GymMomStarQuest29
Proud Parent
Hi there,
New here. I have been having serious concerns about our gym and wanted to get a wide range of opinions on things that have recently come to light. I apologize, this may be long.
My daughter started as level 3 last yr at 7 yo. She did great last year, she really bonded with her teammates and identifies as a gymnast - she loves the sport. We don’t have a lot of options in our area so even though I have reservations about our gym, I let her drive and I just finance her goals.
This year (level 4, age 8) I’ve seen her perform several times and something kept nagging at me. It isn’t that she isn’t doing as well (she isn’t) but when I watched her perform, she wasn’t the same. I had that mom sense - something wasn’t right. So earlier this week she suddenly had this major breakdown after practice. She said she can’t take it anymore, she can’t keep going to practice and getting yelled at. After a very long tearful come to Jesus talk this is what I gather from her: the coaches don’t coach. They give small corrections and if you don’t do it the next time they just yell. With her being 8, and a sensitive soul at that, I tried to dig a bit to see what the context of the yelling was. I said “so what would you do instead if someone didn’t get the correction after being told multiple times?” She said “well I wouldn’t just yell. I would spot them on the move and show them the position and let them feel the difference, or record it and show them what it looks like. They just yell and make you go sit out.” Hm. So I told her I would come to practice and watch (HIGHLY discouraged by the coaches.)
I attended practice this week and here’s some things I saw. Granted, if I was a rec parent or not looking for it maybe I wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe I’m being too critical. But it bothers me.
When I walked in I noticed that immediately someone looked at me, typed something on their watch, and then another coach looked at her phone. That coach walked over and talked to another coach. That coach picked up her phone and sent a text. During the remainder of the evening, I watched the coaches sit on their phones all night, and you could tell at times they were texting each other - one picks up her phone and texts, a minute later another coach picks up her phone and texts. Like clockwork.
One girl in an older level seemed to be having a block on a skill. The coach gave her about 10 seconds to do the skill and then kicked her off the event. She called her out to the other girls, let the other girls work on their routine and basically told this poor girl, who was visibly crying, that she wouldn’t spot her, wouldn’t baby her, and sent her to the waiting room. It was not a supportive tone and seemed just plain mean.
During the vault for the higher levels (think 8-10) the coach sat beside the vault runway and ate, and texted, and sometimes glanced up. And these girls were practicing some major skills. There was no one spotting them on the other side of the table. And the coach wasn’t giving any corrections. I kept watching girls land on their back, etc. She was just hanging out. Low and behold, at the end of the night one of those girls limped out without being able to put weight on her foot at all. (No coach helped her out of the gym or went to talk to her parents, she just hopped one legged out into the snow).
For about an hour of this practice, I watched 3 of the 5 or 6 coaches sit on the floor and hang out like they were at a slumber party. They would sometimes look up and tell a girl to tuck her head on a handstand or keep her legs tight but they were mostly completely deaf to anything happening around them.
As for my daughter, she seemed to always go last and when she was doing her routine, the coaches were texting, or turned their back to her entirely to talk to another coach. They gave the slightest corrections “stay tight!” But no positioning or technique (which as her biggest critic, admittedly, she could use).
The following day I went to practice again. On uneven bars, while the level 4’s we’re doing their routine, the coach spotting them just walked away at one point with no direction or instruction, to talk to another coach. One girl almost fell backward off the low bar when her hands were already off it. One girl fell from the high bar onto her back. The coaches didn’t react. Come to think of it, 4 of our girls adjusted the bars before they even started, for about 10 minutes they were standing on the bars adjusting them without a coach coming over to help. Then my daughter did her routine and the coach yelled “you aren’t even TRYING to keep your knees together!” Real meanly. Couldn’t hear anything else - maybe she’s told her a hundred times. But with everything else I saw, it didn’t sit right.
There is a lot of standing don’t around overall, it seems like unless they are actively doing something (lined up waiting to take their turn for a routine) there’s no skill instruction. Halfway through the night the head coach decided they had enough of practice bc they had gotten through all the events. They ended practice an hour early, even though most parents weren't there.
Yesterday was our meet. I saw more Coaching during warm ups than I had seen in 6 hours of practice the two days prior. But when they got to beam, with more than enough time for a solid warm up after waiting about half an hour to move to the event, the coaches rushed them through about 5 minutes of quick messy warm up on the beam, and then stood around leaning on the beam talking. Our girls didn’t have good performances on the beam- even those who have solid skills usually.
At the end, as they were waiting for awards, every other coach was with their team or at least in the same vicinity. Our coaches were not - they sat along the wall on their phones, our girls were in the middle of the gym on their own (not that they minded but I was pretty irritated). And…the coaches came up to use before awards and explained that they had an early day tomorrow d had to leave. They left our team there alone for awards, didn’t see them win their team award, and on the way out our girls heard the head coach say something to her daughter about swimming back at the hotel.
All in all we have a large number of injuries right now, on the team. We have very little communication. Attending practice seems to be discouraged and it very much looks like a team parent showing up sends an alert from phone to phone. Parents are lectured that we are not allowed to leave before the end of awards but all of our coaches have (twice actually - they did last time too) and I don’t believe our girls are getting actual training.
On top of this, how normal is it to sign a contract? Parents must sign a contract at the start of the year that they will do/not do certain things, to make us responsible for the costs for the year (understandable to an extent) but in that contract
It states that if we don’t volunteer or don’t attend meetings etc we are charged $100 for each missed obligation. Where is our coaches obligation?
