WAG Level 6 - how many girls do BHS on beam and at least one giant on bars?

[Deleted member 14190]

Zero reason to do 6 if you have giants.

 

[chalkbowl]

We had level 6s competing a BHS and RO, but none of our level 6s had or have giants. Once they have a flight element on beam (preferably a BHS) and they can giant, they do level 7.

 

[cbifoja]

Don't you think that, a year into the new rules, now you will see a lot more BHS at level 6, since it is also an option for level 5 to have the BHS? I think most level 5s will do the BWO, but then upgrade to the BHS for level 6.

I am curious to see what L6 will look like this year. I know at our gym last year, our coach was pretty uncertain what L6 would look like so all of our new optionals started at L6 except for one girl who already had beautiful L7 skills. The rest of them started at L6,

Once she saw what L6 was looking like, HC moved a couple of the stronger L6s up to L7 mid-season. But both of those girls had giants and BHS (I think in an earlier post, I mentioned only one kid having BHS, but I had forgotten about the second girl also having her BHS....sorry about the inconsistency).

 

[LizzieLac]

I am curious to see what L6 will look like this year. I know at our gym last year, our coach was pretty uncertain what L6 would look like so all of our new optionals started at L6 except for one girl who already had beautiful L7 skills. The rest of them started at L6,

Once she saw what L6 was looking like, HC moved a couple of the stronger L6s up to L7 mid-season. But both of those girls had giants and BHS (I think in an earlier post, I mentioned only one kid having BHS, but I had forgotten about the second girl also having her BHS....sorry about the inconsistency).

I am curious as well. They way I see level 6, it is great for girls who finished 5 but have some weaknesses preventing them from doing level 7 with all events.

As I said, our gym looks at it more like a junior level 7, and I have mixed opinions about that...

 

[Deleted member 14190]

If our state offered a 6 season at the same time as our 5 season then I would opt for 6. But given the choice between 6 or 7 , we opt for 7.

 

[vagymmomma]

I'm curious to see where L6 goes. I'll give a pass to gym's this past year, but it sure felt some of the girls had no reason to compete L6 instead of L7. Maybe the gym's plan is to have them test out of L7 early this season and go straight to L8, but it seems like girls scoring a high 37 or 38 in L6 probably would have done very well at L7. I always felt like new L6 was meant for girls who weren't quite ready for the old optional L7 and presented an alternative to Xcel in the USAG path. I saw plenty of girls score solid 9s at L7 without a BHS on beam or giants.

 

[gracyomalley]

My only thought is that DD came from a gym that didn't have strict requirements for L7, did great for 2 years there (36+ scores) but never was required to learn her giants. Now she has moved to a much larger gym with higher move-up standards. She is faced with learning all her L8 skills in a few months or repeating L7 for a third year. Most likely she'll make it, but HAD she done a year of L6 then a year of L7 she wouldn't feel so defeated by the idea of maybe repeating L7 this year. L6 as junior L7 makes sense for a lot of girls. Not those on an Elite track, for sure, or most on a college D1 track, although DD is still only barely 12....but a young girl ready for optionals may benefit from taking this path to build confidence.

2 years ago no one would have predicted that she would have a coach who essentially "left town" a year before she truely left town, or that she would hit fears that had never been a problem in compulsories. In retrospect the "giants and BHS on beam - L7, otherwise L6" makes perfect sense....

 

[3LittleGymmies]

Our gym requires a BHS for Level 6 and a series for Level 7, but they only require 3/4 cast for Level 6. Cast to handstand is expected for Level 7 - giants are not required but they should be working them and most have one at the very least.

 

[Natasha]

I'm curious to see where L6 goes. I'll give a pass to gym's this past year, but it sure felt some of the girls had no reason to compete L6 instead of L7. Maybe the gym's plan is to have them test out of L7 early this season and go straight to L8, but it seems like girls scoring a high 37 or 38 in L6 probably would have done very well at L7. I always felt like new L6 was meant for girls who weren't quite ready for the old optional L7 and presented an alternative to Xcel in the USAG path. I saw plenty of girls score solid 9s at L7 without a BHS on beam or giants.

I think one of the advantages to competing L6 is that it gives an extra year to get up training without feeling like they are repeating a year, so they can do 2 years (l6 and l7) while training L8 and then starting L9 skills and then they can have a strong L8 season followed by L9 without getting "stuck" and repeating at L8 because of the jump. So while they may be high L6 scorers, it may be about pacing them and providing enough up training so that they can do one level per year, as it is very common to repeat somewhere in optionals.
The reality is that the girls at L7 that are scoring well with no giants or BHS are probably not even close to prepared for L8 since you have to have series with flight on beam and giants as well as pirouette on bars, so even though it is possible to score well at L7 without those skills, they are foundational to getting to L8, and they will either be continuing to repeat 7 or competing 8 without start values.

 

[kayjaybe]

Sigh. I so wish our gym would do L6. We used to do Prep Op as a bridge between old L6 and old L7. The new L6 seems similar to the old Prep Op, but for some reason we have cut both.

Dd's fear issues may have her doing her third year of L5. (She did old L5, old L6, new L5.)

