Member of two gyms? Is that possible?

[Muddlethru]

I've read posts and have been told that there are gymnasts who are members of a local gym but also makes a drive to a distant, more competitive gym two to three times a week. I know one of our HCs did say that her mother drove her to a gym four hours away 2 to 3 times a week so that she can train elite. What is the proper protocol? If going elite is not a goal, how do you not offend the local gym by telling them you also want to train at a more competitive gym? Does anyone know of someone who is a member of two gyms? What are the arrangements like? Thanks.

 

[bribri514]

My local gym didn't have anything remotely close to an elite program (and I was already driving over and an hour into the next county on a pretty brutal mountain road to get there!). The closest gym that did was over 4 hours away. These times aren't factoring in the inevitable snowy mountain roads that could tack on between and hour to many more! So I suppose that puts me in a geographically similar situation to the gymnast you mention, maybe a little further away.

Anyway all that said when I got to L10 at 11 and two years later qualified for Nationals. I had kind of tapped out of my "local" gym. My mom didn't let me end up pursuing elite, which I wanted to do, but if I had I would have transferred to the other gym. There would have been no reason for me to stay at my regular gym because I wouldn't be training and competing L 10 anymore. I don't know why the person mentioned above would train at two gyms unless they hadn't already qualified and/or competed at L 10 Nationals. Then they would just switch gyms and train elite. Unless they were still competing L 10, but then I don't know why the other gym would have them train Elite and not stop competing L 10 if that makes sense. When I would have had to switch from my gym to train elite I would have had no reason to stay there. Basically I don't see a reason to be training and competing at two gyms.

As far as my coach being upset, he understood that to continue my gymnastics career I would have had to switch gyms. Our gym rarely had L 10s to begin with, the coach was more than capable of training them, we just live in a fairly rural area. But yeah if your gym no longer had the capability to train your level, why would your coaches be upset? Unless you weren't ready for that level and thought you were so you tried to stay at your gym and train/compete the level you're at while on the side going to another gym to train. But if you weren't ready to train elite I don't know why the gym would let you train with them.

So basically, I don't understand the situation of the gymnast you give as an example, especially since I was in a similar position. Really there's no reason to be at two gyms.

 

[Muddlethru]

Hi bribri514. The reason going to two gyms is an option is for convenience purposes. To keep up and train properly for higher level gymnastics, it would be necessary to go to a more competitive/qualified gym. However, driving the distance everyday may not be an option, nor is moving closer to the gym. As in my original post, I've heard there were gymnasts who traveled to a distant gym 2 to 3 times a week. If they are training elite, I can't imagine they would only be training 3 days a week. So I assumed they supplemented their practice at a nearby "local" gym. But then again, my assumption may be wrong. I just wondered if this practice even exists.

Are there gymnasts that get training from two gyms? I guess the gymnast could just pay for the use of the local gym and get actual training from the competitive gym. I also wondered if there is such a thing as being a member of two teams, for instance, being a member of L9 team of the local gym and then trying to qualify for elite status at the competitive gym. This may be far fetched. But in this day and age, all things seem possible.

 

[bribri514]

Gotcha. The thing is, in my opinion, it just doesn't make sense to go to two gyms. If you're "uptraining" at the lower levels, I really doubt the coaches at the local gym would want you in their program. Not because their feelings are hurt, rather because each coach has a different training philosophy and training program. Splitting time between two gyms does not mean you'll get a full experience, rather two halfs of two separate things. Also at those higher levels the coach invests a lot in their athletes, it doesn't make sense to ask them to commit to you if you can't commit to them (leaving completely is a different story, like I said before my coach wished me nothing but the best if I wanted to move to the elite program at the other gym). As far as being on one gym's L 9 team and uptraining at another gym, I think either (or both) gyms would ask you to choose. It goes back to the whole each program and coach having a different program.

