Optimal Timing For Skill Introduction

[Shelovesthebars]

I have a young gymnast. She seems to be able to pick up things quickly, suprising her coaches in the process. My concern is her being introduced to skills and drills too early. I know the coaches know what is safe for her at her age physically but as a mom I am thinking of the mental implications it may have down the road, especially dealing with fear. How do you balance introducing skills with ability and mental readiness? I have heard that if young ones are introduced to things too early, it may backfire down the road. My dd was introduced to a skill and can do it beautiful but now will not do it anymore. She says it hurts her. I told the coach. They are not practicing the skill anymore in class. Has anyone had experience with this? My dd is always the first one willing to try anything. The coaches love this about her. I am just hoping they don't move her along so quickly that she stops loving gymnastics.

 

[NGL780309]

I'm not a coach and have no idea, but I know that I worry about my DD being introduced too early to some skills. I worry from the standpoint that she's so young and often doesn't really focus on what she's doing. She just does it without thinking. I worry that she's more likely to be injured due to careless behavior. For that reason I'm really happy that we switched to a gym that is going a little slower.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

I have a young gymnast. She seems to be able to pick up things quickly, suprising her coaches in the process. My concern is her being introduced to skills and drills too early. I know the coaches know what is safe for her at her age physically but as a mom I am thinking of the mental implications it may have down the road, especially dealing with fear. How do you balance introducing skills with ability and mental readiness? I have heard that if young ones are introduced to things too early, it may backfire down the road. My dd was introduced to a skill and can do it beautiful but now will not do it anymore. She says it hurts her. I told the coach. They are not practicing the skill anymore in class. Has anyone had experience with this? My dd is always the first one willing to try anything. The coaches love this about her. I am just hoping they don't move her along so quickly that she stops loving gymnastics.

what's the skill? how old?? how long in gymnastics, etc; your concern could be valid.

 

[emorymom]

I think the answer is to diversify her, keep her busy so she is not so focused on doing gym in her free time. What else is she up to? I'm thinking you know, something like double dutch. Or swim team is rarely the wrong answer to most questions

 

[10.0]

If memory serves me right your dd is really young like 5 or so? At that age I would say resonable would probably be having the skills at her level and uptraining the skills for the next.

There is really no need to be teaching a 5 year old double fulls or anything, as even if she can learn to do them when she actually needs them her body will have changed so much she most likely will struggle anyways.

Plus depending on the skill I don't see the use of pounding on a little girls body, and my guess is if she is stating this skill hurts her, it is probably pounding on her body, too much of this and she'll be done within a couple years. I am all for pacing, especially now that even if your child is a prodigy there is a minimum age limit for the olympics and college is a long way from Kindergarten.

 

[Shelovesthebars]

Dunno- The cast to handstand on bar is the main skill she is not happy about. She doesn't like the landing and the coach woudn't stack the mats so she will not do them anymore. I told her that was fine. She does them easily but she is so little and is falling onto her body a long way and even if she is tight, it hurts. She is doing a lot of other upper level skills and hasn't expressed concern over any of the other ones. I think she is having trouble trusting her coach now because of the pain when she falls from her cast to handstand. The coach isn't doing them with her anymore so that isn't the problem. It is the trust issue. She did have her do some on the high bar over a pit this week but the coach caught her at the top. She still isn't comfortable.
Emorymom- My dd does a whole slew of other things besides gym! She is a little tomboy who happens to be talented at carrying a doll and playing football at the same time! We where so happy to be expecting a girl after 2 crazy boys but boy where we in for it. She just joins in and is as high energy as they are.
10.0- What you said about there bodies changing and having to relearn skills makes a lot of sense. I don't have any of olympic dreams at all. She is just focusing now in her mind on making the level 4 team. She says she is ready to move on from level 3. Those are her words, not mine.

 

[10.0]

Well I guess she might be wanting to move to level 4 as cast to handstand is a skill sometimes trained in level 6 and not needed until 7!

I am curious does your gym do this with all the kids? Training cast to handstand in level 3 just seems odd to me. It is almost like she is little, cute and a dare devil lets see what all we can get her to do fun for the coach.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

yes, i remember. so she is not doing this skill on a low bar on the floor...instead...put her on the high bar over the pit. well, maybe scaring the crap out of her will work. i dunno...

