WAG Compulsories

[John]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, please keep them coming. I am interested how DD's IGC experience will fair starting in the JO world. She is behind in bars. He suggests level 8 scratch on bars for the first few meets or level 7 for the first few meets. I have no idea so I left it up to him and DD.

 

[Gymmom0403]

My dd is not a dancy gymnast. She repeated 5 -- once old level 5 once new level 5. The new one has a very dancy floor routine. She didn't score great with it -- low 9 since her tumbling was good. Compulsories taught her the correct form and technique which is what gets you far in the future. It's the little things that add up. So although compulsory is torture for parents to sit through meets and kids to do the same routine over and over for practice it definitely helps with learning correct technique, learning how to compete etc

 

[3rd_time_around]

My dd is not a dancy gymnast. She repeated 5 -- once old level 5 once new level 5. The new one has a very dancy floor routine. She didn't score great with it -- low 9 since her tumbling was good. Compulsories taught her the correct form and technique which is what gets you far in the future. It's the little things that add up. So although compulsory is torture for parents to sit through meets and kids to do the same routine over and over for practice it definitely helps with learning correct technique, learning how to compete etc

She didn't repeat, old 6 is the new 5. So if she competed old 5, then "moved up" to new 5, she didn't repeat. And that's why the new 5 was so dancy. They made the new routines more artistic to get rid of the robotic moves of the old levels (although as usual, the new levels have become robotic in many gyms). So, she actually didn't repeat--that was a problem when they changed the levels around and renamed them, a lot of gymnasts and parents thought the girls were repeating. Some quit because of it, some were just confused.

 

[Gymmom0403]

True. She says she did since it was same level number but you are correct she did move up She didn't care, it was just one of those things that she did. Hated new level 5 -- that's a tough level! But we survived and haven't looked back

 

[LJL07]

Not to hijack the thread but DD skipped L4. Her coach was new and didn't know any better. Went from L3 to competing L5. Not doing the flatback vault in L4 gave her FHS vault troubles for years. She will now compete either L8 or Diamond this year. Its not fixable she cant go back and test out now. I wonder if anyone will ever notice? First year L5 was a bear from L3 fun meets.

Right. And this is why I cringe when I hear of 7 year olds skipping from level 3 to 7. Level 4&5 are important in my opinion to spend at least a little time on. No one needs to spend an entire season if they are performing competently but I think some time should be spent instead of just a score out meet with bare minimum scores obtained.
I think it's relevant to the discussion! I do think it is certainly possible to be a respectable scoring compulsory but really shine in optionals. And conversely, some really outstanding compulsory gymnasts do not end up being amazing optionals. But coachp is right that it sure can't hurt to be a good compulsory gymnast.

 

[Mom2-4]

Thanks, It was old L3-old L5.