If you're going to spend the extra hours driving to the "competitive" gym, you'd be wasting your time (IMO) not doing that gym's team program. Ideally that's what you should do. If you don't have the time to split your training, you'd get more out of staying on the local gym's L 9 team than trying to split teams because you'd be getting the benefit of a full training program not bits and pieces of different ones. (Once again assuming you can even make this decision and either coach doesn't want your full commitment) If you're not ready to go through L 10 and think training elite is the best option, get used to the time sacrifices now. If you can't sacrifice the time to drive to the other gym, you probably won't be able to sacrifice everything necessary for elite training, which is more than just extra driving time.

Hope that doesn't come off as harsh, like I said I was unable to pursue elite because my mom wasn't able/willing to make all the sacrifices associated with it (money, time, location, etc.) It's not a bad thing but it is the reality of elite, you can't just pick and choose pieces of it, it requires full commitment.

 

[Muddlethru]

Thanks Bribri514. Your post was not harsh at all and it did make sense. I just thought from a transitional standpoint, before making a full commitment to go elite, this arrangement could be made. About going elite, do you still wish you could have done it?

 

[bribri514]

Oh good! I know these issues can be sensitive, esp. here, so I try to be careful!

That's an interesting question. In an ideal world I really do! If you had asked me throughout high school (I was in 8th grade when I was told I wasn't allowed to train elite, I stayed competing L 10 and doing HS freshman year and had a really bad experience with my HS team, my mom wasn't able to drive me anymore and carpooling dried up so I switched to varsity cheer sophomore and junior year, then senior year I went back to gymnastics and my old club team and competed L 10 hoping to get a scholarship) I was still really bitter with my mom and desperately wanted to compete. I was really hurt that I wasn't allowed to, I'd been in gym of some sort or another since I was 3! So finding an identity outside of gymnastics was hard.

Because I was late in the college game (and had a horrible go at regionals, I knocked myself out missing my beam dismount because I insisted on competing right after I had an ear surgery knowing how important inner ears are to balance lol!) I didn't get a scholarship but I got a spot to train on a DI team of the school I went to. I wasn't as bitter anymore but I still wished I'd tried for elite or by this point in time, had the opportunity to train L 10 through all of high school. I was still upset with my mom and where we lived, etc. But I was so thrilled to be back with gymnastics, I felt much more comfortable with who I was as a person (but this could also be bc I wasn't in HS anymore!)

It wasn't after I had to quit college gym without even competing because of very severe spondylolisthesis (different than spondylolysis). I was devestated I couldn't do gymnastics anymore, just when I was getting so close to being as competitive as I was. Then I started to think how if I had trained elite this probably would have happened, but even sooner. As I got older I also got closer to my mom and started to see why she made the decisions with me she did (I'm not just saying this and the next part bc she posts here sometimes either!). She's a single mom (my dad passed away when I was 5) and it's hard enough having two kids and that. She's worked her way up to the head of our school district's special education directive and it'd be almost impossible for her to transfer into an urban school system (the gym with an established elite program is the only one in our entire state really- it's also in a city notorious for little taxes and budget cuts for social services like schools, even before the economy hit the tank). She also helps run the adaptive ski school program where we live, something you can't do unless you live in a small mountain town like us. On top of that where we live is also our home. So that makes sense financially and why she wouldn't move our family. She also didn't want to send me to live with another family- partially to keep my family together after losing my dad, and partially because she worked really hard for me to excel in a mainstreamed school with an interpreter (I'm Deaf) and I could lose a lot of my education just by working with a tutor. I'm sure she had a million more reasons but at the time I've started to understand these ones.

So elite wasn't right for my family (and I love them and don't want to get adopted by someone else like I did when my mom said no to elite training lol). It may not have been right for my body. I'm almost certain I was ready to work hard enough for elite and did love gymnastics that much (so being pushed into it or rushed by my mom was never ever our issue, that might be the only issue for some families). As I've gotten older I've started to see the end of training isn't the end all of my "career" gymnastics either. I started volunteer coaching at my old gym over school breaks freshman year and loved it! I'm playing gym mom to my niece right now and am starting (I hope!) my path to starting the first (that I know of) gym for Deaf athletes (and siblings and kids with Deaf parents, anyone who uses ASL to communicate). Even in the Deaf community I've always been told I can't do gymnastics because of balance and because "Deaf people just don't do that". I want to provide a gym for all the other Deaf kids who were told they can't either, and it would provide another style of coaching (I was talking in the coaching forum about verbage for coaching, I'm a PE/health education major and coaching minor right now, and I find it fascinating the way we as Deaf signers understand concepts and then display them vs. spoken english, ASL seems to be made for coaching something like gym!)

