MAG Level Change

[sideline]

As a concern mom, please let me know if you believe that my son should stay Level 4 or move to Level 5. His coach wants to keep him in Level 4.

At the Level 4 state meet, he won 2 gold and 1 silver.

My son is not always the cleanest which is the main issue but he can do things that boys currently in level 5 cannot. Here are some examples: My son can do 5+ mushroom circles but legs not always together. Others on level 5 can only do 1 but their form in always clean. My son can swing up and hold handstands on parallel bars (sometimes legs apart) but their are those on level 5 that can not even get close to a handstand.

I know being clean is very important. However, what is more important being able to do the trick or to being always clean in what you can do? Do you lose more points in competition for not doing a trick or for breaking form?

Please be honest. I don't know if this is a battle that I should keep fighting.

 

[skschlag]

At my son's gym, clean is where they need to be. I have no idea whether or not your son should repeat level 4, but I do know that our gymnasts (2 of them) did 3 years of 5 to clean up. THey had teh skills, they placed well, but they weren't clean. D's coach said that if he gets these basics clean, then the other stuff will come easier, and so far he has been right on.

It sounds like there is a lot of uptraining going on, and it is a long time to season. Does he have the level 5 skills on all events? I know High bar was the one to keep my son from moving on. He had everything else. Things could change between now and the time level 5 starts!

As far as losing points, I know last year, if a child went for a bonus (handstand on Pbars) and had bad form, they lost the points for the bonus AND the points for the bad form. So it was harder on the kiddo to try the harder skills and miss than to just do the basic ones. I believe that has changed this year.

 

[wallinbl]

DD stayed back a year when she could have moved up. She's so much better and happier now than she would have been. I've watched other girls that moved up instead of staying back. They're still not clean. Their parents comment on how good my DD is and how much better my DD is than theirs*. Prior to the repeated level, they were equivalent in skill (in my completely useless, amateur opinion). No doubt there are other girls in other situations that were better off moving up and excelled in doing so. In our case, staying back was better.

It's just an anecdote, and there are plenty of experienced coaches on here that can offer expert opinions. Just wanted to share that levels aren't everything and that repeating can be a great thing. Our HC constantly tells the girls to worry about skills, not levels.

* I hesitate to make these comments, as I don't want to portray any sort of arrogance or bragging. I bring it up to show that there can be value in repeating. And, while the other parents view my DD as better than theirs, DD and I look on with envy while theirs are doing skills that DD is eager to get to learn. It's a trade off, but I still feel it was the right decision for DD, and I'm certainly not saying the move ups were the wrong decisions for the other girls.

 

[skschlag]

How old is your son? I know all the routines have changed this year, so maybe that has something to do with the wait as well?

 

[sideline]

He is going to be 10 for next season. We only started gymnastics 1.5 years ago. Wouldn't it be better to go to 5 and stay at 5 until he cleans up those routines. I think that he already proven himself at level 4 by winning 3 medals (highbar, pbar and rings) and a 5th (floor) place at the Texas state meet. Level 4 is really starting to bore him. This is a boy that can do round-off back flip and is completely fearless.

 

[GymBee97]

a skill done once and done with great form is always better than a sloppy skill done 10 times. Sloppy skills really means they don't have the skill because doing the skill right means good form too. So going around that mushroom 10 times with sloppy form really isn't having the skill. I know when my son was young and competed the coach would rather see one good circle around that mushroom than 10 sloppy ones. From what I have seen the ones with the sloppy forms end up taking longer to "fix" the form than the ones that took their time and did the skill correctly to begin with.

If you like program and you think the coach knows what they are doing then you should trust this professional knows what he is doing and knows the best place for your son. Remember Gymnastics isn't a sprint is a LONG LONG Marathon and it takes time to get the skills well. Moving up to the next level with sloppy skills will mean that that levels skills will also be sloppy as each level builds on the skills of the level before it.

