out from the corner...great round off...great back handspring...uh oh...face plant double back on to a 4" inch mat on the hard top. and boys don't have this problem but there are others exclusive to them.

question: why did the coach know to put a 4 inch mat on the floor when suzie would 1st perform a double back with music?

i won't answer now. i'll give it to some of the experienced coaches to tell you their experience with this. suffice...if suzy could not do it to the music, suzy's double back was not stable or competitive ready.

then, form is taken in to consideration. it is not enough to just execute the skill as there are many variables and situations that take place with the human body on a daily basis. exceptions should NEVER be made due to the risk of quantifiable margins of error. and this should be applied to ALL gymnastics. just the measurements become more demanding and exact the higher you go up the skill food chain.

good??

 

[Optionals United]

Dunno- I dont have direct answer,but they knew that she would change somethings when she put it into her routine and put the mat there knowing that there was the potential that she wouldnt do the skill the exact same as she does out of the routine.Also it is in a new enviroment before preforming the skill(often you take a little longer time preparing before the skill when just doing the pass by itself.) so she is a little rushed and not the exact same mentallly before the skill???Dont know if that is right just my thought and from experience.

Edit after dunnos reply. YAY!! keep the replies coming

 

[Deleted member D3987]

you get an A Plus. let's see what else gets posted.

 

[Aussie_coach]

They must have had the skill long enough that it is consistent and you know it will still be consistent when they get into the nervous environment of a competition. When a girl first learns a skill it is rarely consistent. They may have it one day and not the next, need a spot for warm up one day and not the next.

Also it should have good enough form that it is worth it. If there are more deductions than the skill is worth its not competition ready. If they could be doing another skill that would score them so much higher then this would be the logical option.

 

[MissBear]

In a coaching course I had it compared to beam with lower level gymnasts. When Suzy was 8 she learnt her cartwheel on the high beam. She stuck 5 in a row. When she moved to the high beam, she fell off 100 times. Coach said 'don't change from the low beam' but even though she tried, suzy was scared, or nervous, or just weirded out because she couldn't see the floor, or a spot on the wall. It's the same on the floor with her double back - it felt different, plus the importance of the 'first time' gets some gymnasts too.
That got a bit rambling, but the point was different situation feel different. When a gymnast can perform her skill consistantly in all the relevant situations (in different beams, in routine, without lots of warm up, whatever) it is competition ready.

 

[Bajanswife]

Our idea of competition ready is very different. We have so few meets available to us, and we have no control over when they are. So for each of those meets a decision has to be made on each gymnast as to what level they can compete, or even if they can compete at all. My DD competed L3 in November even though she'd moved to a L4 group because she'd only been in the group for 2 months and was still missing skills, and didn't even know the full routines for floor and beam yet. i.e. obviously not ready to compete L4. But next weekend is her next meet, and she's almost ready. She still misses her shoot-through and mill circle occasionally, and her ROBHS isn't all that pretty. She has a mental block (fear) when it comes to the beam dismount, and in reality she may end up doing the L3 dismount and take the deductions. But at some point she just has to go for it and be at the bottom of the scoring (someone has to). Her next meet in June she will have many of these issues sorted and she will score much higher. We have all talked about this meet next weekend as being a bit of a practice meet for us, because so many of our girls aren't strictly competition ready (by most standards). Luckily it is a small meet and it really won't matter all that much. But if we don't go to this meet, there isn't another until June, so we don't want to miss the opportunity to get the meet experience.

 

[justanothergymmom]

Thanks for your great responses! So to put a number on it, would a 90% success rate in making the skill within a routine at practice make it competition ready? For how many weeks prior to a meet? Is there ever a time that it would be acceptable to put a skill in a routine that is not competition ready, say 50-75% made at practice? (I am asking about L8-10 since the skills are so different than compulsories)

Dunno-Thank you so much for your thorough description of the process that leads to skill competency! I have one question--after the face plant, what do you do? Do you go back a step in the process or continue with a thicker mat ? Seriously though, what do you do when it seems that they are not ready to take that next step?

If you still need a spot on a skill at practice or in warmups at a meet, does that mean that you are probably not ready to compete it yet?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

Thanks for your great responses! So to put a number on it, would a 90% success rate in making the skill within a routine at practice make it competition ready? For how many weeks prior to a meet? Is there ever a time that it would be acceptable to put a skill in a routine that is not competition ready, say 50-75% made at practice? (I am asking about L8-10 since the skills are so different than compulsories)

Dunno-Thank you so much for your thorough description of the process that leads to skill competency! I have one question--after the face plant, what do you do? Do you go back a step in the process or continue with a thicker mat ? Seriously though, what do you do when it seems that they are not ready to take that next step?

If you still need a spot on a skill at practice or in warmups at a meet, does that mean that you are probably not ready to compete it yet?

you go back to the step before the face plant. the athlete is not ready. the athlete is to learn and understand the sequential steps with an exact expectation before entering in to the steps to learn high level skills. the coach and athlete MUST be on the same page, understand what each is doing an why, concluding with a successful conclusion. this is assuming that the coach knows the steps of what they're doing.

if you NEED a spot (the implication is that the athlete 'feels' they need a spot NOT the coach) then the athlete is not emotionally ready to cope with the task at hand. this is WHY so many kids get hurt. that and coaches that rush and take shortcuts because they either don't understand the physical requirements of what they're teaching or they're cheerleader coaches with tons of emotional energy and no technical knowledge.

most coaches use non-spotting methodologies. i can tell you that i have never touched most of my athletes bodies, both boys and girls, for most of what they know how to do. this does not mean that i won't stand in close on certain things at competitions when i see certain skills become unstable right in front of my very eyes. but i must trust what i have done and what the athlete has done and let them go. the athletes know that this could happen and it is very important for them to communicate to us that they are, in fact, feeling exactly in what we see. if something moves from unstable to completely breaking down? they will not compete it that day. safety first...last...and always.

finally, and truthfully at the risk of sounding arrogant, there is no question or 2nd guessing whether the athlete is ready to take that next step. the tests and measurements placed on the athletes to prove physical readiness are well known and attainable without failure.

in the end, and even when the process for the athlete has been somewhat empirical, the kids will still err. were human beings and not machines. and as i said the margins of error are quantifiable. so, when everything has been done correctly the risk of injury becomes very low. IT IS THIS that causes good coaches to be thorough and confident. and if the coaches are then so are the athletes. it is a sacred trust that exists between gymnastics coaches and their athletes. once that trust is breached...i think you can all figure out the rest and where that leaves the gymnast emotionally, mentally and ultimately physically.

this IS very important stuff you are all questioning and talking about. it is the very fabric of what we do as coaches. and it is this that causes the break downs that exist in our sport and sometimes even at the very highest level of our sport. if this were not so, there would be no need for coaching education, clinics, safety exams etc; and there would be no need for coaches to ever question the physical readiness of their athletes.

whew...

 

[flipper's fan]

Just for example, my dd has been able to do a full on floor for three years. RO, BHS Full. Every time.
She can do a double full on rod floor. she has been competing a half, until just very recently when she was able to get a clean full in the routine.