So sorry to respond to your simple question with an entire book! It just made me think a lot. I still love gymnastics and want to be involved with it for life, so I'm not one of those people who elite doesn't work for because they want to do other things in life and are just glad gymnastics helped x, y, or z thing with them. If my niece follows that route (she just turned 9 and has only ever done rec classes but tested right away into a L 5 team when I took her to a real gym so it could go either way) then I'd be willing to support her. But obviously as I'm living with my brother now to help him (and for school) it's a different family dynamic where as one of her primary caretakers I'm already over my head into gym! But that might change 20 years down the line when I have kids of my own and maybe a husband, etc. But elite as a program I don't think is bad at all, you just have to have a family already in line for it (like Nastia) or a family willing to sacrifice, move, remorgage their house (like SJ's parents), etc. etc (like every other elite girl's family).

And sometimes I do like to daydream about what if I had gone elite

 

[gym monkeys mom]

Sorry to take this thread off its path but Bri Bri you never cease to amaze me. As a parent I know your mom is so very proud of all you have done.

Thanks for the inspiring story.....

 

[MaryA]

My DD goes to a Y gym. The girls practice very limited hours and we don't have a full spring floor (just a mat floor and a strip of air floor) or a pit (well, we have one of those big foam pits, but not an in-ground pit) and until this spring, we didn't have a "regulation" vault. About a year and a half ago, another teammate and my DD started taking "privates" (maybe "semi-privates", since they take them together) about once every other week at the local private gym. These are the only two gyms in town, so they're very much each other's competition (though I have to say that recently the Y gym has ended up with more girls transferring from the private gym than vice-versa) so I don't see them working out any sort of "arrangement" that our girls could practice there. But both sides havs seemed fairly amenable to our girls taking privates there. I know other girls from the Y team do it too, though it's not talked about much. It feels a little like a "dirty little secret" though the Y HC knows. When the girls first started with the privates, the HC from the other team was the one who stepped up to do the privates, but when she sensed that our girls were not planning on switching teams (at least not anytime in the near future) she switched them over to a less experienced coach, but still, I think it's worth it. They were also allowed to participate in the "team camp" last summer (the private team has had some sudden coach turn-over issues so they're not having one this summer). To be honest, I spend a fair amount of time imagining a gym with the best parts of those two gyms combined, but since I don't have a magic wand, this is the best I can do for now.

 

[Muddlethru]

Thanks MaryA. That's another option. hmmmm.

 

[lilgymmie7]

I have never heard of taking classes or being members of two separate teams. I'd imagine that the gyms, if they knew, would not allow that here. I do take DD to various gyms for Open Gym because her gym does not hold Open Gym sessions. But as for being members of two teams, gymnastics teams, I would assume would be termed a 'conflict of interest'. DD however has a teammate who also does competitive tumbling and does so at another gym. The gymnastics gym also doesn't have a tumbling team. The coaches are fine with that as far as I know; her Mom told me.

 

[maryRS]

We are at a Y gym. We do not have a pit. There are a few gyms private pretty much in the same town as the Y, one practically down the street. Our level 7-9s use the one private gym (with our coach) once a week for the pit. It's an arrangement though, not like the girls are going to train with the other team. That being said, I have heard of a few girls who take classes at this gym and do team at our Y gym, same with privates at other gyms. None of this is really out in the open, and knowing our HC I would imagine it would be frowned upon at the least.

I've read posts and have been told that there are gymnasts who are members of a local gym but also makes a drive to a distant, more competitive gym two to three times a week. I know one of our HCs did say that her mother drove her to a gym four hours away 2 to 3 times a week so that she can train elite. What is the proper protocol? If going elite is not a goal, how do you not offend the local gym by telling them you also want to train at a more competitive gym? Does anyone know of someone who is a member of two gyms? What are the arrangements like? Thanks.