Moving up isn't about how many medals you earned or how high your scores have been. There is a mental component as well. And the leap in mens gymnastics from one level's skills to the next I've always found to be huge. Your son needs to slow down and be patient with his skills to clean them up. It can get boring repeating skills over and over and over and over but that is what this sport is all about - doing unbelievable skills well and making it look so so so easy

 

[Deleted member D3987]

As a concern mom, please let me know if you believe that my son should stay Level 4 or move to Level 5. His coach wants to keep him in Level 4.

At the Level 4 state meet, he won 2 gold and 1 silver.

My son is not always the cleanest which is the main issue but he can do things that boys currently in level 5 cannot. Here are some examples: My son can do 5+ mushroom circles but legs not always together. Others on level 5 can only do 1 but their form in always clean. My son can swing up and hold handstands on parallel bars (sometimes legs apart) but their are those on level 5 that can not even get close to a handstand.

I know being clean is very important. However, what is more important being able to do the trick or to being always clean in what you can do? Do you lose more points in competition for not doing a trick or for breaking form?

Please be honest. I don't know if this is a battle that I should keep fighting.

if your son is under 8 years old, don't die on that sword. us boys take longer to develop in gymnastics. everyone here says gymnastics is not a race...but a marathon. well, boys gymnastics under 14 is like watching soccer. just a step above watching the grass grow that they run on. wait for it...don't shoot the messenger.

 

[sideline]

Thanks for the reply. We are going to start talking to our son about dropping out. This wasn't are only concern. He is the oldest with much younger boys in Level 4 which hasn't been easy. Plus, he spends most of the time waiting for the younger boys to learn things that he knows well like cartwheels and forward rolls.

 

[skschlag]

Well, dropping out, I guess, is ok if he doesn't want to do it. My son, training level 7 right now, has been doing cartwheels, lunges, handstands and swings for weeks. They are working basics that every skill in men's gymnastics builds on. We have level 4s taht are 12 on our team. In fact, our best level 10 (who just got a scholarship to do gymnastics at a military institution) started when he was 10...and made nationals many times after that. So, starting age isn't as big a deal. He may move quickly after this. And like I said, we have no clue what level my son will compete, nor most of the boys on the team. They are working basics and doing some uptraining, and level will be determined much later. All I know is we are not a 5, and not old enough to be an 8...so I have it narrowed down.

I would talk to the coaches and figure out why. If you present it in terms of asking what the plan is, what they are working on, etc, and how your son feels about being with the younger kiddos, you should have a good reception with a good conversation.

 

[J&A's mom]

If this were me, I would ask him if there is another gym in the area he would like to try. We just had someone from a different gym try this for a similar reason. He has since joined my son's team and loves gymnastics again. I was thinking about him the whole time I was reading your original post.

Have you talked to him about what his issues are? What does he say about form? Have you talked to the coach about this?

 

[GymBee97]

Those basic skills are repeated and repeated and repeated no matter what level you are at. if the basic skills are not great then all the other "cool tricks" just aren't what they need to be. Most of the time those basics are the things that are practiced alot. That and conditioning.

L4 is just the begining stages you can't expect a good coach to let your child just throw skills that don't have a good foundation. It's like any other skill when you are starting out you have to do hours and hours of the "boring stuff" to get to the really cool stuff or you could get seriously injured. If your son doesn't have the patients to keep at it then maybe this isn't the sport for him and you should consider looking into other sports. If he says he wants to do this then support him and encourage him to work through this. By the way age 8 is far from being too old for L4 especially in mens gymnastics. Your gym may have alot of younge L4's but look around at any meet and you will see lots of older L4's. Maybe this gym isn't the one for you and you just need to explore other gyms.

I would talk to your son to see what he is hoping for and then talk to the coach to see what the plans are before making any decision on pulling him. Keep in mind too that as he advances in levels the time commitment and the cost get very expensive very fast.

 

[profmom]

How does your son feel about this? I get that you are concerned, but from your posts I have no sense about how he feels and whether he's talked with his coaches.

My son, who's training L5, has spent a lot of time this summer working on tap swings and swings on the rings. Sometimes I feel like I am picking up a small pendulum from the gym rather than a child . . .

 

[emorymom]

My son is repeating L4 also. With the new routines and the fact that he was not doing all bonuses last year or completely clean, there's new skills to learn and old skills to perfect. The vault is completely new this year.