Parents Struggling to make a good gym transfer decision

[PurpleButterfly]

My daughter has been doing two group classes and two private lessons a week 1 hour each (4hours of gym total a week). She was 6, and was given her certificate finishing beginning, but told she couldn’t move up until 7, and stayed in beginning classes for a few months until they let her move up a few weeks before her birthday. She’s at the only gym in her area where intermediate classes are only 50 min, every other gym is 90min or longer. We started considering/looking for a gym closer to us due to commute (we currently commute 50 minutes each way) . , recently being told that her coach (who is a team coach) can’t do privates with her anymore because she’s not on team, being told by her other coach that moving up to 1.5 hour lessons wouldn’t be beneficial(I worry about not having a bridge between 1 hour classes and 3, so I requested it). During the eval process for different gyms, we got wildly different answers on her placement. One only tested her strength and told us the rec program person would reach out (they never did). Another gym told us she’s pretty much level 3 after a 50 min eval and with a few privates could easily gain the two missing skills to be a solid 3.

One gym placed her in PreTeam and she’s now doing a PreTeam trial there, but it’s 3 hour classes 3 days a week, and coming from only 1 hour classes, it was a tough one today. None of the coaches said anything to me, nor introduced themselves and the one coach for one of her stations that I was able to flag down after told me she was ‘doing things the way she wanted and not listening’. I talked to my daughter after and she said she couldn’t understand his accent (heavy Russian accent, I don’t think he undterstood me when I was trying to tell him she came from another gym with way shorter classes)

I feel like she’s being thrown to the wolves and the lack of warmth or even ‘Hi! Welcome!’ Is a blow. She kept up most of the time, could do about 85% of what the other girls were doing. Is this what these programs are like? Is this what I need to get her used too? I feel like I can already see the writing on the wall that she’s not going to pass the trial, and I just don’t know how to prepare her. Let her keep going through the trial, or just go back to the gym we were at and call it a day? I don’t know how best to advocate for my child at these gyms and help her with these transitions, and I don’t know how to evaluate gyms for their quality, there’s so little info online!

 

[NutterButter]

Honestly, I had a hard time reading your post with the rambling and odd punctuation so I’m not even sure I understand what the most important issue is to you. Is the length of practice the most pressing issue, followed by commute?

I would say go with the gym where you/your child feel most comfortable. An accent can take a while to get used to if you aren’t used to hearing it and going from a one hour practice to 3 hours can also take a while for a kid to adjust. A coach should be cognizant of this though and if her coach is not I would consider this a potential red flag. Afterall she is only 6.

9 hours a week for L3 is not unusual. If you think that’s too much your options are to keep her in rec, ask if she can do L2 or Xcel( if that’s even an option) or try to negotiate a shorter practice. If a 50 min commute is too much now, just know that hours ramp up sooner than you think and you will want to keep in mind your work and family situation in deciding if this is feasible for you long term.

Assuming all of the gym environments are safe with positive coaching there may not be a ‘right’ path forward but rather a path that checks the most boxes for you and your daughter.

 

[rd7]

Hi Mom, I'm not really sure what the question is? Also not sure why you feel that you will get a personal introduction from the coaches or any feedback between classes? The coaches are there to coach and will approach you if there is a need to speak to you.

If your daughter is on trial at the moment in your current gym why not wait until the end of the trial to see what the outcome is? If you have already decided this gym isn't for you then same as the advice above, go the one that daughter is comfortable in. She is 6 at the moment, plenty of time to see where this journey takes her, whether that's fun recreational classes or more serious team training.

 

[Dahlialover]

.

My daughter has been doing two group classes and two private lessons a week 1 hour each (4hours of gym total a week). She was 6, and was given her certificate finishing beginning, but told she couldn’t move up until 7, and stayed in beginning classes for a few months until they let her move up a few weeks before her birthday. She’s at the only gym in her area where intermediate classes are only 50 min, every other gym is 90min or longer. We started considering/looking for a gym closer to us due to commute (we currently commute 50 minutes each way) . , recently being told that her coach (who is a team coach) can’t do privates with her anymore because she’s not on team, being told by her other coach that moving up to 1.5 hour lessons wouldn’t be beneficial(I worry about not having a bridge between 1 hour classes and 3, so I requested it). During the eval process for different gyms, we got wildly different answers on her placement. One only tested her strength and told us the rec program person would reach out (they never did). Another gym told us she’s pretty much level 3 after a 50 min eval and with a few privates could easily gain the two missing skills to be a solid 3.

