WAG Curious about gyms that sandbag

[Aussie_coach]

AandAsmom, I do mean in level 1-3 as well. Our level 3's are working level 4-6 skills to varying degrees. We expect at least by mid season a level 3 should already be ready to compete successfully at level 4 and should be working level 5 skills and training the strength and body shapes for level 6 skills. This is pretty much how most gyms work in my area.

 

[Becauseisaid]

Ah, but uptraining is different from requiring a specific extremely high score at meets to move up.

 

[3LittleGymmies]

I understand what @AandAsmom was trying to say. I have to admit that it breaks my heart to watch girls in the lower levels sit on the floor and watch the podium fill up with girls who are up training several levels while they are still trying to master the current level. I guess that the only solution to this would be to have different divisions within the levels... like beginner, intermediate, and advanced (all determined by their scores at the meet prior). But that will probably never happen and would be difficult to monitor and enforce.

 

[cbifoja]

You would first have to define sandbagging before you could really compare what people are saying. Personally, I don't understand holding a child back when she is scoring 37s and 38s just because of one or two skills. To me, you move the kid up and she takes her licks until she gets the skills. Let some other people enjoy the podium..... And I think it's sandbagging when you make the move up criteria so insanely high (multiple 37s/38s) or require each level must be repeated no matter how well the gymmie performed the previous year.

But again, that's just my opinion and I respect the fact that others disagree with my definition.

 

[cbifoja]

I understand what @AandAsmom was trying to say. I have to admit that it breaks my heart to watch girls in the lower levels sit on the floor and watch the podium fill up with girls who are up training several levels while they are still trying to master the current level. I guess that the only solution to this would be to have different divisions within the levels... like beginner, intermediate, and advanced (all determined by their scores at the meet prior). But that will probably never happen and would be difficult to monitor and enforce.

I think someone here on CB proposed what I thought was a brilliant idea: have a novice and experienced division at each level and allow only first years to compete in novice. That way they are competing against kids who are also first years and let all of those gyms who want to require multiple years at each level to compete against one another. Of course, there would still be gyms who would work the system but at least it would eliminate the multiple year sandbagging situation.

 

[gracyomalley]

I guess I just never worried about where DD (or the boys for that matter) was placing in L5-6....(no comp before that). She was focused on learning skills, improving from meet to meet, and enjoying gym with her friends. I do see that she certainly enjoys placing now that she is doing it consistently in optionals, but I think we as parents do wrong when we worry about placement at low levels. Coaches who like kids to spend extra time "winning" at lower levels will sometimes be doing it so that the kids can move faster later after form is good and much uptraining has occurred, and I suppose sometimes they do it to "win" as a team - and in that case I think its not in the best interest of the individual gymnasts. Some kids really are fine being mediocre but improving year by year - and are ok competing newish skills...some will lose confidence if that occurs and need to be "held back" a bit (or need to be fully polished prior to competing anything). This is more a personality issue than a coaching strategy in the early levels...

I certainly feel that the teams with optional girls who still don't have straight arm FHS vaults, or tight straight giants are doing a great disservice to the kids and likely should have "held them back" some - but I would guess that in those situations the gym is simply not training the kids properly...and I certainly realize that the kid getting 34s and moving up through the low levels will not feel successful if those scores don't improve over time (as mastery of the previous level does become more important in optionals).

I think the last thing we as parents should do is think about divisions of competition - after all, its really not fair to take the kid who always takes 2 years to master a level and automatically place them in a group of "advanced" level 6s, for instance - quite frankly there are high scorers who are just very talented and well trained and only need one year per level to score 37+, and there are girls who need 2-3 years to have solid 35s....

Scores, smores.....let it go!

 

[Natasha]

I just don't understand all the worry about placements in L1-3. It is supposed to be an introduction to competition. I wish USAG would do away with placements at those levels and make it all achievement only with no team competition allowed. It would solve a lot of problems....no need for divisions, no sandbagging to win team competition, no girls used to getting 1st place at lower levels and then getting discouraged when they get to levels that require actual gymnastics skills. Our state has a few gyms that compete L1 and L2 but there is no team competition allowed, and until this year L1-L3 did only achievement awards, not placement awards. I was disappointed to see that they have now switched to placement awards.

