Parents Moving for Gymnastics?

[Deleted member D3987]

Can you tell me what gyms/areas of Phoenix has the good boys programs?

that might be a problem...Link Removed

 

[curlymomof3]

I know you mentioned Colorado. Utah has a couple gyms with great boys programs. I always see them mentioning boys on their team heading to Nationals.

 

[bookworm]

I think it's a bit too early in the journey to move just for gymnastics. If you had girls I might have a different opinion, but you have more time with a male gymnast. I think you should give it a few more years.

This! and even if I had a 6 yo girl, I still would hold off on any move just for gymnastics. The boys timetable is much later in terms of peaking in their sport that this wouldn't even be on my radar with a 6 yo...I might also investigate other sports that were readily available in my area that my interest them because you never know...

 

[emorymom]

With all those kids, if you can get comparable work near a tax (city or county run team) or YMCA subsidized QUALITY program that might be a good idea. But what about aging grandparents, etc? Are there other concerns?

One of the finest men's programs in our state -- and Region 8 -- is in a city gymnastics program and discounted for city residents. Their women's team is good too. I have one friend who moved across the metro into that city for her son's gymnastics aspirations.

 

[profmom]

I think if I were you, I'd hang in there a little while longer as long as the training seems good or try the 1.5 hour drive. Both my son and daughter have teammates who commute in from a neighboring state. Does the gym that's farther away consistently send guys to nationals? Do they have a Future Stars program? Those are two things that would definitely be in my mix if I were considering moving my son to a new gym. And at this point -- to flip the question -- if I were to move for my own work, I would not move to a location that didn't have a good gym within reasonable commuting distance that could accommodate a L7 training L8 girl and a L5 training L6 boy.

But back to your original question, regardless of the child's age, I do not think I'd seriously consider moving for gymnastics unless I had a successful optional gymnast who clearly had the fire in the belly to move on. And even then, I'd be cautious. I know that's a different proposition for boys, given that they can't compete L8 until they are 11 (or in a few rare circumstances, 10), and given that it's harder to find a strong boys' program. But as others have said, moving for the sake of a child's sporting ambitions does put the child in a difficult position if s/he ever does fall out of love with the sport or has to leave it because of injury.

 

[2G1B]

I don't know that I would move *just* because of gym at that point; but if you are in a position that moving in general is a possibility I would consider looking into other areas of the country that you might want to live in and I'd include gyms as one of the things on the "needs" list.

For us, we *don't* move because of gymnastics. We have a cabin about 1.5 hours from our house. We'd love to move to the cabin full time. But... all 3 kids are in gymnastics. Near the cabin there is a decent gym for girls; but we'd have to do a 45 minute, backroad, curvy, mountain drive to get to the only gym nearby that has boys. And I have a kid who gets horrible motion sickness. So that just wouldn't work. there are other benefits to our current situation - closer to my husband's office (if we moved to the cabin he would likely keep an apartment so that he could just stay down there if he didn't want to make the drive), I'm very happy with the school the kids currently go to... But gym is one of the main reasons we don't live at the cabin year round.

For you, are you only able to consider region 1? I figure if you can consider that broad of an area, why not open it up more. I imagine there are LOTS of gyms to choose from in TX plus the COL is very reasonable. I know in GA there are a lot of gyms with boys teams and the COL is very reasonable. Plus, depending on the industry, there are lots of job opportunities in the Atlanta area. I guess that if I were considering a move like that I'd make sure I was looking at all of the options.

I do think that there are many reasons to move other than job. We would love, love, love to move to MT or WY. Our kids are just as passionate about down hill skiing as they are about gymnastics and I'd wager more natural with skiing. They get very few opportunities to ski down here in the South though. ;-) The quality of life that we think that our family could possibly have overall in MT or WY did have us seriously looking into moving (to the point we went out and looked at properties); but in the end the difference in COL was more than we could get over (houses are WAY more, jobs pay less). So for now we just continue to go out for our annual ski trips and we have found the smaller town way of life we like by buying the cabin and being there as much as possible. (We are able to own a nice cabin AND a house for less than most people pay for a small house in CA!)

 

[wandrewsjr]

Can you tell me what gyms/areas of Phoenix has the good boys programs?

I am no expert on the quality of the programs, but just looking at meet results, North Valley and USA Flairs seem to have the most successful gymnasts at level 9 and 10(at least this year).

 

[Deleted member 10727]

Thanks for all of the input. This isn't something we're planning immediately. I'm just trying to get a feel for the future, should my boys continue to go up in levels. emorymom, great idea about the city run program. The gym 1.5 hours away is a city run program and it seems to have a good program, but I think they are fairly new. I can't tell how good they are yet. We're going to try to stick it out here as long as possible. Just to be clear, we don't have extended family obligations, school issues, etc... we are also used to uprooting. We used to live in a very high COL area and moved to get away from the hustle and bustle, and high COL. I would hate going back to that.

 

[curlymomof3]

So I'm guessing that COL is short for cost of living. Sorry for the Colorado reference Good luck with whatever you decide!! That's great that you have the flexibility to move anywhere.

 

[CreateMagic]

My thought is, if you have no thee connections (no worries about changing schools, family ties, etc.) then why not? I would not tell the boys that's for gymnastics. I think you probably wouldn't want them to feel like they HAD to stay in the sport down the road if they came to a point where they might be ready to move on because they moved all for gymnastics! Chalk it up (pun fully intended, sorry!) to a new adventure in your lives, and, oh hey, btw boys, there's also this great gym nearby!! What a coincidence! Lol.