 

[vagymmomma]

I think one of the advantages to competing L6 is that it gives an extra year to get up training without feeling like they are repeating a year, so they can do 2 years (l6 and l7) while training L8 and then starting L9 skills and then they can have a strong L8 season followed by L9 without getting "stuck" and repeating at L8 because of the jump. So while they may be high L6 scorers, it may be about pacing them and providing enough up training so that they can do one level per year, as it is very common to repeat somewhere in optionals.
The reality is that the girls at L7 that are scoring well with no giants or BHS are probably not even close to prepared for L8 since you have to have series with flight on beam and giants as well as pirouette on bars, so even though it is possible to score well at L7 without those skills, they are foundational to getting to L8, and they will either be continuing to repeat 7 or competing 8 without start values.

I agree with everything you said and completely agree that a girl with no giants is probably not ready for L8 (though we have exceptions to that even on our team). My point was really trying to question what the intended purpose was for creating new L6. Was it intended to add a level for girls that previously would have done L7 (and probably knocked it out of the park at L7) or was it intended more to give girls facing a 3rd year of L5 another option?

I personally don't think it was intended for girls with giants and BHS, but that's just my opinion. As other posters have said, by and large girls at L6 did not compete these skills. But some gyms did. Coaches are able to use the system as they see fit to maximize their team scores performance (and that is very appropriate), but it honestly seemed a little unfair at times. I guess it's no different than girls doing release moves and DBs at L8. Maybe it's just smart uptraining.

 

[Natasha]

I do agree it would be nice to keep L6 as a level for the girls that aren't just quite ready for L7 and I do think that was the intended purpose (that and as an option for the gyms that like to score out of 5) given that it is not a required level. I think with adding L6 it made the competition stiffer at L7 (whereas before there would be some girls not quite ready for L7 but competing it anyway) and so then some gyms may be holding girls back at L6 so they can have more wins…for gyms that do that (i.e. compete L6, score out L7 and go to 8) I agree it is not really right in that is not what it was intended for.
My guess is that our gym will be moving girls up as soon as they have the skills for each level. The girls that competed L6 last year did L5 for the 1st part, then L6 in the same season, and were definately not ready for L7.

 

[LizzieLac]

From what I can tell of our gym, they do not skip or score out of any level. They believe in kids competing (for the most part) one level prer year and you do all of the levels.

I am ok with this except the similarity in what they require for level 6 and 7 makes me feel like a full year of level 6 is wasteful. Of course we keep uptraining and since we only did this one year now, it is possible that some of the stronger level 6s from last year could score out of 7 at our first meet and then do 8. I just don't know what the plan is...time will tell.

 

[Deleted member 14190]

Level 6 is prep op, from what I can tell.

 

[tegan_tegan]

I had layout floor , giant bars , bhs on beam

But in my area it was unusual to not have one of the above

 

[Aero]

I look at level 6 as the gateway to optionals, so it helps to have this level be so flexible. It gives the gymnast a taste of what they'll be facing as an optional, which is pretty different from compulsories, especially if they've been in compulsories for a long time. It's a very malleable level, allowing gymnasts to mold it to any skills they have and still do well. Levels 7 -10 are pretty stringent, whereas level 6 can be seen as a good place to comfortably test the waters in preparation for level 7 and beyond. It's also a good place to stay while playing catch up with any skills or events the gymnast does not yet have.

 

[Smartiegirl]

My DD did a whole season of 6 last year. We only saw giants once or twice, and they scored lower than bar routines without giants because the giants weren't good. Lev 6 beam only requires one acro move. My daughter at one point had a series in her beam routine BWO BWO. Last minute coach took out one of the BWO's and she won NJ states on beam. Doesn't matter what they do as long as it meets "the requirements" and is done well.

 

[thefellowsmom]

We saw some of each of these. Some layouts for sure, only a few doing BHS on beam and only a few doing giants.

The cast and clear hip angle deductions on bars kept most of highest bar scores just over a 9. My dd placed top three at state with a 9.1 with no giant. The two above her had giants. I saw less than a dozen bar routines at state with giants, mostly from the same couple of gyms.

My dd had a BHS but most did not. Mostly BWO. I didn't see anyone doing cartwheels although I heard that is an option. Seems to me if a cartwheel is necessary there may be a bigger issue, but what do I know.

With that being said what it felt like (I didn't collect any data or anything) is that most gyms chose to compete either 5 or 6, not both. Of those that did both levels, it seemed the level 6 girls maybe had a weak event that kept them from Level 7. Like you would see them do a level 7 floor routine, but then have very low bar score or no flight element on beam.

I think it is a great level for providing flexibility to gymnast progression. Some girls from our club didn't have to repeat old 6/new 5. Our fast track girls competed this level as a popping in point. No compulsory nonsense to deal with and you can compete what you have while still having plenty of time to uptrain for the future. Seems to be working great for my dd.

 

[RAMS]

This thread is of great interest to me because my dd will be competing 6. She got a mobility score for level 4 in August and will do a meet at level 5 soon to get that mobility score and will compete 6 in spring season unless she has an amazing few months in the gym and gets her giants on bars and bhs on beam. She is super excited though at getting through compulsories ands having her own routines.

 

[KVallin]

This year our gym has 9 level 6's, (4 8yo, 2 9yo, 2 10yo, and 1 11yo) all of them are competing giants and bhs on beam. 4 are doing layouts and the rest will compete backtucks, everyone does fhs-ft as their second pass.