MAG Intra Squad Meets?

[Deleted member 10727]

What is the purpose of these?

 

[skschlag]

when we have had them in the past it was for a few reasons. One would be just for parents, family, teachers, etc to get to see them compete. Sometimes we would do it so the boys could be judged on their routines without a full meet. And for the younger ones, it was a chance to just see what performance was like.

 

[gymbeam]

ours have no scores or awards, but like PP said, its a chance for parents to see progress, to invite friends and family to watch, and to simulate the feel of "performing" in front of "critical" eyes for the athletes. i feel it really lets the coaches and the athletes see how well everyone is prepared. some gymnasts just don't practice as good as they compete- or the other way around!

 

[magmom]

I think it also gives them a chance to get through those first-meet-of-the-season nerves in a "safe" environment.

 

[Deleted member 10727]

OK, that sounds fun. This is the first experience with them at our new gym and I feel out of the loop of understanding how things work.

 

[Sasha]

We haven't done one for the boys, but our new L3 girls did one to, in addition to things mentioned above, get used to the 'format' of meets. There is the pre warm-up, walk-out, then march to first event, talk to the judges (they are coached on how to respond to questions), then where to stand while you wait your turn, what signals your turn, remember to salute and to whom, etc. So ours went through that whole format as if it was a regular meet. I'm not sure how boys meets may differ in format from my description, but I'm sure there's still a format ;-)

 

[sce]

It's practice. Like a run through for everyone. For newer kids it gets them more familiar with meet format (and boys, the clothing changes required.) For everyone it's a chance to get meet focused. Our director is a judge, so he gives specific feedback, but not scores.

Our gym also lets us in to take pictures and video of our practice meet. It's nice to get to close to the equipment. It's also nice to compare the video form the practice meet to the video of the final meet of the season. Boys grow so much through those few months.

 

[onelittledream]

We actually just did one of these and it was a really good experience. My daughter was able to tackle a whole new world "stage fright". The gym has a different "feel" when everyone is watching one gymnasts routine as opposed to everyone trying to look across the gym to see how their own gymnasts is doing and several groups/gymnasts going at the same time.

My daughter has yet to do an actual competition due to leveling up in the middle of the year after the team had already started but this gave us something to work on. Actually several things.