Women Small Gym to Big Gym

[Chamomile]

It looks as though our family will be making a move soon with our young(ish) training level 9. Currently our area is only small gyms. She has had great training and scores well.

Our impending move gives us the option of small gyms or big name elite gyms. Has anyone moved to a big gym from a small gym(bonus points if as an upper optional.) What was the experience like? Any negatives you didn’t expect? Any positives that made you glad you made the change?

While we have been comfortable in smaller unknown gyms I’m trying to figure out if this is the time to switch for training/recruiting purposes.

 

[gym_dad32608]

Everyone will have their own experiences and I am sure you can hear both sides of positive and negative. I think it is always going to be very unique to your particular location, family, gym, etc. There are plenty of poorly run large gyms and small gyms and vice versa.
I can tell you that for us, we went from a very very small local gym with maybe 1-2 L10s (barely) to one with 20+ L10s and elite gymnasts. I could not have imagined how well it turned out as she is fortunate enough to be going to the number one college this fall. She moved when she was L8-9. There was a bit of a break-in period for her as she felt a bit intimidated by the amount of talent around her, you know, the "I dont belong" type mindset, even though the new coaches were telling her she did and supported her. But eventually like over 2 years she settled and adjusted and obviously thrived. There definitely were ups and downs, and crying sessions but nothing crazy. Based on my experience, I would advocate moving around 8th grade before high school. Establishing a solid relationship with the coach and being able to train L10 for a year or two before recruitment is most beneficial. Having a gym coach that has placed L10 in college, and has strong personal relationships with college coaches made the recruitment process so so so so much easier and effective.