Parents Meet Critique Website

[DLW11]

Hello.
I’m a relatively new team gymnastics mom. My gymnast is Xcel bronze this year. I am learning how scoring works, in her last few meets I have seen improvement with her scores so that’s awesome. Her last meet however I felt her beam was stronger than what her score reflected and possibly even her floor routine. I was thinking of using the Meet Critique Website to submit her routine to get more detailed feedback about where she is receiving point deductions. This is to get better understanding of what she can look out for and work on improving in her training time.

Has anyone used the service before? How was your experience? Is it worth it? And lastly is there any other suggestions on how to get detailed feedback about routines?

Thanks!

 

[NutterButter]

I would not not bother with any of that. Let the coaches worry about it. Meets are mostly just a point in time snapshot and lots of variables can impact scores which can be difficult to compare performance at one meet to the next.

 

[Dahlialover]

Xcel bronze competition is meant to be a fun activity for novice gymnasts. It’s not serious. You don’t need meet critique.

 

[TumbleTwist]

I won't repeat what others have already mentioned. But I will remind you that judges are seeing deductions that you, as a new gym mom, are not trained to see. In my daughter's first couple of seasons, I learned very quickly for every deduction I saw, the judges saw 6

As you go through her first season, there will be times when your daughter receives a lower score than you think she deserved. And there will also be times when you are actually pleasantly surprised by her score.
Let the coaches coach, and the judges judge. You just need to be her mom and support and encourage.

 

[HurricaneLR]

Here's the counter. As a new gym mom, you feel like you don't know anything about how scoring works, and you get really frustrated for your child when their scores don't reflect what you think they should. It may be helpful to get someone to review the routine and explain to you what the deductions were. If your coach would be willing to look at the video, that would be great, but they usually won't (they have so many girls and so many routines, they couldn't possibly look at them all in that detail.) This would give you some insight as to how the scoring works and maybe make you more comfortable going forward. At bronze, their training isn't going to change much based on their meet performance, because it is all fundamentals at that stage. It would be more for your personal knowledge and comfort. In other words, you shouldn't try to use a review to coach her or direct her training in any way - that is just for the coaches based on what they see in practice every day. My daughter is a little older and is very invested in knowing ALL of her mistakes so she can work on them and fix those details that are costing her. So she would love this. I don't know anything about the Meet Critique website itself.

 

[TumbleTwist]

Here's the counter. As a new gym mom, you feel like you don't know anything about how scoring works, and you get really frustrated for your child when their scores don't reflect what you think they should. It may be helpful to get someone to review the routine and explain to you what the deductions were. If your coach would be willing to look at the video, that would be great, but they usually won't (they have so many girls and so many routines, they couldn't possibly look at them all in that detail.) This would give you some insight as to how the scoring works and maybe make you more comfortable going forward. At bronze, their training isn't going to change much based on their meet performance, because it is all fundamentals at that stage. It would be more for your personal knowledge and comfort. In other words, you shouldn't try to use a review to coach her or direct her training in any way - that is just for the coaches based on what they see in practice every day. My daughter is a little older and is very invested in knowing ALL of her mistakes so she can work on them and fix those details that are costing her. So she would love this. I don't know anything about the Meet Critique website itself.

I would agree with this. If she wants to use meet critique simply to educate herself, there's certainly no harm in doing so.
I will say that as Meet Critique has become more popular, I have noticed a trend in parents complaining that their child was not given a fair score at a meet, because when they submitted the routine to meet critique, they gave them a higher score. One parent on a gymnastics parents fb group even asked if she could contact USAG with the score and feedback given by meet critique in order to get the official score "corrected" since meet critique's score was higher than the judges score.

I think meet critique can be a great resource if used for the right reasons. I just find it frustrating that some parents are using it to "double check" judges scores.

 

[GymDadWA]

Very little good happens when parents try and coach routines.