One gym placed her in PreTeam and she’s now doing a PreTeam trial there, but it’s 3 hour classes 3 days a week, and coming from only 1 hour classes, it was a tough one today. None of the coaches said anything to me, nor introduced themselves and the one coach for one of her stations that I was able to flag down after told me she was ‘doing things the way she wanted and not listening’. I talked to my daughter after and she said she couldn’t understand his accent (heavy Russian accent, I don’t think he undterstood me when I was trying to tell him she came from another gym with way shorter classes)

I feel like she’s being thrown to the wolves and the lack of warmth or even ‘Hi! Welcome!’ Is a blow. She kept up most of the time, could do about 85% of what the other girls were doing. Is this what these programs are like? Is this what I need to get her used too? I feel like I can already see the writing on the wall that she’s not going to pass the trial, and I just don’t know how to prepare her. Let her keep going through the trial, or just go back to the gym we were at and call it a day? I don’t know how best to advocate for my child at these gyms and help her with these transitions, and I don’t know how to evaluate gyms for their quality, there’s so little info online!

Okay. So your current gym is too far away and they are not offering you the kind of preteam program you are looking for—cross that one off the list. The one you are trialing may be too much of an increase in hours/intensity and the coaches give you bad vibes—if nothing changes, you’ll probably cross that one off your list too. So you are going to need to keep looking. How about doing a trial at the gym that suggested level 3? If their level 3 program is too much, maybe they have preteam or level 2 that might be a better fit.

Also, I recommend looking into Xcel programs. A year in Xcel might be the perfect bridge between rec and level 3 (lots of xcel programs are only 4-5 hours per week). In short, keep exploring your options until you find somewhere that feels like a good fit.

P.S. if the gym you are trialing does not invite your daughter, do not tell her. Simply tell her that you don’t think it’s a good fit.

 

[PurpleButterfly]

Hi Mom, I'm not really sure what the question is? Also not sure why you feel that you will get a personal introduction from the coaches or any feedback between classes? The coaches are there to coach and will approach you if there is a need to speak to you.

If your daughter is on trial at the moment in your current gym why not wait until the end of the trial to see what the outcome is? If you have already decided this gym isn't for you then same as the advice above, go the one that daughter is comfortable in. She is 6 at the moment, plenty of time to see where this journey takes her, whether that's fun recreational classes or more serious team training.

Our experiences so far have been with gyms with a ‘warmer’ touch. I’m realizing more with these responses that this is not the norm. As a parent, I do feel like I should at least know the name of the coach she’s working with. She been doing groups and privates at one gym for over a year now, I’m very aware that most days they have to run from one class/private to the next, but they always took a few seconds to check in and let me know how she did, made suggestions on what to work on at home, etc, and I was able to thank them. She has her second day of PreTeam trail at the new gym, we still haven’t made a commitment to switching and I won’t until I get feedback from the new coaches. I’m definitely starting to see that the ‘warmth’ factor is important to us, and not something you find everywhere. Thanks!

 

[PurpleButterfly]

.


Okay. So your current gym is too far away and they are not offering you the kind of preteam program you are looking for—cross that one off the list. The one you are trialing may be too much of an increase in hours/intensity and the coaches give you bad vibes—if nothing changes, you’ll probably cross that one off your list too. So you are going to need to keep looking. How about doing a trial at the gym that suggested level 3? If their level 3 program is too much, maybe they have preteam or level 2 that might be a better fit.

Also, I recommend looking into Xcel programs. A year in Xcel might be the perfect bridge between rec and level 3 (lots of xcel programs are only 4-5 hours per week). In short, keep exploring your options until you find somewhere that feels like a good fit.

P.S. if the gym you are trialing does not invite your daughter, do not tell her. Simply tell her that you don’t think it’s a good fit.

Thank you! This is helpful. I was wondering about that too - do I tell her if they don’t take her or not.

We are on schedule for a private lesson with one of the coaches for the level 3 gym, as their classes are full/waitlisted right now - but it’s a few weeks out.

Thanks for the encouragement to keep looking. I don’t have a good gauge for knowing when to just settle or keep fighting/looking for a better fit.

I appreciate it!

 

[StephensMom]

As others have said, your post has a lot in it and it’s a little difficult to figure out what all you are asking. Maybe you just have a lot on your mind with choosing a gym so your thoughts feel as jumbled as your post comes across and a lot of us can relate to that.

What I don’t hear in your post though is what your daughter thinks and wants. It sounds like she just turned 7 and I don’t let my 7 year olds make major decisions either but it’s still important to know what they are thinking about things like committing many hours of their weeks to an extra curricular. We went through a gym switch with our oldest daughter the week she turned 7. She had been in a competitive program for 2 years. She had great friends there but we left for a variety of good reasons that a barely 7 year old did not understand. We did research behind the scenes and then took her to an evaluation at the gym we chose. It would have caused her a lot of anxiety to be moved from gym to gym for trials and evaluations.

After the trial, my husband and I decided to make the change. Our daughter did not want to leave her friends and my husband and I had many private conversations about how to make the decision. I won’t go into all the details there but we decided that we could not stay at that old gym (ethical and safety concerns). We gave our daughter a choice, do gymnastics at the new gym or quit. We would not be staying at the old gym just for her friends. We were completely fine with her quitting. She chose to change to the new gym. She had some anxiety and stress about the change for the first month or so which was a good learning opportunity for us to work through with her and she was thriving after a couple months.

