Parents "inability to get skills" - questions about this

[BusyMomof2]

A recent thread mentions that the inability to get skills can be a reason girls quit. Makes sense, though I have not really thought about this before. How common is this - that a girl wants to keep going but can't because she's reached a plateau?

Are there certain skills that tend to be the most quit-worthy?

My daughter off-handedly mentioned last night that she doesn't think she'll get a standing back tuck on beam, ever. I have no idea if that's true and she can be hard on herself, but that comment got me thinking!

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

This often coincides with the tween/teen growth spurt. Progress stalls, skills they already had get harder, and they just generally feel less successful than they're used to. In addition, this is also an age where they tend to want to do other things with their time.

 

[HurricaneLR]

There have been a bunch of skills that my daughter thought she would never get, but sure enough, a year later, they are easy as pie. I think it's pretty normal to have those thoughts - and then once you get that skill, you have those same thoughts about a new one!

As to quitting, I think it's such an individual thing- some girls get frustrated when they can't master new skills as quickly, and some are fine with taking a little longer. There aren't too many true gatekeeper skills on the Xcel side - there are usually alternatives. I do know some girls who quit because they could never master a kip, which meant they couldn't really advance levels. One the other hand, we have a family friend that competed platinum for maybe 5 or 6 years because of a medical condition that didn't allow her to do certain skills beyond that level. She competed platinum until she graduated high school!

 

[GymDadWA]

Are there certain skills that tend to be the most quit-worthy?

Very early on the most common skills are Kip and Back Hand Spring or BHS BHS.

Later on it just depends but any of the harder skills can be a hard especially on beam or bars. Some girls can't flip vaults too.

 

[BusyMomof2]

Very early on the most common skills are Kip and Back Hand Spring or BHS BHS.

Later on it just depends but any of the harder skills can be a hard especially on beam or bars. Some girls can't flip vaults too.

Wondering more about levels 9 and 10 since those are in our sights...so far flipping a vault is going well for my daughter, but I can definitely see that as we have a girl who bails every single time she tries and is now going to repeat level 7 for the 3rd time.

 

[NutterButter]

Gymnastics is full of skills at all levels that gymnasts don't see themselves getting, but they do. There are two instances where I see a true plateau. First would be persistent mental blocks combined with an inflexible coaching mentality (either not meeting the athlete where they are or refusing to set aside the offending skill and try something else). Second reason I see for a plateau has to do with work ethic of the athlete as in they don't quite know *how* to work through new frustrations (usually L8 when skills become hard for the first time for a certain breed of athlete). This isn't to say that the athlete's work ethic is poor either, just that upper levels requires a unique mindset.

 

[GymnastMomX2]

From what I've seen its usually fear that takes girls out of the sport vs. not being able to physically do a skill. So once they have to flip a vault, start doing back handspring on beam, beam series, even giants on bars. Then once you get to level 9/10 its often injuries that will take girls out of the sport, its hard to progress when you can't train, and once you are doing higher level skills it takes that much longer to come back from each injury.

More specific to your daughter, she doesn't need a standing back tuck on beam, so no problem there, there are many other options for her. She may surprise herself though. I truly thought beam fears would take my daughter out before she even got to optionals, so many tears when she was first learning her back walkover, and then back-handspring.. now here she is getting ready to compete a bhs+layout series.

 

[raenndrops]

Wondering more about levels 9 and 10 since those are in our sights...so far flipping a vault is going well for my daughter, but I can definitely see that as we have a girl who bails every single time she tries and is now going to repeat level 7 for the 3rd time.

We had a girl once who quit because she wanted to compete her Level 7 skills, but move to Level 8, and HC said that she would need to have some upgrades and go over the vault table more consistently to move to Level 8. She competed BWO-BWO and dive cartwheel on beam, Clear Hip Circles just above horizontal on low bar and high bar and didn't have a cast anywhere near handstand, ROBHSBLO and FHSFT on floor, and FHS Vault (when she actually went over the vault ... she usually balked at least once in meets, but didn't touch the springboard or table). She was going to have to repeat Level 7 for the 3rd time, so she quit.