 

[Aussie_coach]

I understand what @AandAsmom was trying to say. I have to admit that it breaks my heart to watch girls in the lower levels sit on the floor and watch the podium fill up with girls who are up training several levels while they are still trying to master the current level. I guess that the only solution to this would be to have different divisions within the levels... like beginner, intermediate, and advanced (all determined by their scores at the meet prior). But that will probably never happen and would be difficult to monitor and enforce.

But why are they competing a level which they are just trying to master? To me that seems like a dangerous coaching practise. If all their skills are not totally solid they will be trying to do things they are not ready for, for the sake of the competition. If any of their skills are fairly new they can unexpectedly lose a skill in an environment where they will feel pressure to perform it anyway.

 

[LJL07]

By sandbagging, I meant requiring a move up score of 38 AA in x number of meets before they can move up. I think up training is a wonderful thing regardless of a gym's move up philosophy. Re: sandbagging, the child who won in DD's age bracket and the second and third place girls were from the same gym and repeating level 1. The girl who won had an AA score of 38.675 and the next two were pretty close. It was very clear that those girls could have competed possibly level 3 and done pretty well, so why hold back at one a second year? They've been sweeping the meets all season. Meanwhile DD and her good friend were 5th and 6th place, and it was their first year, but it was neat to see how they went up from 33-ish to almost 37 over the course of the year. I think achievement ribbons for levels 1-3 would be great. Otherwise it seems like apples and oranges are competing against each other. I understand that the scores don't matter at these low levels, but I guess they must matter to the gyms?

 

[LJL07]

And I am mainly referring to levels 1&2. Those skills are not that hard. Absolutely giants, front handspring vaults, harder stuff should be mastered before moving up, but the level 1 floor routine? Is that necessary?

 

[LJL07]

I just don't understand all the worry about placements in L1-3. It is supposed to be an introduction to competition. I wish USAG would do away with placements at those levels and make it all achievement only with no team competition allowed. It would solve a lot of problems....no need for divisions, no sandbagging to win team competition, no girls used to getting 1st place at lower levels and then getting discouraged when they get to levels that require actual gymnastics skills. Our state has a few gyms that compete L1 and L2 but there is no team competition allowed, and until this year L1-L3 did only achievement awards, not placement awards. I was disappointed to see that they have now switched to placement awards.

Yes, this!!

 

[3LittleGymmies]

I really do not see any reason to repeat level one and level two unless the child has a maturity issue or the parents have an issue with increased hours.

 

[bogwoppit]

Repeating L1 or L2 is a joke. Not a funny one though. Kids should not even be competing unless they are competent at the skills.

 

[Ali'sMom]

We have a gym in our area, whom DD competes against a few times a year. DD is very medal-driven (I try to dissuade it)... A good chunk of girls in DD's age group (she's in the older age group) from the other gym have done L3 for 2 years. I'm cool with that, I thought about keeping her L3 through this coming December to do L3 states again. But, when I looked back at these girls' scores from their first fall season (meaning, just september to December) a group of them were already hitting 37s and 38s consistently, and very many golds. And then still in this level another full year.
I'm not so much about accusing them of sandbagging, but as a mom, I'm thinking, why would you keep your daughter in that level for so long? Especially this past year when the levels changed, and to keep them in the same level they went from L4 to new L3. My daughter had a fit staying "3", even though she moved up! And, as a mom, I'm also thinking "move those girls up so my daughter doesn't have to compete against them any more "

 

[Gymgem05]

Due to a few things stated in the original post, I am led to believe that you could possibly be talking about the gym we are members of. LOL. That being we are in the same area, we recently took in 2 gymnasts from a prestigious competitive gym from the area, our girls are uptrained, we had multiple AA 38 and 37 scores and even one 39.
So I figured I might add some insight into what gyms like this are actually doing and if it is our gym you are hearing about you have some bad information.

More than likely none of our girls will be repeating level 2, some are moving to possibly 4 and most to level 3. Our gym requires you to have all of your level skills mastered by the end of summer to be able to compete that level in the fall. Basically, my daughter could do most level 3 skills last summer, but was still missing some therefore she was a level 2. She had a 9.9 on bars at states, but her vault still needs much improvement with a 9.2.
There is no required AA score in our gym to move up!

That being said some of the level 3's from last year repeated and did level 2 this year. This was due to the routine changes and to be completely honest they wanted to make our girls more competitive with some of the local gyms. The coaches focused on many little tedious things in gymnastics that some people don't realize are so important. Things like releve' height, body positions and presentation. We even started a dance class for the girls during gymnastics practice. This has fine tuned their skills and brought them a long way.