All that to say that 7 year olds may not be equipped to make major decisions (and anything that takes up this much time and money is major) but they can still understand a lot of what is going on in their sport. My daughter adamantly wanted to do competitive gymnastics and do it well and was willing to do whatever we asked to make that happen. How does your daughter feel?
I have to say that it is not typical for a rec gymnast to be doing two classes and two privates a week and I can’t really understand how you could have ended up in that situation. Is your daughter just desperate to do more gymnastics? Are you just really wanting her to move up so you’ve added that in? Now it seems like you are looking for a competitive program but you want it to be not too many hours and have just the right feel and not commute too far? I’m going to be really blunt here, are you the one leading the gymnastics push or is your daughter?

If you enter into this crazy competitive world, there are many many things you will not be able to control and it seems like you are trying to control a lot right now. It can be pretty stressful as a parent to let go of a lot of the control (speaking from experience!) but you will have to if you continue in competitive gymnastics. You might want to consider if that’s something you can do.

 

[PurpleButterfly]

As others have said, your post has a lot in it and it’s a little difficult to figure out what all you are asking. Maybe you just have a lot on your mind with choosing a gym so your thoughts feel as jumbled as your post comes across and a lot of us can relate to that.

What I don’t hear in your post though is what your daughter thinks and wants. It sounds like she just turned 7 and I don’t let my 7 year olds make major decisions either but it’s still important to know what they are thinking about things like committing many hours of their weeks to an extra curricular. We went through a gym switch with our oldest daughter the week she turned 7. She had been in a competitive program for 2 years. She had great friends there but we left for a variety of good reasons that a barely 7 year old did not understand. We did research behind the scenes and then took her to an evaluation at the gym we chose. It would have caused her a lot of anxiety to be moved from gym to gym for trials and evaluations.

After the trial, my husband and I decided to make the change. Our daughter did not want to leave her friends and my husband and I had many private conversations about how to make the decision. I won’t go into all the details there but we decided that we could not stay at that old gym (ethical and safety concerns). We gave our daughter a choice, do gymnastics at the new gym or quit. We would not be staying at the old gym just for her friends. We were completely fine with her quitting. She chose to change to the new gym. She had some anxiety and stress about the change for the first month or so which was a good learning opportunity for us to work through with her and she was thriving after a couple months.

All that to say that 7 year olds may not be equipped to make major decisions (and anything that takes up this much time and money is major) but they can still understand a lot of what is going on in their sport. My daughter adamantly wanted to do competitive gymnastics and do it well and was willing to do whatever we asked to make that happen. How does your daughter feel?
I have to say that it is not typical for a rec gymnast to be doing two classes and two privates a week and I can’t really understand how you could have ended up in that situation. Is your daughter just desperate to do more gymnastics? Are you just really wanting her to move up so you’ve added that in? Now it seems like you are looking for a competitive program but you want it to be not too many hours and have just the right feel and not commute too far? I’m going to be really blunt here, are you the one leading the gymnastics push or is your daughter?

If you enter into this crazy competitive world, there are many many things you will not be able to control and it seems like you are trying to control a lot right now. It can be pretty stressful as a parent to let go of a lot of the control (speaking from experience!) but you will have to if you continue in competitive gymnastics. You might want to consider if that’s something you can do.

Hi! Thanks for writing back. I’m actually very hands off in terms of her gymnastics. It’s been her choice how often she goes. She asked for the private lesson, and then was having trouble with her pullover and they suggested a few lessons with a team coach to help her through that, and my daughter really liked working with that one too, so we kept going there. (But I got a text Monday with the gym telling us she can’t work with that coach anymore) So at her current gym, she has two 50 min group classes and 2 private lessons a week. She also chooses to go to open gym 2 hours a week on the weekend.

Her gym offers no 90 min classes, and is the only gym in the area that doesn’t offer longer classes at this level. Since we already needed a shorter commute, and based on advice from two adult friends in the gymnastics world, I started looking around at other gyms.

The passion and drive she has for it is all her, she wants to keep advancing and learn more skills, she wants to keep working with her coach, but for the level she’s at 50 min classes aren’t going to cut it, and she can’t work with one of the coaches anymore. The one coach she can work with said no to bumping her private up to 1.5 hours.

I just want to make sure she lands at a place that will support her and help her thrive. The difference in culture (less warmth more rigid) was definitely a shock, and I can’t tell yet if that’s the right move for her. Shes had two trial sessions so far, saying she hated them both times but is also coming home after a 3 hour class and jumping on the bar here at home and grabbing my phone from me when I say I’ll email them to cancel her trial. So I’m watching and listening to her very closely to see how these increased and new coaches/coaching styles are landing with her.

Thanks for noting the adjustment period with your daughter - I think 2 days isn’t enough to make a solid decision yet.

Thank you!