 

[Shelovesthebars]

10.0- No this is definately not a skill that the other level threes are training. Heck, 99.999 percent of them can't even remember the routines or do the skills for level 3. Funny thing about our gym is that the coaches really try to keep the kids that are training above on the down low as much as possible so I don't think it is for the coach's ego. She is just able to do the skill really well. I would just rather at this point that the coaches stop training the skill or use a different approach. I am getting worried that the coaches will push her too hard.

 

[Shelovesthebars]

Dunno-bingo! Seems like the wrong approach to me too. She isn't afraid to do the skill, she is just not into pain if you know what I mean. Let's just make her afraid of the skill too! It just seems so wrong to me. I don't get it either.

 

[gymdog]

I try to get the kids to cast to handstand when they can, but it is important for them to be able to come down from it or get spotted or else they will get afraid. And possibly injured if they try to do weird things or twist, etc. I am not sure about doing it on a higher bar above the pit, if the pit bar as lower then I guess she could just go over or push away but if the coach was going to spot her anyway then I guess I don't quite get why it wouldn't be on the lower bar.

I generally think it's better to try and get them to learn a lot of combinations that challenge them rather than go on a skill spree. For example...I hate to see kids who can do a flyaway or one giant but can't do five kip to cast horizontal in a row...the kids have skills but they are not very useful if they can't do them in routines and connect them to things. If a kid has a kip, great - show me five good kips with good glides. Show me three-five glides and kip on the last one. Drop kips, straddle kips, pike kips. I like to do a bunch of challenging kip and glide drills before we focus on much else...and keep doing them. If the kids are not able to do this then it will be difficult for them especially when they need to kip out of clear support. It drives me nuts to see kids in L7, L8 who can't kip out of a handstand or pirouette. Okay a release I can cut a little slack on sometimes, but I feel it is often sloppy coaching. If they can do a cast to handstand and pirouette I feel they should be capable of kipping out of that. Also I feel like I am seeing more and more bent legs on STRADDLE casts. Half the point of the straddle cast is to make it so the legs don't have to bend and the body doesn't have to arch! I have little tolerance for seeing bent legs on straddle casts. This is why it's good I'm not a judge, I'd probably be some kind of activist judge or something.

 

[NGL780309]

DD's team works on casts to handstand and they are level 4's but they aren't working on it the way you described shelovesthebars. They get spotted at the top and the coach is always standing there correcting body position.

 

[Shelovesthebars]

She can cast to handstand nicely and go over the bar onto mats but the mats are so low to the ground and she has to fall a long way. It has been suggested that the mats be stacked closer to the height of the bar so she doesn't have to fall so far but to date that hasn't been done. She can also cast and come back to the bar but the coach really wants her to cast and then fall forward. She can do this unspotted and can do alot in a row and her form is nice. I figure if she can do them at 5 then waiting a while until she gets with another coach who will train them pain free would be better. She is a 30 pounder and a tad on the little side.What's the rush? The coach hasn't pushed it but my concern was having her do them on the high bar this week. The expression on my dd's face said it all.

 

[gymjoy]

Honestly, and I will except that I may be way off base with this opinion, it sound like her coach is pushing and his ego is involved.

Why the focus on this higher level skill when she is so young and not even competing yet? Why does she need to fall forward from the cast to handstand? That's progression my dd's gym uses for front giants - a level 9 skill, at least.

I like and agree with what gymdog said. There are a lot of ways to challenge a young gymnast and prepare them for being great older gymnast with excellent skills. Too many coaches and parents (though you do not seem to be one), and sometimes gymnast, focus on getting new, bigger skills, when the focus for these young gymnast can and probably should be focusing on good form on all the basic skills. It builds a solid base from which those bigger skills can be learned and preformed, not just well, but exceptionally well.
And if he is scaring her now, what will he do to her in the future?

Maybe you should go in and ask the coach what is the rush on this skill? I'd be interested in his answer.

 

[nicci1999]

I'm just curious, and this could show my ignorance but is she going to train TOPS? Because don't they have to do cast handstands for TOPS?