I truly feel like the past year has been an eye opener for my daughter. She is more aware than ever about her body positions, tightness and overall ability. This has made her do extremely well this year and will benefit her through out her gymnastics career. The coaches goal was to teach the girls early on, so they can avoid some complications they are having with some of our older gymnasts now.

Our level 1's are all first year team members. I do not know much about what they do and where they are going.

 

[kandkfunk]

She had a 9.9 on bars at states, but her vault still needs much improvement with a 9.2.

You had me agreeing to an extent until you got to the vault part above. I'm sure this is just one example of skills where your DD improved, but holding someone back at level 2 because they only scored a 9.2? Maybe I'm reading the post wrong, but that is a little extreme to me.

However, if you agree with the gym philosophy and your DD is happy, then it sounds like the right fit for you. Living in area that does not compete before L3, it's just really hard to wrap my head around some of these requirements. I totally understand the necessity of basics and fundamentals at an early age, but if these requirements had been around when my DD was little, I don't think she would have made it past level 2.

 

[Gymgem05]

I should have worded that better. A 9.2 has been her best this year. She started the season with an 8.4 so she has improved! The gym surely wouldn't hold her back due to a 9.2! Then I might have a gym mom fit! My ill stated point was we have to be capable of a level on all 4 events before we are allowed to be that level! Just because we can do level 4 bars doesn't mean we can even do a level 3 vault.

 

[GYM0M]

Our gym doesn't hold a gymnast back for not achieving a certain score, but will make them repeat if they are not proficient at the next level's skills. However, sandbagging has not been an issue in DD's age division. She's always been in the youngest. These girls cannot be repeaters as they were not old enough to compete the level the previous year. That being said, we still have girls that receive 38 AA! The lowest score in our age division to qualify for our state meet was 34.9. The state AA in JrA1 was 38.925 so high scores aren't just for repeaters!

 

[LJL07]

Due to a few things stated in the original post, I am led to believe that you could possibly be talking about the gym we are members of. LOL. That being we are in the same area, we recently took in 2 gymnasts from a prestigious competitive gym from the area, our girls are uptrained, we had multiple AA 38 and 37 scores and even one 39.
So I figured I might add some insight into what gyms like this are actually doing and if it is our gym you are hearing about you have some bad information.

More than likely none of our girls will be repeating level 2, some are moving to possibly 4 and most to level 3. Our gym requires you to have all of your level skills mastered by the end of summer to be able to compete that level in the fall. Basically, my daughter could do most level 3 skills last summer, but was still missing some therefore she was a level 2. She had a 9.9 on bars at states, but her vault still needs much improvement with a 9.2.
There is no required AA score in our gym to move up!

That being said some of the level 3's from last year repeated and did level 2 this year. This was due to the routine changes and to be completely honest they wanted to make our girls more competitive with some of the local gyms. The coaches focused on many little tedious things in gymnastics that some people don't realize are so important. Things like releve' height, body positions and presentation. We even started a dance class for the girls during gymnastics practice. This has fine tuned their skills and brought them a long way.

I truly feel like the past year has been an eye opener for my daughter. She is more aware than ever about her body positions, tightness and overall ability. This has made her do extremely well this year and will benefit her through out her gymnastics career. The coaches goal was to teach the girls early on, so they can avoid some complications they are having with some of our older gymnasts now.

Our level 1's are all first year team members. I do not know much about what they do and where they are going.

Yes, I think we are talking about the same gym. . The girls from your gym look amazing in the form department, and I'm sure it's bc of what I bolded above. This has been a frustrating year for us personally because we were at the "competitive gym" you mention, and my dd has level 3 skills but is lacking in form and body positioning. That gym you mentioned historically has held the girls back based on an AA score requirement but was doing absolutely nothing to address the girls' form issues and there was zero uptraining happening. They were saying they wanted half of them to repeat level one. I just couldn't see paying for a repeat year of level one. My kid would be bored out of her mind. The girls who switched over to your gym and are repeating level 2 placed very high at state. The only other explanation for repeating would be because they don't have some of the level 3 skills as you mentioned. But goodness, mine could absolutely use the body positioning and presentation work you mention, so your gym is definitely doing something right!

 

[Gymgem05]

Thanks! I agree with you, and wouldn't want to pay for the lack of training either. The 2 girls mentioned have improved tremendously and there is no way they will be repeating level 2. Good luck with your new gym home!