WAG Have you ever seen this happen!?

[Taurus]

That doesn't fly w/ any other sport- why would it be ok in gymnastics/ and even more to the point, those parents have no idea that not training & conditioning enough will almost assuredly lead to their children being injured - I would point out both of these issues w/ any parent - (I.e. My son wants to play football but only practice 1x a week???)

 

[Taurus]

And the girls that are working out 16+ hrs a week will surely not be happy waiting behind a girl who can't do a pullover on bar or cartwheel on beam, etc - I doubt the 2x a wk girls would get much of a warm reception from the girls who are truly dedicated to the team

 

[cadybearsmommy]

The problem isn't that the students have nowhere to go; they have access to recreational classes and are able to work on progressing through skills. These people are demanding to be on team and want to COMPETE and they only want to compete in the J.O. program, but want to come for part of 1 or 2 practices per week and pay for only that. I am just so surprised that this is reasonable sounding to them.

Oh wow, I didn't realize that they actually want to compete but didn't want to do full practice hours. That is just odd. I would just tell them that to be competition ready, they have to do the full amount of hours or stay in a rec or pre team program until they are ready to commit to the number of hours needed. From what I've seen, team girls need every single hour they get to be able to condition properly and safely get new skills.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

At the previous gym that I coached I worked really hard to convince the other coaches and other people who were decision-makers that it's very important to start a separate class for those gymnasts who were graduating from rec levels but were older and didn't fit into our team groups. Some coaches strongly believed that there's "no point" in offering them more practice time because "they were not going anywhere in long term". I had bunch of those kids, 9-13 years old, they were training two times a week, two rec classes (that was the maximum they could do). We had three different rec levels and the kids have to pass a test to move up to the next level. They were about to pass their final test and after that there was only a dead end.

The gym had nothing else but easy rec classes to offer after that. So I worked really hard to get those girls a change to practice 4 hours a week in summer, I promised to coach them myself. We had so fun summer! After summer I moved but I made sure the gym understood to not let them go and quit but keep offering them the separate class twice a week. The gym finally agreed to offer them an opportunity to practice twice a week and start competing also. They were given an option to compete twice a year in the home meet. The girls were over the moon! I really liked working with them even if I knew they might stay in compulsories forever but well, not every team kid gets to optionals either. I think it is important to have many different options, both level wise and financially. I hate it how every sport is getting more and more expensive and only wealthy families can afford sports like gymnastics! That's not how it's supposed to be.

 

[CCGymbug]

It is very expensive but there are many of us who are not wealthy who sacrifice for the sport even though it will not go anywhere. My car is now 11 years old, I work extra hours and cut corners where possible for her to be at the gym. But to get good people and decent equipment I understand.

 

[Aussie_coach]

In our gym we offer recreational classes up to level 8/9. The kids only need to train a few hours a week and the don't need to compete.

You would be surprised (I know we were) at what these kids can achieve. These rec kids often progress faster than team kids even thought they are on significantly less hours and are not competing.

I think the following reasons come into play
1. Kids don't need to learn routines. That means we can spend the full class time developing their skills. No need to lane hours and hours repeating routines over and over.
2. There is no competition season, so they can do up training year round. Team kids have to spend months preparing and practicing for competitions so they have a disrupted and much shorter up training process.
3. These kids are perhaps in the gym once a week or twice at the most, they are VErY excited to be there, they don't have the chance for conditioning drills to get repetitive, they wrk very intensely hard.
4. The coaches know their time is limited and the coaches make the classes work fast. When you have twenty hours a week with a kid you can afford a few minutes of downtime here and there. The rec kids are go go go all session.
5. Many are very talented they just can't or don't wish to commit to high hours.
6. While we do insist on excellent standards on their skills before moving onto the next level of skills, they don't have to get it to the same level of absolute perfection that a child who is going to compete the skill does. So we can move on quicker.

The other huge advantage of having rec classes that go to level 8/9 is that when your current team gymnasts want to retire many will stay with you and join the rec class. Their bodies or lives may no longer be able to handle the intense hours but that love for gymnastics is still there. This way they can keep training much longer.

 

[gymmomtotwo]

This is what XCEL is for, right? Lower hours, lower cost. Many people end up in our program even though they are talented enough for JO.

 

[gymmomtotwo]

We also have a high school class targeting those that want to stay prepared for High School gymnastics but don't want to do club anymore. They are usually at about a skill level of maybe level4-8

 

[bookworm]

The problem isn't that the students have nowhere to go; they have access to recreational classes and are able to work on progressing through skills. These people are demanding to be on team and want to COMPETE and they only want to compete in the J.O. program, but want to come for part of 1 or 2 practices per week and pay for only that. I am just so surprised that this is reasonable sounding to them.

Our old gym had 2 teams just for this reason....there was the travel team ( all in, competitive JO kids who competed levels 4-10 all over the US, practiced 5-6 days a week) and there was the local team ( girls who wanted to compete JO but only practiced a few times a week, did not compete out of the state)....girls were on the travel team by invitation only, and if you so chose, you could drop down to the local team. Any gymnast could join the local team at the level they were at, with the understanding that they were not traveling out of state for any meets.

This system worked because both teams had their own sets of coaches, and own sets of equipment, so neither team felt cheated from a coaching or equipment standpoint. Girls on both teams always seemed happy with there choice of team so I never saw any downside to this set up.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

okay...i'll say it again without typing in bold because people that have come on board since i was away might think i'm rude. and i don't want this thread to go there.

again, we have more kids doing gymnastics worldwide than ever before in the entire history of gymnastics. fact.

again, we have the most amount of coaches coaching gymnastics worldwide than ever before in the history of gymnastics. fact.

there is a huge problem between the 2. we don't have enough coaches to coach all the kids that are doing gymnastics worldwide.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

It is very expensive but there are many of us who are not wealthy who sacrifice for the sport even though it will not go anywhere. My car is now 11 years old, I work extra hours and cut corners where possible for her to be at the gym. But to get good people and decent equipment I understand.

the latter is by far easier to do than the former. if you only knew...

 

[coachmolly]

We have had a few who were interested in team and not up for the time/money commitment, but we are usually able to steer them into another class. For the younger kids we have an advanced rec., for the middle/high school aged kids we have a high school gymnastics prep class that caters to a wide range of skill levels. These kids will then have the opportunity to compete should they make their respective high school team down the road. But it's the same issue that dunno is talking about, we just don't have the coaches to accommodate all of the girls who want to be on our team or in a team prep class.