What are your thoughts? What would you do?
New here. I have been having serious concerns about our gym and wanted to get a wide range of opinions on things that have recently come to light. I apologize, this may be long.
My daughter started as level 3 last yr at 7 yo. She did great last year, she really bonded with her teammates and identifies as a gymnast - she loves the sport. We don’t have a lot of options in our area so even though I have reservations about our gym, I let her drive and I just finance her goals.
This year (level 4, age 8) I’ve seen her perform several times and something kept nagging at me. It isn’t that she isn’t doing as well (she isn’t) but when I watched her perform, she wasn’t the same. I had that mom sense - something wasn’t right. So earlier this week she suddenly had this major breakdown after practice. She said she can’t take it anymore, she can’t keep going to practice and getting yelled at. After a very long tearful come to Jesus talk this is what I gather from her: the coaches don’t coach. They give small corrections and if you don’t do it the next time they just yell. With her being 8, and a sensitive soul at that, I tried to dig a bit to see what the context of the yelling was. I said “so what would you do instead if someone didn’t get the correction after being told multiple times?” She said “well I wouldn’t just yell. I would spot them on the move and show them the position and let them feel the difference, or record it and show them what it looks like. They just yell and make you go sit out.” Hm. So I told her I would come to practice and watch (HIGHLY discouraged by the coaches.)
I attended practice this week and here’s some things I saw. Granted, if I was a rec parent or not looking for it maybe I wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe I’m being too critical. But it bothers me.
When I walked in I noticed that immediately someone looked at me, typed something on their watch, and then another coach looked at her phone. That coach walked over and talked to another coach. That coach picked up her phone and sent a text. During the remainder of the evening, I watched the coaches sit on their phones all night, and you could tell at times they were texting each other - one picks up her phone and texts, a minute later another coach picks up her phone and texts. Like clockwork.
One girl in an older level seemed to be having a block on a skill. The coach gave her about 10 seconds to do the skill and then kicked her off the event. She called her out to the other girls, let the other girls work on their routine and basically told this poor girl, who was visibly crying, that she wouldn’t spot her, wouldn’t baby her, and sent her to the waiting room. It was not a supportive tone and seemed just plain mean.
During the vault for the higher levels (think 8-10) the coach sat beside the vault runway and ate, and texted, and sometimes glanced up. And these girls were practicing some major skills. There was no one spotting them on the other side of the table. And the coach wasn’t giving any corrections. I kept watching girls land on their back, etc. She was just hanging out. Low and behold, at the end of the night one of those girls limped out without being able to put weight on her foot at all. (No coach helped her out of the gym or went to talk to her parents, she just hopped one legged out into the snow).
For about an hour of this practice, I watched 3 of the 5 or 6 coaches sit on the floor and hang out like they were at a slumber party. They would sometimes look up and tell a girl to tuck her head on a handstand or keep her legs tight but they were mostly completely deaf to anything happening around them.
As for my daughter, she seemed to always go last and when she was doing her routine, the coaches were texting, or turned their back to her entirely to talk to another coach. They gave the slightest corrections “stay tight!” But no positioning or technique (which as her biggest critic, admittedly, she could use).
The following day I went to practice again. On uneven bars, while the level 4’s we’re doing their routine, the coach spotting them just walked away at one point with no direction or instruction, to talk to another coach. One girl almost fell backward off the low bar when her hands were already off it. One girl fell from the high bar onto her back. The coaches didn’t react. Come to think of it, 4 of our girls adjusted the bars before they even started, for about 10 minutes they were standing on the bars adjusting them without a coach coming over to help. Then my daughter did her routine and the coach yelled “you aren’t even TRYING to keep your knees together!” Real meanly. Couldn’t hear anything else - maybe she’s told her a hundred times. But with everything else I saw, it didn’t sit right.
There is a lot of standing don’t around overall, it seems like unless they are actively doing something (lined up waiting to take their turn for a routine) there’s no skill instruction. Halfway through the night the head coach decided they had enough of practice bc they had gotten through all the events. They ended practice an hour early, even though most parents weren't there.
Yesterday was our meet. I saw more Coaching during warm ups than I had seen in 6 hours of practice the two days prior. But when they got to beam, with more than enough time for a solid warm up after waiting about half an hour to move to the event, the coaches rushed them through about 5 minutes of quick messy warm up on the beam, and then stood around leaning on the beam talking. Our girls didn’t have good performances on the beam- even those who have solid skills usually.
At the end, as they were waiting for awards, every other coach was with their team or at least in the same vicinity. Our coaches were not - they sat along the wall on their phones, our girls were in the middle of the gym on their own (not that they minded but I was pretty irritated). And…the coaches came up to use before awards and explained that they had an early day tomorrow d had to leave. They left our team there alone for awards, didn’t see them win their team award, and on the way out our girls heard the head coach say something to her daughter about swimming back at the hotel.
All in all we have a large number of injuries right now, on the team. We have very little communication. Attending practice seems to be discouraged and it very much looks like a team parent showing up sends an alert from phone to phone. Parents are lectured that we are not allowed to leave before the end of awards but all of our coaches have (twice actually - they did last time too) and I don’t believe our girls are getting actual training.
On top of this, how normal is it to sign a contract? Parents must sign a contract at the start of the year that they will do/not do certain things, to make us responsible for the costs for the year (understandable to an extent) but in that contract
It states that if we don’t volunteer or don’t attend meetings etc we are charged $100 for each missed obligation. Where is our coaches obligation?
What are your thoughts? What would you do?