I know you are trying to be helpful and let her "maximize" her training time, but the coaches already know what the deductions are and are choosing not to focus on those things. Gyms have different philosophies but most are focused on fundamentals and building skills not winning lower level meets.

 

[JessSyd]

The other thing to consider re meet critique is that the video is rarely taken from the judge’s angle. They see so much more from where they are seated than you do from the stands. They will see things that the video doesn’t, and occasionally they will miss things that the video picks up.

Also, and this is coming from me as a parent and a judge - you don’t actually want to be able to judge your kid. It’s so much more fun to just be able to watch and appreciate a routine than to be seeing all the issues. Knowing the basics is good. Knowing too much is unhelpful. I didn’t train as a judge until my kid was well into the optional levels, specifically because I wanted to watch her routines through mum eyes and not judge eyes., and the minute I did I knew it was the right decision.

Also, it won’t really help. The issues are things like soft knees, height on leaps and tumbles, body shape everywhere, some technical stuff on bars, sometimes timing and connections. Her coach will already be on to that. Every time the coach says ‘squeeze your legs’ or ‘tuck your head in’ or ‘keep your body hollow’ in routine training, they’re addressing the sources of all of those deductions.

You didn’t say what age she is, but if she’s older, and super keen and driving the idea, then that’s fine - but it needs to be up to her to seek feedback. She needs you to be her mother and her cheerleader, not suddenly in a role that could be viewed by a sensitive kid as somewhere adjacent to critic and coach.

My recommendation is that if you want to understand scoring a little better watch a few YouTube videos that break down scores, elite, junior, doesn’t matter - they’ll all give you the idea of what judges look for (even though the scoring systems may be different). And otherwise, just sit back and enjoy.

 

[Milomom]

Hello.
I’m a relatively new team gymnastics mom. My gymnast is Xcel bronze this year. I am learning how scoring works, in her last few meets I have seen improvement with her scores so that’s awesome. Her last meet however I felt her beam was stronger than what her score reflected and possibly even her floor routine. I was thinking of using the Meet Critique Website to submit her routine to get more detailed feedback about where she is receiving point deductions. This is to get better understanding of what she can look out for and work on improving in her training time.

Has anyone used the service before? How was your experience? Is it worth it? And lastly is there any other suggestions on how to get detailed feedback about routines?

Thanks!

I've only used meet critique a couple times and the scores have matched within 0.05. My girls are hit or miss for whether they want to see the feedback, but I find it so interesting - I use it for myself more than them (if they don't want it, they don't look at it). I like looking at data and understanding where the deductions are coming from has helped me be way chiller at meets. It has made me appreciate how carefully the judges are watching - I am amazed that they can see all those little things in real time. It has also helped me find things to praise the girls after meets on things that I may not have seen before (more pointed toes, legs together, less bent knees etc).

Our coaches will sit with the girls and go through their videos if asked too, but I liked the format of meet critique with the annotations on the video of both the good and the things to improve.

 

[cocoslc12]

These meet critique sites need to be shut down. (Coming from a coach/judge).

 

[cocoslc12]

Very little good happens when parents try and coach routines.

I know you are trying to be helpful and let her "maximize" her training time, but the coaches already know what the deductions are and are choosing not to focus on those things. Gyms have different philosophies but most are focused on fundamentals and building skills not winning lower level meets.

This. I'll never forget when the rules became more accessible to the parents, and I was ambushed by a group of xcel parents that were angry at me for not telling the kids they had a "30 second break" as they put it if they fell off beam. I said well that's because I dont want them to know that as we train them to get right back up, so thanks for that.
I dont go to your job and tell you what you're doing wrong.
End rant

 

[twinmomma]

Yeah, just don't. As a parent whose daughter did artistic, Trampoline & Tumbling, and then 6 years of acro. This is her sport. Not yours. She has coaches for a reason. Trust them and let them do their jobs. If you don't trust them, find another gym. But please just don't. It's a bad path to go down that will just ruin your relationship with your kid or her coaches in the long run.