Issues with the Level 4 vault

[Azgymmiemom]

I have a question for the judges (coaches too, if you can help)

about a month ago, at one of my dd's level 4 meets, all our girls scored low across the board on their vaults...lower than they normally do. After the meet, one of our coaches approached the vault judges and asked them for some feedback on why they all scored so much lower than they usually do. The coach was told that the girls were hitting handstand and falling to flatback, and the judges were looking for them to spring past handstand and follow through, or push straight through as a preparation for vaulting over the table in level 5. So, they took this advice back into the gym and trained our girls this way for three weeks. At dd's last meet, last sat, our girls again, scored lower on vault than normal. After the meet, again, our coach approached the judges. This time, they said that the girls didn't hold their handstands before falling to flatback (!) okay, the coach was told the opposite at the last meet. isn't there some sort of standard here that they are supposed to judge to? Our girls vaults looked very similar to other teams' vaults and yet the other teams scored much higher.
I think at least one of the judges was the same judge as at the previous meet, which confuses me even more...
Am I just running into a politics kinda thing here, or what?
Our coaches were extremely upset, our girls were upset...it wasn't pretty.

any help or comments to end our confusion would be appreciated...

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yes...the standard is that the judges are 'entry level' just like the children.

 

[gymdog]

Level 4 vault, yeah. I'm not going to lie. I'm very happy with judging as a whole, and since I have the attention span of a squirrel, I certainly could not do better (maybe the first kid would get a score that reflected any level of observation on my part...maybe).

That said compulsory vault judging throws me for a loop. I'm not accusing the judges of not applying the deductions incorrectly, rather it is perhaps more the case that the deductions being applied don't always overall reflect the technical quality of the vault (that's my opinion). I feel the same way about L6 bars. When the kid hit all cast handstands and is first place with a score in the 7s, I'm sorry, I'm not saying they're not applying deductions fairly, but come on. At some point it's just demoralizing.

I choose anyway to teach it in a way that I feel is technically correct, and not try to game the system or even guess at what we're looking at. I have been more or less satisfied with our scores (and have had some state champions), although I still don't myself always see much difference between the vaults versus the scores, but whatever. It sounds like the first set of judges was saying the vaults lacked "block", which is a significant issues in my opinion. In fact my main issue with the L4 vault judging is I feel it often fails to distinguish between vaults with excellent block and vaults with passable block. If I had my way we'd just turn the stupid mat sideways and have the kids actually do a handspring over it. But whatever, this isn't me inventing new things.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the second judges said is necessarily incompatible, maybe it was, I can't say either way. Not hitting the handstand could indicate shoulder angle issues and sometimes you can still achieve some "block" from the heel drive particularly on the low and forgiving mat stack, without an optimal shoulder angle. I think if the coaches thought the judges were saying the kids did not "hold" the handstand, this was probably a misinterpretation. If they are upset they need to file a score inquiry about one of the vaults and not just ask casually because esp on the girls side this is really the only way to get good information about the exact deductions taken.

 

[Chalky]

My understanding is that there is NO blocking requirement for USAG Level 4 vault. I believe this is due to the fact that a mat stack is used. While some gyms may have a new, firm mat-stack, others may be older and more "squishy" which can affect the gymnast's ability to block...

 

[gymdog]

My understanding is that there is NO blocking requirement for USAG Level 4 vault. I believe this is due to the fact that a mat stack is used. While some gyms may have a new, firm mat-stack, others may be older and more "squishy" which can affect the gymnast's ability to block...

I think that I have never seen mats where all the kids can do is fall over on their back though. If they are doing a great vault they should be able to get some air time after their hands touch.

There is a deduction for "insufficient dynamics" which could have been applied to vaults tha lacked any blocking action. Also I'd note that in the absence of a reasonable "block" there are a lot of support phase deductions that would likely apply - angle of entry, bent arms, shoulder angle, never hitting handstand and performing a rolling action through the shoulders to the flatback (this is up to 2.00), etc.

If they remain in support for too long (which is basically how "block" is evaluated under the 5/6 judging standards) then chances are they dropped their arms (shoulder angle) then had to open up while in contact with the mat, or performed a rolling action (even a slight one). These things are deductions.

 

[MaryA]

So, is "blocking" basically the ability to bounce off the vault?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yes. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Azgymmiemom]

thanks guys...not much of this made any sense to me at all, but I appreciate the effort

Yes, i think the second set of judges actually said they wanted to see the girls "hold" that handstand position before falling to flat back. See why this didn't make any sense to me?

All in all, the only reason it upset me is because our coaches said that they didn't care what the scoring was...they wanted to teach the proper technique for going over the table, but then they require the girls' to acchieve a specific score before they will consider moving them up...huh? I don't get this one at all...

 

[gymdog]

thanks guys...not much of this made any sense to me at all, but I appreciate the effort

Yes, i think the second set of judges actually said they wanted to see the girls "hold" that handstand position before falling to flat back. See why this didn't make any sense to me?

All in all, the only reason it upset me is because our coaches said that they didn't care what the scoring was...they wanted to teach the proper technique for going over the table, but then they require the girls' to acchieve a specific score before they will consider moving them up...huh? I don't get this one at all...

I hope you don't mind but out of interest I took a look at the videos from your signature link. These would be my thoughts based on that.

Latest video: Pretty good speed and power, but hard to see from the back obviously. On the second one, which is mostly what I could see, it looked like there was somewhat of a shoulder angle which then caused somewhat of a pike in the post flight phase.

