Parents How do they learn the skills

[Newbiee]

My daughter is in gym 3 days a week and spends most of the session conditioning stretching and drills. She said they don’t really work on learning skills however I have seen a lot of kids in the group above her doing a lot of skills and even some from her group so they must come together eventually. I was just wondering how do they learn the skills without the help? I never see coaches spotting gymnasts. Is it just a case of they can eventually do them with doing the conditioning and drills?

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Depends on the skill, but in many cases, yes. Many skills can be learned from drills and conditioning without the need for spotting. In general, I think the best approach to about any new skill is to spend about 90% of the training time breaking the skill down into components and making sure the gymnast has the strength and understands the mechanics of the skill, and only a little bit of time actually doing the entire skill.

 

[Coach Kate]

Depends on the skill, but in many cases, yes. Many skills can be learned from drills and conditioning without the need for spotting. In general, I think the best approach to about any new skill is to spend about 90% of the training time breaking the skill down into components and making sure the gymnast has the strength and understands the mechanics of the skill, and only a little bit of time actually doing the entire skill.

I agree with this, especially at this time of the year! Basics, drills, and conditioning. I would see what things are looking like in 6-8 weeks as summer comes to a close. It's actually really fun to watch when it looks like not a lot has been happening and then there are suddenly big skills!

 

[3rd_time_around]

Summer is usually focused on conditioning, drills, forms, and basics because leading into the season, they start putting routines together and a lot of time is spent on that. Every summer my daughter's gym goes back to basics and does more conditioning.