Parents Return to developmental after one season of Xcel?

[SophiaPD]

My 6th-grader had kind of a rough year on Xcel Bronze. She only returned to women's gymnastics in the summer (after a few years of fluffy just-for-fun tumbling/cheer classes) and then joined the Xcel team at a different gym in the fall. She can do all of the skills, but not with competition-level technique, and it frustrates her to be in the bottom half almost all of the time. One option is to go back to her old gym for a year, which has a good developmental recreational class that trains JO3 skills 6 hours a week for girls who are too old for preteam. The alternative is to repeat Bronze, 5 hours a week, in a program that is fun and supportive, but not particularly detail-oriented. Would she be better off repeating Bronze or taking a year off competing to work on technique and conditioning, with the hope to return the following year to Silver?

 

[RTT2]

What does she want to do?

 

[SophiaPD]

She likes recreational competitive gymnastics, but she wants to do reasonably well at it. I floated the idea of going back to her old gym and she's not sure. She wants to continue gymnastics in some form, but not sure of the path. Definitely not JO track.

 

[Peachy88]

What would the gyms attitudes be about this? Are they ok with her just going back and forth? Can you request a post season meeting or sorts with the gym she competed with? Does the other gym not have xce?

 

[raenndrops]

I personally wouldn't want to spend a year training L3 skills if I was going to compete Xcel Bronze or Silver.
Do you have videos of her routines at meets? If so, maybe she should watch them and see if SHE can tell you what is wrong. If she can, then there is no need to go back to developmental.
If she knows what is wrong, she can:
1 - determine if it is something she can fix on her own (straight legs, pointed toes, tight arms, etc).
2 - determine if it is something she will need help to fix, in which case, she should advocate for herself and ask the coach for constructive feedback, spotting assistance (to "feel" the position she should be in), or drills to work on.
3 - pick one or two things on each event to work on to get it to be muscle memory.
4 - condition at home (maybe get a list of conditioning exercises from her coach). Our girls who condition at home have more stamina and are able to be "tighter" in practice and at meets.

If she DOESN'T know what's wrong, then I am 50/50 about going back to developmental ... but only IF her coaches can't figure it out either AND if that is what she wants to do. It is possible to score well AND be in a fun environment. We have 2 girls that competed L3 last year and L4 this year and are scoring in the 36s (usually in the same age group and taking 1st and 2nd in the All Around) ... and we only practice 7.5 hours a week, 42 weeks a year.

Definitely, have a meeting with the coaches (without your daughter present) and see what they say. They may not realize that she would like to be pushed a little more. See how they feel about her taking the year off to get the developmental training at the old gym. Maybe see if there is a way to do BOTH (would need both gym's permission and would only want her doing 2-3 hours at the old gym, depending on how their schedule breaks out, and if it would work with the current schedule).

Good Luck.

 

[SophiaPD]

Thanks, this is helpful. She's scoring in the high 8's in everything pretty consistently, so normally a bit over 35 overall, but 37-38 is typical for the top spots. I think current gym is pretty supportive and laid-back in Xcel and don't think they'd be jealous or weird about her preparing more elsewhere; they don't have a comparable class so I think they'd understand. Also old gym has no Xcel and she'd never compete there, so it's not like joining another team, just taking a class. I think she knows some things where she's losing points (bent knees, piking too much on vault and bars) but doesn't know how to fix it. Her coach is great but overextended. Old gym and current gym classes are the same two afternoons at roughly the same time, but maybe summer will change. I love the idea of conditioning at home. I didn't think of that and it is more realistic over the summer than during the school year.

 

[raenndrops]

I love the idea of conditioning at home. I didn't think of that and it is more realistic over the summer than during the school year.

My girls used to condition while watching TV. Every commercial break, they would do something different (rotating through their conditioning exercises). They also conditioned on study breaks (30 minutes of homework, 3 minutes of conditioning and repeat as needed).

Hope everything works out for her