Women How many weeks before competing should you have your routines complete?

[YogaMomof6]

My twins are compete xcel Gold this year as a transition between 4 to 6 and will test out of 5 in January. Their first meet is in 6 weeks and they still do not have floor routines. We have been waiting all summer for the routines and now I feel like 4-5 weeks will not be enough time to prep and perform to a standard that is worth the entry fee into the meet and my time and travel money associated with going to a meet unprepared.

What is your experience? Can you pull together an optional floor routine for the first time in 4 weeks. While putting together a beam and bar routine as well?

 

[beachgirl]

My daughter got hers for L6 one month before. Always scored around 9.5-9.6, even at first meet. If she has the skills, the rest is easy. This year as a 2nd year L9, she still doesn't have any routines.

 

[jamieintexas]

We are teaching our xcel girls routines now. Our first meet is in January. I am excited that we are doing it this early. We get our Optional girls done first, their routines are longer and need more time to perfect.

 

[Sk8ermaiden]

My daughter got hers for L6 one month before. Always scored around 9.5-9.6, even at first meet. If she has the skills, the rest is easy. This year as a 2nd year L9, she still doesn't have any routines.

This is NOT the case for everyone. If the kid is good at picking up choreo and a natural dancer, the rest is easy. My kid loses a zillion points from the not-skills and too short a time to prepare would be really bad for her.

 

[mls529]

Back in level 4 JO, they learned floor routines about 2 months prior (obviously working on perfecting the skills well before then). Now in Xcel, I believe the Bronze and Silver started at least 3 months in advance. Gold and Platinum a bit less - probably 2 months in advance with the music. Six weeks does seem short, but since you came from JO, I will tell you Xcel (and optional) routines are so different. You don't need as much time to get every hand and arm movement just right, so it comes much faster -- again assuming it is the choreography, not the skills. I hope your DD will learn them soon, as every kid is different and some take longer to feel comfortable with floor routines.

 

[raenndrops]

If it helps, when my OG went from JO to Xcel Gold, she had only been back in the gym for 5 weeks before she competed her first meet with a floor routine she had finalized at 8pm the NIGHT before the meet. For bars, she did kip, front hip, horizontal cast, cast squat on, jump to high bar, kip, cast, back hip circle, L4 dismount (she eventually shortened the bar routine to reduce deductions). Beam was easy to come up with too.
The routines will come together pretty quickly ... and as a BONUS, as long as she remembers the SKILLS that meet the requirements, it doesn't matter is she forgets the order / the poses / the "fluff". Lol, last season, we had a girl run off the floor upset because she did the "the wrong tumbling pass" and forgot one of her poses in the middle and did the wrong jump ... She scored a 9.35 and it wasn't a particularly high scoring meet.

 

[CuriousCate]

Mine got her L6/7 floor about 6 weeks before her first meet. I think more time would have made it more polished (she was never fully ON the music) but she pretty consistently was able to score 9.2-9.4. Optionals has more fudge factor than compulsories since they aren't text errors.

 

[Gymnast738282]

I learned mine 3 days before the meet. As long as you have the skills she should still be fine. So then she can just focus on the dance.

 

[thefellowsmom]

My dd did level 6 the first year of the new levels. Our gym didn’t really know what they were going to do and decided very last minute to score a group out of five and compete six. All the girls scored out of five over Christmas break and learned their routines the week before the first meet in early January. It was chaos and totally not recommended. The first meet was kinda a disaster for more than one of them but by the second meet a few weeks later they were all fine.

My daughter got her level 8 routine in November and competed it for the first time mid December and scored mid nines with it. Depends on the kid, but they really don’t need that much time with it. Polish comes with performance and even if they struggle a bit with polish at the beginning of the season that will get better and better as time goes on.

Now, if she really struggles to pick up choreography or needs lots of time to practice to remember it then mentioning that to a coach is probably a good idea. My dd always practices her new routines a lot at home in the beginning so she gets all the details down.

Advice: Take tons of video of her session when She is learning her routine. Then you can go back for reference and run each segment at home.

 

[vagymmomma]

My daughter got her first L9 floor routine the Sunday before the first meet. Only one practice that week included full routines. She was not the best with choreography, so was pretty stressed about it. I told her to treat it like a free pass. During the meet she got twisted and had to add a few shakes and a half turn to face the right direction. The score wasn't her best, but she was able to laugh about it afterwards.

I recommend against that kind of approach, but in the whole scheme of things it didn't really matter. The key was she had her tumbling passes and dance (jumps/turns) down pat and qualified for states.