Previous video: Shoulders are pretty open and the angle of contact looks good. 8.775 is a little low to me (I would have guessed around 9.05), but I think you'd have to look at the placements. The biggest issue is her run. She probably got hit for lack of acceleration (maybe 3 tenths) and it's hard for me to tell right at the end, if she slowed down and they really were judging hard, they might have deducted for failure to maintain horizontal speed. She probably did receive deductions for dynamics. Her first vault in the video prior to this one was better overall, I would say.

Of course that's only kid so the judges comments may not have applied. And you have to consider how they were judging overall.

Btw, I really enjoyed watching her videos. She's absolutely adorable, and I think she's doing quite well.

 

[Azgymmiemom]

wow, gymdog, thanks! What a nice thing to say!! Yes, I think she is adorable, too

I'm just bummed for her, because she really wanted to go to states and she really wanted to be considered for moving up to level 5 (she's got all the skills...even the kip) and her coaches require a 34 aa for both of those things. She missed...twice(!) by .075 points. You aren't the only one that thought judging was tough...and they weren't that way with all the girls, either. It was kinda obvious which gyms they favored, if you kwim.

Actually, I'm glad that she's not going to states...I've heard its a zoo at level 4. And I think she'd do well to go one more season at level 4 and wait for level 5 until she is 8(even that seems young to me, based on the number of girls I've seen in those age groups at meets here). I just wish it wasn't such a big deal to HER. I'm the one that has had to hear her cry in the back seat all the way home from a meet because she is soooo frustrated with herself.

I wish the girls could just go and do their skills and show off and not get scored at all. In my ideal, perfect world...they would all win that gold medal!!! (see, I wouldn't make a very good judge...lol)

 

[gymdog]

wow, gymdog, thanks! What a nice thing to say!! Yes, I think she is adorable, too

I'm just bummed for her, because she really wanted to go to states and she really wanted to be considered for moving up to level 5 (she's got all the skills...even the kip) and her coaches require a 34 aa for both of those things. She missed...twice(!) by .075 points. You aren't the only one that thought judging was tough...and they weren't that way with all the girls, either. It was kinda obvious which gyms they favored, if you kwim.

Actually, I'm glad that she's not going to states...I've heard its a zoo at level 4. And I think she'd do well to go one more season at level 4 and wait for level 5 until she is 8(even that seems young to me, based on the number of girls I've seen in those age groups at meets here). I just wish it wasn't such a big deal to HER. I'm the one that has had to hear her cry in the back seat all the way home from a meet because she is soooo frustrated with herself.

I wish the girls could just go and do their skills and show off and not get scored at all. In my ideal, perfect world...they would all win that gold medal!!! (see, I wouldn't make a very good judge...lol)

Yeah, it sucks to have score requirements like that. I base it on skills and readiness but for the younger ones sometimes it is nice to have a more laid back year because it can be really stressful for them to learn all the routines and still get used to the early years of full day elementary school, etc. Personally I'd have the kids do two years of level 5 if they have their kips. If she is frustrated at the meets a second year should do a lot for her confidence though.

As far as the judging I think it is hard to make those conclusions. My guess would only be .3 off the actual scoring, which isn't far out of range. The score comes from two separate judges who have to be scoring in range of each other, and then the final score is averaged. So they're both independently judging the vault, have to "throw" a score within two tenths of each other, and then average that. So at two separate meets that would imply four separate judges were not judging fairly. I think more likely they were just judging hard overall (taking max deductions) and there's not a lot of difference on L4 vault between what can get deductions and what doesn't. It can be hard to see the differences. That doesn't mean the scoring can't be frustrating when you're held to arbitrary score requirements (part of the reason I tend to avoid score requirements is because while I generally find the judging satisfactory in terms of fairness, some judges do judge harder than others and we can't really control that...just do our best routines).

For what it's worth, for her age and her first year competing, I think she looked very composed and focused doing her routines. I hope next year brings a lot of success, and the ability to train L5 and 6 skills while she competes routines she has down.

 

[mariposa]

AZ- You already know that I think your DD rocks! She had a great fall season, improved overall from her first meet and she is looking more and more confident! I know that spring season will bring her lots of great meets.

This is still her first year of level 4 (we have fall and spring season here, though not all gyms compete in spring). Moving to level 5 for spring would have been very stressful (it is a huge jump!) and scoring at level 5 is tough. I am nervous for my DD and she has been training since May for level 5 (and even though she did a meet just to see, I am still nervous)! An 8 year old level 5 is still really young and they are usually in 7-9 age group, and really age doesn't matter as long as they are happy and progressing, there is no rush. I am sure she will hit that 34 and beyond during spring season and then she can go to level 5 after spring season and have more time to prepare for level 5 for next fall!

Tell your daughter that staying at level 4 for the rest of this season/year is going to be the best thing. It will give her time to work more on the little things (and those things carry over to level 5!) and get more confident. My little one had her kip and still did a whole extra year of level 4 and she doesn't regret it at all. She will gladly tell you she had a great year repeating level 4, though her gym uptrains a lot even during meet season, so she had the best of both worlds. I think she should have been allowed to go to states especially when she was sooo close and definitely has a 34AA meet in her. I would be bummed, too.

 

[CamSeawind]

I always popped right off my hands and got good scores.
This may not be liked by all judges but this will prepare the girls for level 5